You sound experienced, but I'll ask some real basic things anyway. (don't mean to insult). Is there any chance the discs are CDRW's? There are a number of commercial players that will play CDR's but not CDRW's. And some won't play CDR's either... :/ Also, where did the discs come from? I've bought some CDR media that have been incredibly bad at getting a working disc. A while back I started using Taiyo Yuden discs and have had really good results with them. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've burned a lot of discs with CD Architect and VP 8-12 and I haven't seen a player not play a disc merely because those programs made it.

> AFAIK this has been a serious issue with CDArchitect for years, since it has not been updated for a long long time.

What???? My core business is churning out multitudes of CDs - both as Masters for Duplication and Replication, and for direct client use - I never have problems with CDArchitect or play-ability on user's machines - but do have problems occasionally with bad media (usually the client-supplied ones are troublesome).
Or maybe the CD/DVD Burner has reached the end of it's life?

If I were in the business (which I am not) of cranking out burned audio CD-Rs or CD-R masters - I would not be using SCS products.
There are far better software systems for that purpose.
For the occasional burn, I agree that media is all important, that age and condition of the burner is also a consideration, and finally a distribution to a variety of players is always problematic.

[I]"AFAIK this has been a serious issue with CDArchitect for years, since it has not been updated for a long long time."[/I]

The reason it hasn't been updated in a long time is because IT JUST WORKS.
There is nothing to update, the Red Book hasn't changed.

Bob.

ah yes Redbook - but who would of thought of media testing, drive firmware updates, and other audio gotchas like creating and maintaining silent gaps between passages? hmmmm?

[I]"who would of thought of media testing"[/I]

I sure did. When I was doing this I only ever used a Plextor CD burner and Plextools to test the media.

[I]"drive firmware updates"[/I]

I still have the same Plextor burner, unlike all the other ones I've bought over the years it just keeps on going.

[I]"other audio gotchas like creating and maintaining silent gaps between passages"[/I]

You mean between tracks?
CDA does that with one click.
Also does CD Text and cue sheets etc.

For splitting files from R2R and DAT I can highly recommend Wave Breaker from Blaze Audio. It would be nice if something from SCS did as good a job but meh, it was $30 and worked a treat.


I suspect the reason people have problems is they don't use good burners or good media. For masters I only ever used CD Audio CDs made by MAM.

Bob.

I've been using Taiyo Yuden disks (CDR) for past 5 years and haven't changed that aspect. I'm burning on an ASUS Blu-Ray burner, and will check for firmware updates...this is on my new build, and I am wondering if there is a firmware issue. The 2 second pause between tracks is turned off, but has been thoughout as much of the rehearsal disks are compilations that need to flow or need track markers for dancers to return to for rehearsal purposes. this has not ever been an issue in the past versions of Vegas/Sound Forge/CD Architect. Taiyo Yuden now carries JVC's name, and wonder if they have changed at all.

Taiyo Yuden/JVC is a corporate thing and the manufacturing has not changed to any greater variation than that which is normal batch to batch difference.
NOW "This is on my new build" and ahaa !! we get to the crux of the matter.
Changed OS? Changed OS implementation of 32bit to 64bit? Installed different apps? Installed different peripherals?

If you didn't have this problem with V10 & SF9 with CDA installed, then it's not CDA, it's something else you changed: the hardware, OS, drivers, firmware, etc.

this is a fresh clean install of all updated software (V12 build 563) on a Win7 64 bit machine. I've checked for firmware updates and there are only ones for Win8, which I am not on.

Media most likely. Note that even the ostensibly same media model from the same brand can in fact be totally different actual media each batch, and even come from different actual manufacturers.

geoff

When CDA worked, did you have a clean install of all updated software on Win7-64?

I need to clarify...my previous versions were on my XP 32 bit machine. My new build has clean installs of all updated software, and these are the ones i'm having issues with. I am going to try to burn some disks on the XP machine to see if those will still play on the commercial players in our studios.

How old are the CD players you are trying to use?

Two reasons for asking. One is that very old players often won't play burnable CDs. The second is that some of the earliest players that would would only play "music CDs", which are special CD-Rs that cost a little extra in order to pay a sort of general royalty to BMI and ASCAP. These players wouldn't work with regular data CD-Rs. The church where I do AV work has one of these.

"old players won't play burned CD's" is iffy. The stereo system my dad got in the late 80's/early 90's with a CD player played burned CD's. I still believe it's an issue with his new system though.

I'm wondering if the players that aren't reading the DC's require the 2 sec. interval between tracks. We have had many generations of DC playback decks in the studios and our oldest deck is now only 3 years old. I don't always get a clear picture of which decks the CD's are not playing on either, but 2 of them seem to consistently spit out my CD's. Doing a test burn today on my old machine and new machine to see if there is a difference in compatibility on the studio playback decks.

Another thing I've found is sometimes I have to burn the CD or DVD at half speed or 1/4 speed or even 2x to get them to play properly in some older or cheap players.

I've had that experience, but I've also had exactly the opposite experience, where slow burned discs were less reliable than faster burns. It also depends upon the amount of time recorded on a disc. Discs play from the inside out, and as you go out, the amount of space covered with each rotation increases progressively. Discs are always less reliable when they get close to the capacity of the media.

I thought you needed the 2 seconds between tracks to fit the CD audio norms. :?

I make CDs all the time without any 2-second gaps (live recordings where dead space between selections would be pretty obvious) and have never had any issues with any CD players.

I have discovered, however, that if I burn TY disks at 48x, they play fine everywhere but in my wife's Lincoln and a friend's Lexus. Happily, I discovered that the disk burned at 24x would work fine. With a Verbatim blank, 48x plays everywhere. Go figure.

A message from Nero when you adjust track gap implies that the FIRST gap should be 2 seconds for best compatibility. The gaps appear in the Nero display as though they follow the tracks but they actually precede them, so the "first" gap actually precedes any audio. If you have say 10 tracks, then there will be only 9 true gaps. Unnecessary confusion.