CD Burner limits?

[mikeebb]

Not sure if this is a recent thing, but the CD Burner will no longer allow burning of more than a 74-minute CD regardless of the size of the actual disk. Is this intentional? Over 74 minutes it give a warning about being too long, and produces a coaster, but I have previously (I think, even with DC7 & 8) burned 79+ minutes. With an 80-minute disk, WMP will happily burn 79+, though if I push past 79:30 it often produces a coaster as far as my CD player is concerned (playable on computer, though, with WMP or VLC). Anyway ... what's with the limitation in DC8(.5)? Has it always been there?

Win7 Pro, Gigabyte P35 motherboard, 6G RAM, motherboard (Realtek HD) sound, NVidea 750ti video if it matters, ample disk space, almost new ASUS CD/DVD (not Blu-Ray) SATA burner as master on its own channel, all drivers updated.

[Craig Maier]

I thought that the limit for CD players was around 75 minutes. I am not aware of any changes that we made to the software, but we will look into it to be sure. Give us some time to check it out.

Craig

[Craig Maier]

Rick looked and compared the code between DC8.15 and DC8.5 and found no changes in the CD burner portion.

Craig

[Craig Maier]

As you may know, we are also in the CD business. I looked at some old notes from when we mastered our CDs. We created DAT's or CDs for our releases so that Glass Masters could be created to stamp out the CDs. My notes from those times show that the CD manufacturers do not like to produce CDs with greater than 74 minutes because of playing issues above that number. They do not want to have issues when exceeding those limits, according to my notes. It sounds like some CD players get into trouble just above 74 minutes. My notes also show that we kept our CDs below 72 minutes so that there would be some "guard-band" between the absolute maximum time our glass mastering house would support and our product (to further assure that our CD customers would not have problems playing Diamond Cut CDs).

So, that is just a practical take on the CD length issue. I guess your mileage may vary depending on your player.

Craig

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[Craig Maier]

A further thought - - - imagine being in the CD business and creating a glass master that is, say 75:30 in length. Then, you press 5000 copies for your first run. Then, imagine half your customers calling up and complaining that the CD will not play properly on their CD player.

It would be an example of creating basically 2500 or 5000 coasters, depending on how you look at it! Not a pretty situation.

Craig

[Dan McDonald]

There are now some commercial releases that time out longer than 74 minutes. Apparently, most modern players can handle the situation pretty good, but I think the "Red Book" standard is 74 minutes still.

[Craig Maier]

Hi Dan,

There is an olde saying (that came from IBM, I "Think"). It goes like this:

"Standard is better than better."

As an engineer, I tend to agree with that. It's always best to design to a "standard" when one exists in order to avoid compatibility issues.

Craig

ps - I wonder if Rick and I programmed that limit into our burner due to our commercial CD business experience. I do not exactly remember as that part of the program goes back quite a few years now.

[murray]

HI ALL ...I always keep my burning to ...79.80... minutes and have no problems ... MAX ...30 tracks in country music...thanks to all.

[Craig Maier]

Hi Murray,

Is that using the Diamond Cut DC8.5 Burner?

Craig

[murray]

I dont have any problems

[Craig Maier]

I am not sure about it, but the ability to burn CDs greater than the specified red-book amount of time may vary somewhat with the specific model of burner and its driver.

Craig