makers

Dragging out the explanation one last time, since I see that there have been a few posts about this (again!) in the last week or so. Maybe somebody could sticky this one!?!?!? Original post was a few months ago. . .

WARNING - if you don't want to understand (from a bit nerd/engineer perspective) what the cause of this is, please skip this message. The info expressed here is the experience / knowledge / expertise of a degreed computer scientist / computer engineer with 20+ years of hardware experience, so take it for what it is worth and be forewarned - geek speak ahead. I have posted some other threads on this topic on this board that got some nice responses/reviews.

Burn speed may be important to some burners, but my experience has been that it is the BURNER ITSELF more than anything. Between work and home, I own/possess four different (brands & speeds & vintage) burners, and have used probably another half dozen more in the last five years at work, home, friend's, and/or customer sites.

The firmware/motor combination of your burner determines a great deal in regards to the low level spacing between the concentric tracks of binary pits/blanks on the CD-R. The simple issue with some of the more recent, faster (16X or better) burners (regardless of speed of burn) - in order to make some of the rated burn speeds, the firmware (read: chip) programming and stepper motor (spinning the disc) in combination determine how "tightly packed" the tracks are to each other circularly on the disc. The actual burn speed doesn't have much, if any, bearing on this spacing.

Simply put, tighter packing = harder to read for the older drives. Explanation ahead. . .

CD drives/players actually split the laser beam into three segments - one center beam/split for reading, and two angled offset beams/splits for alignment (keeping the center beam - what else? - centered on the pits). Some drives and/or players (especially older models, but some new ones too) have slightly wider side beam offset angles, hence making it more difficult for the player to align the center beam because there isn't as much of a non-pitted gutter between the tracks. The side beams are programmed to find/seek clean, non-pitted (burned) space to insure that the center beam is aligned properly, or else it keeps spinning the disc, moving the head in small steps in and out radially from the center, trying in vain to align before attempting to read the center beam. The result? The neverending spin, spin, spin, and finally bail out of the player on a "fast" CD-R.

Imagine the lanes on a highway. Without the painted lane/edge lines (clean gutters on the CD-R), you wouldn't truly "know" where the edge of the lane was/is (some drivers don't pay much attention to these anyway, but humor me here. . .). If the lines are so thin or your eyesight was so bad that you couldn't see them unless they were 10" or more wide, you aren't allowed to drive on that road. This is the equivalent of the programming that is built into all CD players (our HU's & changers included). Different players though, like different folks, have different eyesight. Our HU's (at least the older ones) are a bit more "nearsighted" than some others.

Does the media (CD-R brand, type, color, etc.) play a factor? Yes, but the burner is the real deciding factor here.

My best experiences with my '99 HU have been with either a cheap ($20 on eBay two years ago) old 4X max burner in a USB-cabled external housing, circa 2000-2001, and my "hey, is it a CD yet?" Sony 2X internal IDE drive (1999 - it was a very good year). Slow? You betcha' - nothin' like 40+ minutes to burn a CD-R. But after using gold, green, purple, & silver media colors, I can safely report that these two particular turtle burners have a 98%+ success rate (better than 50 CD-R's total) for me & my HU. The same media in my snazzy, butt kickin' 48X burner (at all available speeds) and my slightly older 16X burner have about a 10% success rate, at that, in my HU.

For the record, I have tried at least two different, "new" CDROM drives for a Dell Latitude D600 (new, heavy duty, but non-gaming) laptop, with identical results for CD's burned on my higher speed burners vs my lower speed ones, with the same results as those experienced by my '99 HU - the 95% for the slowers vs. about 10% for the faster ones, regardless of actual burn speed. Guess the D600 was sourced from Honda/Acura, too. . . :-)

Might not be a bad idea to surf the 'Bay and/or a local flea market/yard sale/computer store and check out the bargain bins for an older, low mileage burner. Seems to me that $10 or $20 would be worth a try to avoid the frustration (at least, to me) of burning yet another dozen or so CD (cold drink) discs/coasters.

Street Spirit

Thanks for the explanation! :P Previously, I just understood it in simple terms: the laser in some cd players just aren't strong enough to read/find the tracks on cd-rs. But now I understand it, plus more!

youngTL

What about burners like some Plextors that come with software to "expand" the data? Like stretching it to fill the whole cd if it doesnt (ie: putting only 600 megs on a 700MB cd). I'm talking like brand new ones.

makers

Are you referring to GigaRec?

Vicman17

Great!
I have an old Plextor IDE that is 8X max and I can hook it up to an empty channel. These new CD Writers doesn't even allow less than 8X or 16X burn speed.

Thanks for the great info.

55M2G7L

You must be like god or something

Malayalee King

iTrader: (1)

I have a question...when I burn cds @ anything greater than 32x, the latter part of the cd (latter 30% of a full disc) becomes unreadable and skips. Now I burn the same songs, same drive, same media @ like 16x and a perfect burn results.

