Is Sony Turning Its Back On CD-Rs?

slashdoter asks: "For Christmas my mother got a 5 DVD/CD changer from Sony (model DVP-C660). I hooked it up for her and we both where impressed by the picture and sound quality, anyway for the last year or so I have been using Napster to make CD's of her record collection. Today she put in one of the burned CD's and it would not play. After reading the manual I found the among a list of unsupported formats there was 'CD-R', which really shocked me. Every device in my house playas CD-R's, and I could see this if it was a first generation CD player but the CD-R standard has been out longer than the DVD standard. Is the unit defective or is Sony up to something?" Is there a reason why Sony would make it's DVD player deliberately incompatible with CD-R's which, at first glance, doesn't make much sense.

Comments

That's standard.

[PCM2]

A lot of DVD players don't support CD-R discs. Don't ask me why it's so; but I don't think it has anything to do with "piracy prevention," it's more by-product of the way the laser picks up data from the discs on DVD players.

My Pioneer DV-606D doesn't support CD-Rs either, for what it's worth.

I've actually been wanting a list of players that DO support CD-Rs for a while now. (Besides playing audio CDs, it's useful for VCDs.)

Re:That's standard.

[ichimunki]

I agree, it's probably a technical matter. Something similar to why the average CD-RW won't play in the same machines that play music CD-Rs. I wish I could say it were an evil plot, but Sony are so Jekyll and Hyde on this stuff it's not even funny. Comes with being a huge multinational. The various divisions do NOT work off the same script.

Re:That's standard.

[Tackhead]

The question is - is it "supported" or does it "work"?

If you say you support CD-R, you imply "anything that's CD-R, if you put it in the machine, we can read it", and you imply that your customer support drones are going to have to say "Funny, it should read your CD-R. Guess you'll have to send it back if it doesn't".

If you say you support CD-Rs of a certain dye type, you then have to educate the consumer about the difference between cyanine and pthallocyanine and all that other stuff. Not bloody likely. C'mon, when CD-R manufacturers change dye formulations on a month-by-month basis, even if your drones could say "Sorry, use only $FOO-stabilized cye CD-Rs", they'd never be able to answer the question "My CD-Rs are from Wal-Mart! Are they $FOO-stabilized?", because nobody knows.

Now... if CD-Rs are "unsupported", they don't have to worry. Some CD-R media types may work. Some may not. Maybe none will. As long as Sony's up-front and says "unsupported", it's up to you to do the research and figure out if your preferred CD-R brand will work or not.

By way of analogy, how many of you have Linux "supported" on your laptop? By your ISP? Or do they merely happen to work with certain Linux configurations, with or without official support?

Um, no, it's a DVD player

[rexmob]

I really don't see what is surprising here. This is a DVD changer that also happens to play CD's. 90% of DVD players, due to the makeup of the laser, can't play CD-Rs. Only players from Pioneer, Apex, and a couple other companies can. I guess you should have checked the stats on the player first.

Laser for DVD is different...

[Deffexor]

I think there are a lot of DVD players that don't read CD-R. Apparently the laser used to read DVD, also works well on CD-RW and regular mass produced CDs, but it seems the reflectivity of most CD-Rs is not good enough (or only works some of the time.)

Check out http://www.vcdhelp.com for a list of DVD players that can read CD-Rs.

NOT piracy prevention, just cheaper parts

[Knight]

I'm as big a fan of a conspiracy theory as anybody, but I'm afraid that the root of this problem is in the type of laser used. When the first prototype DVD devices started appearing on the market, I was a lab monkey at Intel, and we noticed the same problems. The issue was eventually resolved, but it made the device $5-20 more expensive. Most likely, Sony has done a market survey and determined that CD-R is not something that is worth adding that much to the cost of the device.

Sony WILL play CDR's - Use High Quality Media

[ayden]

I had the same problem with my Sony DVP-S300. I couldn't get it to play my CDR's. A friend enlightened me: Use High Quality media ONLY. Cheap CDR's (the ones with blue-green tint) will not play in Sony DVD players. However, higher quality CDRs, the ones with only a very slight tint (and therefore a higher reflectivity) will play in sony DVD players. I proved this empirically.

