Trouble playing burned audio CDRs in Sebring

Does your software allow you to burn the CD as an "audio CD" as opposed to an ISO9660 containing the MP3 files? Also, have you tried burning at a slower speed such as 2x?

I have a 1997 built GPX CD player, and it handles CD-R's just fine so long as I follow the above two steps. An audio CD won't allow you to have as many songs, but just might make the difference.

-KM

Hi Mac...

Not a mechanic, just an old retired electrical guy... maybe in this case a bit of an advantage :)

In either case - don't know your Pioneer burner at all, but are you remembering to finalize the cd? (your car and home players, unlike your computer, can't play .wav's that aren't)

Are you burning at the lowest possible speed?

Just a couple of thoughts, for whatever little they may be worth.

Take care.

Ken

snipped-for-privacy@sisna.com:

Yep, check the thread title.

I've tried as slow as 24x. I'll try a really slow burn and see if it helps.

Some recordable compact disc media, such as CD-R and CD-RW, may not comply with the standard CD format used in automotive CD players. When these CD's are used, you may encounter error messages, skipping, or delaminating of the labels, which can cause an eject failure. It is important to question whether these kinds of CD media are being used. When you encounter these symptoms, check the system with a known playable CD. the media may not be compatible with some automotive CD players.

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

maxpower:

Read the OP.

philthy:

Nothing wrong with the head unit and it's far from a POS. Pioneer would be no better.

Since your old CD burner worked okay, have you tried Pioneer support to see if they have any suggestions? At what speed did you burn CD's on your older burner?

-KM

HI "Mac".

Been there, done that many times before - allbeit not with car audio.

However, since you point out that your OLD burner worked and your NEW burner does NOT work, $10 says that the firmware in your new burner is no good.

I have run across this with both HP and LG cd burners before. Try and burn an audio CD, and it wont play in a genuine non-computer "CD player".

Presuming that you are using WinXP:

On your computer, right-clikc on "My Computer" and select "Properties"

Click on the "Hardware" tab

Click the "Device Manager" Button

There should be a linetitled "DVD/CD-ROM Drives".

Click on the "+" to expand it.

Right-click on your Pioeneer drive and select "Properties"

Click on the "Details" tab.

You will see a string appear. On my system the string is this:

"DE\CDROMHL-DT-ST_CD-RW_GCE8525B____________________1.05____________"

The "1.05" is the firmware revision of the firmware in my LG 8525B CD burner.

Now that you know the revision of the firmware in your Pioneer burner, go to the Pioneer web site and see if you can download a newer version of firmware. If you cannot download one, then contact tech support directly and tell them your model and firmware revision, and that you are having inter-player compatibility problems.

Again $10 says that there is a firmware upgrade that will fix this.

HP actually deliberately, knoingly, and willfully shipped players which they knew did not work properly to keep the cash-flow going until they could make a patch available. This happened on a couple of machines here at work years ago. When I contacted them, they admitted that they had "found a problem", and provided me with a firmware upgrade and installation instructions at "no charge".

I had this problem with and LG drive in the past, and another fellow on the car audio newsgroup had the exact same problem. He was more frustrated than you are, and whene did as I suggested and installed thelatest firmware from the LG site, it started working properly!

WARNING: Updating the firmware of most CD drives is a risky and trick business. Not sure about Pioneer, but the LG drives MUST be installed on the PRIMARY IDE channel, and MUST be the "Master" drive. I STRONGLY recommend that you make DOS boot disks, download the firmware upgrade, and then remove all hard drives from the system. Boot to DOS, and THEN flash your firmware. After this, reconnect your hard drive and boot the system.

This is the voice of experience! Having done this for the first time, the upgrade software that was provided by LG actually trashed my hard drive partitions! Fortunately, being the anal sort that I am, I had antoher drive with ghosted back-ups, so I only lost a days work as a result. :)

Double check the hardware device manager to make sure the WinXP system registers the updated firmware revision.

Then burn and finalize an audio CD-R. THEN try that in your car deck.

Again $10 says this will work if you have done all correctly.

Please let me know how it goes.

:)

TIP: He's "MAC" at Mac Cool .

Your tips are much simpler for a Mac, same idea though.

Thanks for the heads-up.

Notwithstanding that, I sincerely hope this helps him. Buying a NEW piece of hardware, you always ASSUME it will work. It is nothing short of a pain in the neck if it does not work, and even worse is ti works enough that the manufacturer denies your claim, but does not work enough to be compatible with other hardware!

I received a new car stereo system for my birthday last year. Plays CDs, MP3s, and WMAs. MP3 requires a licensed (eg $$$$$) codec. So I re-encoded to WMA. Wouldn't work! I banged my head against the wall for weeks.

Finally, what I discovered that even though the unit was PURCHASED new in April 2006, it was Manufactured in August 2005, which means it was designed likely in 2003 - 2004. Going back to that time, the WMA in effect at that time was WMA version 8! Last year it was WMA version 9 or 9.1

So I did some hunting and found a WMA8 Codec for my program, and voila! everything works fine now!

Heaven forbid that there be any form of compatibility between the different versions of the same codec! :(

All this stuff is a total pa>>

Mac G:

Heh, I never made that connection before. I'm using XP. The Mac Cool is from Irish mythology.

NewMan:

I haven't worked through it all yet. The firmware I have now, 1.29, is the latest firmware available. I needed it to burn some DVD+R DL that I bought. I haven't tried contacting Pioneer yet. What I think I might try instead is to reinstall my old burner in place of my DVD-ROM. I have read that having two burners on the same BUS can cause problems even if you aren't using them at the same time but it can't hurt to try.

I have heard before that DVD burners do not always do a good job at burning CDs. Yeah, they are SUPPOSED to work....

Let us know how it goes.

NewMan:

The Pioneer I have is very highly regarded for audio CDs which only serves to increase my bafflement.

Mac Cool wrote in news:Xns991AB46FE3DCBMacCool@130.133.1.4:

If the CDs you burn at home play in all other players but not the car, it's the car CD player that's the problem.

Joe:

Yeah, I know. Audio CDs from my previous burner worked fine though. Bummer.

Mac Cool wrote in news:Xns991BAFF8FCD6CMacCool@

Could be tolerances between burners and players. Try some CDs from other people's burners and see how they fare in your car player. If everyone else's home-burned CDs play in the car but yours don't, your burner might be a hair off.

FWIW, my current Plextor has been the best burner I've ever used. Haven't had a single failed disc yet.