Are the three lasers loosing sync as the cd revolves at a higher rate? Is the "pit r/w" laser in the middle actually going off center?

Good info

computer enthusiast 99 - present LOL

Phatty 2K 3.2TL

I have an older 4x speed burner that I use -- I used to never ever have a problem. About 2 years ago, bought a 50 pack of Sonys and started to have a problem. Long story short, about 2 years ago, they started to make all CD-Rs 48x compatible. Turned out that w/o fail if the CD-Rs were 16x speed or less compatible, they work fine. If they're rated for more than 16x speed there is a problem. I bought about 200 CD-Rs figuring if I burn an avg of 25-30 a year, I'll worry more in a few years.

What do you think?

Noam

makers

I've seen some similar behavior if I use "faster" drives at slower speeds. IMHO, I believe that the "inner" tracks are less tightly packed than those further out radially from the center of the disc, possibly in a firmware effort to allow more overburning of CD's from a burner perspective. Since there is more real estate on the tracks further out, it could be part of their programming to pack more further out than further in. If I have to burn for my HU using a faster drive, I simply don't put as many songs on it and try to keep it 50 minutes or less. Given the cheap price of CD-R's these days, I don't think I'm losing any money. . .

BTW - thanks for the comments.

makers

Personally, I haven't seen too much difference in the rated speed of the CD-R media as a factor. My favorite for the last 2+ years has been Maxell 32x color CD-R's (yeah, the colors suck, but they are the cheapest with individual cases that I have found - like $20 for a stack of 50 at Sam's, and they were still there when I was there a couple of weeks ago). After two or three cases of these, I have yet to have a HU read problem that I could not trace back to the burner that I used vs. the media, and have checked with the same ISO in different burners using the same media.

As I said in my original post, I don't discount the effect that some media can/do have. There is always the possibility of getting "unsavory" CD-R's, at least as far as our HU's are concerned. But again, as a whole, my experience is that the burner used makes more of a difference over the long haul than the media used.

makers

Nope. Just trying to give a bit (no pun intended) back to the good folks on this board that have confirmed everything I love and hate (and bitch about) with my ride over the past 6+ years. I'm a firm believer in "go with what you know", and I know this stuff more than what's under the hood, so I do what I can. . .

ghost?

hmm i got a solution,

just buy a in dash 6 cd changer from the 02-03 model install it and your good to go.

youngTL

Yeah, have you tested this?

Malayalee King

iTrader: (1)

This won't always work...I have skipping problems when burning faster. 32x is pretty stable.

DarkBlue

Excellent explanation on HU/Burned CD issue.
One Question -
I have been able to play burned cd's in the factory 6-disc changer (trunk).
What's the deal?

makers

YoungTL - GigaRec is really a compression technology that is not supported for reading by any other manufacturer that I am aware of; Plextor even washes their hands of reads by non-Plextor drives (http://www.plextor.com/english/suppo...s/PTP00017.htm). The compression allows something like 1GB to be burned onto a 700MB CD-R, which, IMHO, is overburning to the max. But unless you are sure that the only drives that you will be using for reads are Plextors, I would avoid them; all the reviews that I have read about this call it iffy at best. In short, this is just the opposite of what would "help" in our HU situation - it is making the tracks even closer together than before.

makers

DarkBlue - Honda/Acura often sources their HU's and changers from different manufacturers. For instance, when I pulled the factory HU from my '96 Teggie, instead of Alpine being stamped on the unit, it was sourced from Pioneer. But the changer I had for this was Alpine. Likewise, when I had my changer put into my TL prior to dealer delivery, the changer is not marked in any way (without pulling the unit) to show who it came from, much less sporting any type of Honda/Acura logo. The behavior you describe is actually quite likely, assuming that the engineering group responsible for the changers had tigher specs on those units than the engineering group that does the OEM HU's. In fact, this is quite likely, given that the changers are a premium item, and the HU's are done the NASA way - cheapest wins.

ArN 2000 TL

gonna sticky this!

iambgood

Anyone try out these new covers for your cd's which supposedly protect it from scratching?

Elementz

Didn't someone post before that Acura is aware of the problem and they were replacing HU's w/ newer ones?

fsttyms1

this info is fine and all but none of it mattered to me and many others. sometimes i could burn a whole spindle of cd-r's at any speed i wanted and with and cd-r brand, and any burner and they would play. i would get the same brand again and none would play. i have tried about 15 different burners every brand cd-r's and none made a difference.
the TL hu was/is a pos. and toward the end it wouldnt paly a single cdr no matter how it was burned or with what. the only good info is to get rid of the hu and get a aftermarket hu

Faizalstar

Great breakdown MAKERS! Thanks for all of that. I still don't find it cool that a '99 Accord can play the same burned CD's that I've made but my '00 TL can't. My burner is about 5 years old. HP external 8200 series (4x4x6).