Re:Sony WILL play CDR's - Use High Quality Media

[aschneid]

Actually, this might not be true. I have tried all versions of High Quality media and cheap generic media. I have a DVP-S550D, and it will only play CD-RW discs...I have never gotten any CD-R's to play in it, whether it be High Quality or not. Even generic CD-RW's play. My future brother-in-law has the 300, and it plays everything. Most of what I have read on this issue, it is almost always chalked up to laser type. And I'm not just talking material from Sony...I get three home audio magazines delivered and they have all said it at one point or another.

Sigh...This is Not a Conspiracy

[Cheshire Cat]

Many DVD players don't support CD-Rs. A quick check of the CD-R FAQ regarding DVDs says: CD-R was designed to be read by an infrared 780nm laser. DVD uses a visible red 635nm or 650nm laser, which aren't reflected sufficiently by the organic dye polymers used in CD-R media. Some DVD players come with two lasers so that they can read CD-R.

So its not at all a conspiracy by Sony to protect its music industry. Especially considering the fact that Sony makes several MP3 players.

Re: No, that's NOT standard.

[atrowe]

It certainly is a laser issue. The lasers used in DVD players have a much lower wavelength (I believe it's somewhere between 60-70 nm) than a standard CD player. I think most DVD players made today are using blue lasers. These lasers work fine for most audio CD's, but CD-R discs have a much lower reflectivity and cannot reflect the beam back to the pickup with enough efficiency to allow the player to read the disc. Some DVD manufacturer's (such as those in the parent) use a twin laser system that can switch between a standard red laser used for CD's and CD-R's and a narrow beam laser for DVD's.

Oh and the Apex DVD players are great. The AD660 can read an MPEG 1 or MPEG2 burned straight to a CD-R. No need to format the file as a VCD.

we KNOW it's the laser!

[iso]

every single reply to this post has said the same thing: "i think it's the laser" or "the laser has something to do with it." do you people not bother to read the other comments before you post? if there have been 10 comments saying "i think it has something to do with the laser," why add an 11th?

think people.

anyhow, i think it has something to do with the lasers they use in DVD players. :)

- j

Re: No, that's NOT standard.

[TwP]

I believe it's somewhere between 60-70 nm

He-Ne laser --> 683 nm --> red
Ar-Ion laser --> 514 nm --> green
blue diode laser --> does not exist

Blude diode lasers are in development, but have not quite reached the stage where they are reliable/cheap/mass-producable. The substrate material will eat istelf after ~5 days of use.

I doubt that laser intensity and reflectivity prevent CD-R's from being read by a DVD player. My laptop, which has a toshiba DVD drive, can read CD-R's just fine. It only has one laser. My conclusion from this observation would be that Sony is jerking you around.

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Yet The PS2 Does.....

[BRock97]

I don't know whether folks will find this surprising or not, but the PS2 CAN read CDRs. I listened to one of my collections just the other day with nay a problem from the deck. I also have a 500 series player that can read a VCD and CD from a CDRW, but can not read a CDR disk. You might want to try burning your songs to a CDRW disk and use that! Interestingly, the PS2 can NOT read CDRW....

Bryan R.

Sony is protecting Sony Music

[weenerdog]

I emailed Sony about the same model above after my well informed electronics store rep told me the bad news with CD-R and their DVD players. In their infinite wisdom to protect their music properties, they are losing twice the business by resisting online distribution, which people are doing anyway, and then locking down their boxes, alienating their customers to seek alternative technologies. Unfortunately, I got the standard corporate babble response. My research tells me that they have calibrated their laser to reject tinted media which make up most CD-R's. However, I am told clear/silver CD-R media works. The Toshiba 4205 5 Disc DVD Player does play CD-R. Being a primarily Sony Buyer when it comes to electronics, I am annoyed enough to make a decision to buy the Toshiba, or an Apex, or Arcam. The last two support MP3 and multi-region coding. You lose Sony. weenerdog

Sony doesn't, others do. Yes, there are reasons...

[Rahga]

Phillips have been big on CD-R's and "making your own mixes".... Sony seems to be thinking that supporting CD-Rs and even their long struggling minidisc format will hurt their newest champion, the memory stick. This is a bit odd to me, for it seems like Sony's left hand doesn't know what it's right hand is doing. Sony picture frames, computers, and even printers are supporting the memory stick, but the PS2, DVD players, radio tuners, and TV's arent. The lack of CD-R support is definitely intentional, as even old car CD players support them. It's worth noting that a number of less popular and new DVD player manufacturers are supporting CD-Rs packed with MP3s :) (EPOX is the only one that comes to mind right now)

Uh, the newest Sony players do play CDRs now

[hatless]

At the Consumer Electronics Show now wrapping up, Sony showed its first CDR-compatible DVD players. The engineers and marketers said it was because of market demand, and that they did it over the objections of Sony Music. Maybe if y'all read some real news sources and not just rumor-and-conspiracy sites like Slashdot, you'd know this.

