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harmonyharmony
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« on: 14:28:52, 02-11-2008 » |
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A while ago, on the Grumpy Old Rant Room thread, I was explaining that I was worried about my CD drive in my laptop because it seemed to be having real trouble when playing or ripping CDs. Since then, I think I found the root of the problem.
The CDs in question are from my university's library and have had magnetic strips put onto them. Today, my DVD player (on which I play my CDs domestically) has refused to read a couple of library CDs and so I began to wonder...
Could this be the problem? I rather suspect it might.
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #1 on: 14:45:12, 02-11-2008 » |
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This could well be a coincidence because the DVD player is now refusing to read any CD.
Haven't tried DVDs yet - too scared.
CD player is reasonably happy playing a new CD, fresh from the shrinkwrap, but still making some weird noises.
My worse fear is that these discs are somehow affecting the drives and that they are behind the recent eccentric behaviour of my laptop drive, and behind the failure of my DVD player. Is this possible?
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #2 on: 15:01:28, 02-11-2008 » |
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Putting magnetic strips on the discs themselves sounds to me like a pretty ill-advised thing for a library to do, but I'm no expert.
Presumably if they've caused problems for two separate pieces of playback equipment that you own, they would also have created similar difficulties for other users. Is there anyone else around who borrows CDs from the same library, that you could ask about this?
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #3 on: 15:04:41, 02-11-2008 » |
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I will do.
IIRC, Durham University does the same to its CDs, so I'm presuming that someone somewhere has thought of this and decided that it's worth it.
I'm hoping that it's just a coincidence that the DVD player's decided to give up this week. It is about five years old so I suppose it's not a complete surprise that it might be feeling its age.
I'll ask around though, and ask our technicians at work.
I think I know what this month's pay rise is going to be spent on...
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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David_Underdown
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« Reply #4 on: 15:13:27, 03-11-2008 » |
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CDs/DVDs use laser light to read the disc, so magnetic strips shouldn't affect the reading of the disc that I can think of. Unless it's thick enough to actually catch on something in the mechanism of the drive?
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David
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Ruby2
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« Reply #5 on: 15:16:56, 03-11-2008 » |
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I've had CDs from local public libraries that wouldn't play because they were scratched to ****. What sort of condition are the ones from the university library in?
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"Two wrongs don't make a right. But three rights do make a left." - Rohan Candappa
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Kittybriton
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« Reply #6 on: 21:16:46, 03-11-2008 » |
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CDs/DVDs use laser light to read the disc, so magnetic strips shouldn't affect the reading of the disc that I can think of. Unless it's thick enough to actually catch on something in the mechanism of the drive?
It does seem like a risk. I was putting homemade labels on some of my disks because I find my typical marker scrawl unsightly, but then I found that the laptop was having serious indigestion with them, which didn't happen with unlabelled disks. I assume that the problem arose with the laptop because space is at a premium, and just an extra layer of paper can cause difficulties which haven't occurred (touch Formica) in the older desktop. |
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Click me -> About meor me -> my handmade storeNo, I'm not a complete idiot. I'm only a halfwit. In fact I'm actually a catfish. |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #7 on: 21:21:00, 03-11-2008 » |
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There's also that at least on some discs the information is in a coating on the label side. I imagine sticking something to that (or even more so, removing it again) might be a dodgy prospect.
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time_is_now
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« Reply #8 on: 22:04:10, 03-11-2008 » |
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It also occurs to me that if the strip is off-centre (which it has to be, really, since there's a hole at the centre which can't be covered over) then it's going to unbalance the CD, which will hardly help the spinning speed to remain constant.
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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harmonyharmony
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« Reply #9 on: 23:22:08, 03-11-2008 » |
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But that shouldn't affect the drive itself surely? It should just make it hard for a drive to read.
I'm going to buy a new CD player. I have a feeling I may be calling upon a certain member to aid me in this!
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'is this all we can do?' anonymous student of the University of Berkeley, California quoted in H. Draper, 'The new student revolt' (New York: Grove Press, 1965) http://www.myspace.com/itensemble |
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Andy D
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« Reply #10 on: 00:34:46, 04-11-2008 » |
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Brum Music Library uses a magnetic strip security system. I've just looked at a CD and there are TWO strips symmetrically placed - so presumably no imbalance when spinning. It does however have a couple of paper labels which are not balanced by similar labels diametrically opposite.
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Bryn
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« Reply #11 on: 00:52:08, 04-11-2008 » |
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But that shouldn't affect the drive itself surely? It should just make it hard for a drive to read.
I'm going to buy a new CD player. I have a feeling I may be calling upon a certain member to aid me in this!
It most certainly will affect the drive, hh. The stress such eccentric loading imposes on the spindle bearing can lead very quickly to wear which in turn leads to wobble and consequent problems with laser tracking. Indeed, the wear could lead to early death for your player.  I complained about this kind of labeling at our local library a couple of decades ago, and to give them due credit, they took the matter on board and went over to writing on the top surface of the discs with pens produced for the job. There used to be a fashion for sticking 'protective' adhesive film rings on the top surface of CDs. That too was a big mistake. It does not take much imbalance to do a lot of damage when the sort of rotational rates found in CD players is involved. |
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Andy D
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« Reply #12 on: 10:50:33, 04-11-2008 » |
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There used to be a fashion for sticking 'protective' adhesive film rings on the top surface of CDs. That too was a big mistake. It does not take much imbalance to do a lot of damage when the sort of rotational rates found in CD players is involved.
Brum music library does this as well, it covers virtually the whole CD They're there to prevent people ripping off the magnetic strips, since ripping off the adhesive ring is very difficult and can virtually destroy the disc. Perhaps I'm justified, for the sake of my CD drives, in only spinning each library CD once when I copy it to a hard drive  |
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