veen120

Ok guys...i noe a cd that works...Get CD Audio (CD-R Audio) i have the SOny Cd-r Audio cd's. they are just like a orginal cd. It plays just like a orginal cd. try it out and see for urself...i didnt believe it, but a friend of mine said he was damm sure...n i tried it..and it works perfict...just make sure u burn it a da slowest speed and you shouldnt have a problem. just buy the 5 pack CD-R Audio to try and make sure...make sure it says Audio, not just CD-r...but CD-R Audio...aiteee...let me know if that works because it worked for me.

makers

"Original" CD's? If you are talking about regular "album" audio CD's, these are not "burned" by the manufacturers. These are pressed in the good old way that vinyl LP's were: pressed, just more precisely and, of course, much smaller. This way it is much easier to provide quality control and turn out CD's much, much faster than burning.

makers

As I stated in the beginning, if you didn't want to know, you should not have taken the time to read it. Agreed, the TL hu sucks, and the whole system, in total, sucks. But some/most of us don't have the time or $ to switch out the whole system, so I offered the help for those who are stuck with it. Sorry to have disappointed you.

youngTL

Can you "ungigarec" something? like use it to expand data? That's what i meant, like fit 500MB on a 700 disc

makers

Not that I have ever seen or heard of. Again, this is mainly a firmware/motor issue, not a software issue. You can always "underburn" a CD. As someone noted above, sometimes the hu's have trouble only on the outer tracks (last few tracks). If this is your experience, I would suggest only putting as much data as your hu seems to be able to "seek". My experience is that once the laser has the center and the gutters, it will pretty much play the full track without (too many) problems. Seeking the next track after finishing one seems to be the weak point here, as it is as the weakest point for all CD players.

veen120

Im not talkin about original cd's...im tryin to say that CD-r Audio cd's play just as good as original cd's....go buy a 5 pack n come back n let me know if they work...they worked perfict for me...the cd-r audio is diff from just a regular cd-r...i dunno if ur getttin what im tryin to say....but go to wal-mart or where ever and buy the cd-r audio...go home and burn it at a slow speed...and put it in ur car and it;ll play perfict...

makers

Veen, if this works for you, great. Personally, I have used everything from single CD-R's (used to be pretty expensive then, too), to three packs, five packs, 15 spindles, 25 spindles, 100 spindles, and 50 packs of singles with individual jewel cases. Aside from the difference in packaging and pricing, I have found no appreciable difference in burn quality, ability, and/or compatibility with my '99's HU. Apparently, you have hit on what I call a "good combination" of both drive and media that works well for your HU - enjoy it, because many more of your TL brethren are not that lucky to get that combination.

Means17TL

DUDE...

I think you solved my problem...aftera year and a half of batteling with the HU and the burned CD scenario i finally took your advice, burned a CD at low speed (16X) and wham, popped that disc into the CD player and NO SKIPPING, i couldn't believe myself, i tried everything from cleaning, through shufeling between 10 different types of CD-R brands, and finally it works...

THANKS A LOT...

veen120

Did u use the CR-R Audio cd?

Means17TL

I am not sure what you are asking? Clarify Please?

Tunaboy

Wow man thanks for that explanation.... I have an aftermarket cd player, but it was always extremely frustrating how the 99 HU would never play burnt cd's. I've always wondered what the cause of this was. Reps to you

avs007

The only difference between a CD-R Audio disc and a regular CD-R, is that the ring-0 of the audio version is "pre-burned" with a bunch of 1's. This identifies the CD-R as being a CD-R Audio Disc. This signifies that this CD is acceptable for use in stand-alone CD Recorders, because these discs are more expensive, because these discs include a "royalty" that is given to the music industry. If I remember correctly, I think PC/CD-R/RW drives aren't able to write to this track on a regular CD-R.

IT Power

i have haer there is a special kind of CD-RW disk that can play in any CD Player?

Does anyone know about this?

avs007

It probably is just dependent on the CD player. Most CD-RW I've seen have a less reflective organic substrate than CD-R do, so they are "harder" to read. But CD-RW work about 85% of the time in my wife's TL. If it says disc error, just trying again once or twice will make it work. They work 100% of the time in my other car tho...

IT Power

really? i thought there is some kind of special CD-RW disk for regular CD player!

is your wifes' TL 1999?

avs007

No, her's is an 03. It plays CD-R 100%, but CD-RW it is a little finicky. It didn't bother me, because at the time, none of our other cars would play CD-RW at all.

DjKiwi

mp3 cds work in a 02 tls with stock hu?

mr_min

my acura dealer service guy told me, "FYI, don't play burned cds in the stock headunit". It can crash the 6 disc indash changer. It did happen to me recently and the way around it was to turn off then on the car itself to reset the changer.

The changer recognized the real cds but wouldnt see the burned cds.

mr_min