To repeat: Sony fought supporting CDR playback until now, and have been backed into it by consumer demand.

Remember: the Playstation 2 doesn't play VideoCDs at all, in a market where all other DVD players can play VideoCDs. Sony sells DVDs and CDs. They do resist any technology that erodes those businesses heavily until they're forced to do otherwise.

If you want a DVD player that can play CDRs, CD-RW, VCD, SVCD, XVCD, MP3s and so forth, everybody knows the way to go is with no-name Chinese-made players, because the Chinese domestic market demands these features, so the manufacturers include support for all of the above. VCDs pressed on CDR media are extremely popular in China, and are in fact driving much of the market for players.

Re:Uh, the newest Sony players do play CDRs now

[Eric Smith]

At the Consumer Electronics Show now wrapping up, Sony showed its first CDR-compatible DVD players.

FALSE. ALL early Sony DVD players, including the DVP-S7000 and DVP-S3000, supported CD-R media. To make that work, they included two separate lasers, one red and one infrared. Their marketing people have dubbed this feature "dual discrete pickup".

It is only recently that Sony has offered "cheap" DVD players that omit this feature.

it's a purely technical problem..

[darkphyber]

The problem with many DVD players that can't read CD-R's is due to the laser pickup. It all has to do with refelectance. Regular CD's are an almost perfect mirror with something like an 85-95% reflectance. CD-R's on the other hand, probably have something like 65% reflectance. CD-RW's have something around 35% reflectance which is why they won't play in all but the newest audio players. I bought a Toshiba SD-1200 DVD player because of the fact that it was inexpensive, had a great picture and also had lots of nice features. I found out when I took it out of the box that it didn't support CD-R's. (even said so in the manual.) ...Or so I thought. Knowing that the problem was more than likely a laser pickup that needed a higher reflectance level on the disc, I tried a number of different brands of CD-R. Eventually I found a brand that worked. Would you belive it, it's a Sony! Sony's CDQ-74CN to be exact. Sony advertises these discs as having "Excellent Optical Technology" or XO. Give this a try.. you may find that it works.

RTFM?

[bellings]

I guess now that Usenet has become essentially unusable, Slashdot is the place to go when your too damned lazy to spend the five minutes it would take to answer this yourself?

Try this: Go to Google. Type in "CDR FAQ", and press return. Click on the very first returned link., for the "Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable Frequently Asked Questions." Read the table of contents, and follow the link to Can DVD players read CD-Rs?. Read.

It would be really, really nice if the guy who posted to "ask slashdot" had done any homework at all, and found out if there was some "unusual" reason his Sony DVD doesn't work with CD-R disks, such as Sony intentionally not supporting some logical format or if this was just the standard Frequently Asked Question that wouldn't even get into most moderated usenet news groups.

Re: No, that's NOT standard.

[BenBenBen]

Bzzzt.

The main reason some (esp 1st gen) DVDs can't read CDRs is precisely to do with the reflectivity. The reflective index of a DVD is typically about 35% that of a (silver) CD. The reflective index of a CDR is.... about 35% that of a (silver) CD.

I did a training course on mobile (in-car) dvd at pioneer a while back, and they were on about just this problem. The newer machines, those with two lasers or with a holographic-laser diode set, have no trouble.

However, this doesn't seem to be the case with Sony on this model. I have never seen a unit list CD-R as a standard not supported, and IMO this has to be aimed at the piracy issue. Sony == Columbia Studios == Sony Music, don't forget.

Ben^3

Re: No, that's NOT standard.

[RedWizzard]

He-Ne laser --> 683 nm --> red
Ar-Ion laser --> 514 nm --> green

The Philips DVD710 (one model I was looking at buying) uses dual laser pickup: 650nm for DVD and 780nm for CD (including VCD) / CD-R / CD-RW. Other manufacturers advertising dual laser pickup and/or CD-R compatibility include LG, JVC, NEC, Pioneer, and high end Samsung units. Sony and Sharp don't seem to bother. Most low-end (unknown) brands that feature MP3 playback will also handle CD-Rs. The buyer of the unit in the original story didn't do their homework.

