FAQ for CD Products - MDA TECHNOLOGY LTD.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. I have bought MDA 870 MB / 99 Min CD-Rs. I am using Nero5 burning software for writing. The file I'm trying to copy is 720 MB. But when I press the Burn button, the program says that there is not enough disk space. Can you tell me why?

A. In order to write beyond 80min, you have to set the "overburn" option in the Nero software as below:

If you intend to play the recorded CD-R with audio, video or CD-ROM players, some of them can't move their carriage far enough too play an OverSized CD-R. So, don't just blame your CD-R writer :)

Q. What is a "digital audio" CD-R? Is the quality better than the "data" type CD-R?

A. There is no such thing called "data" type CD-R. A general type CD-R with good quality can be perfectly used for audio, data and video recording purpose.

However, there are some stand-alone CD-R audio recorders that use only "digital audio" CD-R. The Philips CDR600 and CDR700 series audio recorders belong to this category. These recorders can detect whether the CD-R is a "digital audio" by reading its header information. If it is not "digital audio", the recorder simply refuses to write regardless of its quality. The CD-R must be 1x compatible since the audio recorders typically write data at 1x speed.

A much better way of recording music is by PC with an ordinary CD-R burning software since users can record music with a much higher speed. To get excellent audio quality, the quality of the CD-R must be excellent also (in technical terms, it's jitter and block error rate must be low).

Q. I wrote 20MB to your Business Card CD-R which is supposed to have 51MB data capacity. Later on when I tried to write another 20MB to the same disc, it didn't allow me. Can you explain why?

A. Whenever you recorded the 1st session to a disc, a lead-out blank area of size about 15MB was appended. (Leadout is used as a separator between two sessions.) Therefore, 35MB data was actually created for the session. When you tried to write another 20MB the next time, there was not enough space for another 35MB data.

Q. I heard that Silver/Blue CD-R is better for music recording and Silver/Green is better for CD-ROM recording etc. Is that true?

A. There is a lot of confusion in the market. From the manufacturer's point of view, it does not make any sense since all of them are digital data which are treated equally by the CD-R writer in the recording phase. The CD-R quality after recording is determined by how well the CD-R is manufactured as well as the quality of the chemical dye.

Q. Is it true that lower recording speed gives better result?

A. No, unless you have bought a CD-R that overstates its maximum speed. In this case you may not be able to get a good result with the maximum speed. Otherwise, just use the speed which is within the recommended range. Never try to record it with a speed that is not stated. For example, if it says 2x-12x, you should not use 1x for recording. You get poor result instead.

Q. I see many different kinds of colors for the substrate (bottom plastic layer). How is the quality?

A. They are only good for appearance but have no advantage over regular ones in terms of quality. Colored substrate makes it very hard to do quality control since most in-line QC disc scanners in the manufacturing line were designed with the clear substrate in mind. We have tested many samples from the market. Most of them show very high block error rate due to uncontrollable manufacturing process.

Q. I was told by a CD-R company in the exhibition that different substrate (plastic) colors are optimized for different recording formats ( CD-ROM, VCD, CD-Audio etc.). Is that true?

A. This is a very irresponsible claim and doesn't make any sense. The color of the substrate makes no improvement on the CD-R quality but very often makes it worse due difficulty in QC procedure (as explained above). Again, a CD-R writer do not care about the kind of data it records on the CD-R. All digital data (for games, VCD, CD-ROM or CD-Audio) are burnt with the same writing strategy. Also CD-R writers cannot recognize the color of substrate. The quality is mainly determined by the manufacturing process and the chemical dye used.

Q. Which color CD-R discs are better? 'Blue' or 'Green' or 'Diamond'?

A. The performance of a CD-R disc is not related to its color. The color of a CD-R disc is determined by the color of the dye layer and the reflective layer. No matter what the disc color is, a disc can either be good or bad depending on its manufacturing quality. In general, blue dye is sensitive to sunlight. Diamond dye (using our formula) and green dye do not react to sunligh and therefore are more stable.

Q. What is the 'Orange Book'?

A. The 'Orange Book' defines a set of standards that applies to recordable disc media. CD-R discs are required to meet the specifications as stipulated in part two of the 'Orange Book'.

Q. I get a "Buffer Under-run" error when recording to disc. What does it mean and how do I avoid this?

A. It simply means that the source data cannot be transferred fast enough to catch up with the target CD-R writer which requires continuous stream of data from the buffer. If you do a direct disc-to-disc copy, you have to make sure that the speed of source drive is fast enough to deliver continuous stream of data to the buffer. Very often, the problem comes from the source drive but not the writer itself. For high speed recording (8x and above), it is recommended to make an image on the hard disk first and do the recording later. Another reason for the error may be due to insufficient memory or CPU performance. It is best not to have other programs running and screen savers should be disabled, whilst recording. Also, when data is coming from the hard disk, it's best to make sure there isn't any unnecessary disk access by other programs during recording.

Q. How come I wasn't able to write to a 650 MB CD-R again, when I've only recorded 200 MB of material onto the disc?

A. It is likely that you've chosen the "Close Disc" or "Disc at Once" option in your previous recording to the disc. In order to write to a CD-R disc over many sessions until it's full, you should choose the option which allows you to "Close the session" and "Leave the disc open"..

Q. I've found that I wasn't able to access some of my CD-R discs and some discs have got a lot of errors after I've labeled them. Why should this happen?

A. It is likely that you've used a writing instrument with a hard tip such as a ball-point pen to label your discs. The label side of a disc generally consists of a very thin lacquer layer only. Which, acts as a protective layer for the 'data grooves' underneath. The lacquer layer can easily be scratched with anything harder than a 'H' pencil. You should use soft tipped pens such as felt-tip pens to label your discs.