I doubt that laser intensity and reflectivity prevent CD-R's from being read by a DVD player. My laptop, which has a toshiba DVD drive, can read CD-R's just fine. It only has one laser. My conclusion from this observation would be that Sony is jerking you around.

CD-R compatibility is far more important in a computer than in a stand alone DVD player. Unless the player also supports MP3 (or MPEG1/2 file) playback, CD-R compatibility is only useful for playing CDDA formatted CDs (i.e. audio CDs). That's a small market. I bought a Sony DVD336 knowing it didn't support CD-Rs and had no qualms about it since I already have a 5 disc CD changer which does handle CD-Rs. MP3 playback would be nice but the reviews for the models I looked at said that MP3 playback was pretty rough at this point (most players ignore the directory structure and present the whole CD's contents as a single list). I believe a standard is being developed for MP3 (and other format) CDs which should mean that future players have better support. When that happens you can be sure Sony's players will also support CD-Rs.

www.killyourneighbourforexperiencepoints.com

[SubtleNuance]

Sony would make it's DVD player deliberately incompatible with CD-R's

Maybe its, Ummmh, uh I dunno... maybe it is because sony is the most evil,controlling,$WHORES$ in media & electronics today?

Have we not determined -- through the lessons of BetaMax, MemoryStick & the "we will block it at the ISP, we will block it at the computer, we will block it at your HD" quote from the VP of ?????? we still wonder why SONY would purposely stop CDR playback?

I was in Chicago for NewYears, I went downtown to see the AIBO at the sony store. I purposely (to help interfere with meme propagation) asked the 'Help Desk' if sony made any DVDs without region encoding ((or switchable regions) knowing full well they had none). His reply "Well - sony has a large interest in the media industry and they are worried about protecting their property - they wont even sell CDRs in their PCs because of this".

It is beyond astonishing that /. would post a story with the stupid "deliberately incompatible" question in the body.

Surely I cant be the only one NOT surprised at this - didnt we already learn that sony is one of the worst IP fucks on the planet? Is anyone surprised that they would do this? Is everyone reading /. sleeping or just 'Cliff' & 'Slashdotter'?

Its almost depressing to come to this site and read story after story of how sony (and others) repeatedly act this way -- then we get stories like this one -- Is anyone awake or are they caught in a haze of hyper-info that has obliterated their memory and cognative recolection? Why seek information if you are incapable of learning any lessons from it and adjusting your behaviour? I thought that the /. crowd would be more 'in-tune' with the 'big picture' - but it seems that we are as addle-minded at the population at large: Dazed and confused by the world around us, so much so that the obvious becomes surreal and existance is a picture-show. Was there anyone not thouroughly disgusted with sony before this?

WTF - Am I the only one who remembers anymore????

Your numbers are WAY wrong.

[alexburke]

A normal CD is 70% reflective. A CD-R is 30% reflective. A CD-RW is 5% reflective.

Sony's Dual Discrete optical pickup block has two lasers, one IR and one red. As far as I know, there's absolutely no reason the IR pickup would be capable of picking up CD-RWs but not CD-Rs unless there was some firmware problem/limitation.

You remember how CD-ROM drives a while ago weren't able to read CD-RWs but could read CD-Rs? That's because the firmware didn't know a valid CD could have such a low reflectivity, and assumed there was no disc in the drive (or just plain couldn't read it). However, newer drives will crank up the gain on the photodiode used in the pickup block in order to "see" the very faint reflection from CD-RWs.

I've personally used more than 500 Sony CD-Rs (CDQ-74CN; I buy them by the box of 100 in jewel cases), and they are high quality CD-Rs, but the "XO" moniker is purely marketing hype. Sony CD-Rs are manufactured by Taiyo Yuden and have precisely the same composition of Azo (blue) dye as any other Taiyo Yuden CD-R. (If you don't believe me, get a program that will read the ATIP [absolute time in pregroove] of a CD-R disc, and it will quote the manufacturer as Taiyo Yuden.) Incidentally, Sony CD-RWs are manufactured by Mitsubishi Chemical, if I have my facts straight.

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