Heres yall another one...

[walkin jack]

We ordered a lot of CDs for Christmas from Walmart and Amazon. Most of them don't play. We reordered and most of the replacements don't play either. No way this isn't affecting lots of folks. Any one else having this problem or heard of anyone having it. Soooo what do we do now, too late for refunds. A screen comes up that says the disc may not be finished, whatever that means.

 

[UncleEd]

One thought: Those CDs you ordered,
did it say anywhere they weren't
compatible with U.S. electronics or
were designed for overseas use?

 

[LVSteve]

What won't they play on, a computer or a sound system?

 

[swsig]

Have you tried them in more than one CD player? If you have one in your car, try it. Possibly yours is defective. Also, UncleEd may be on to something. You may have gotten international versions which are not compatible with CD players built for US use. Maybe that's why all the cool kids these days are going back to vinyl records. They work with any turntable and needle.

 

[oldbrownhat]

...A screen comes up that says the disc may not be finished, whatever that means.

This brings up a vague memory from when I worked as a freelance rec. engineer and burned CDs for my clients. The machine had to write other information aside from just the audio tracks, such as the TOC (Table of Contents) which included track #, gaps between tracks and other information, As I recall it also had to write some information to tell the CD player when the CD was done. I think it's like formatting a USB stick or a HD.

But this shouldn't be a problem on commerically-manufactured (ie mass-produced) CDs as they are "stamped"(like an LP) from a master, rather than a one-off done on a CD burner from a computer. I would be inclined to suspect that your CDs may not be totally legit, unless there was a problem with the master CD used for that run. Are they new or used, and in standard CD cases with insert booklets?

 

[DWalt]

Music CDs do not have region codes. Any CD made anywhere on Earth should play on any CD player on Earth. If you have tried your CDs on other players with the same results, the CDs must be defective in some way. But I don't know how that could happen.

 

[MRB1]

I sometimes run into that with walmart DVDs. They play as expected until about half way through then locks up with some message that the player isn't authorized to play the disk. Or something like that. I figured WM had bought a batch of pirated disks.

 

[Rustyt1953]

DWalt speaks truth. CDs aren't region locked.

 

[Onomea]

My bet's on the CD player being the issue. I had to replace a DVD player recently that had conked out.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

My bet is that ordering on line from Walmart and Amazon gives a high probability of fakery. Kinda like buying a Rolex off of Amazon

 

[oldbrownhat]

Music CDs do not have region codes. Any CD made anywhere on Earth should play on any CD player on Earth...

True, unlike DVDs. But I remember - perhaps 20+ years ago - there was a joke going around about how the water drained from the sinks in the other direction in OZ and NZ, and that CD players likewise rotated backwards

 

[YeshuaIsa53]

We ordered a few DVDs from Wally World. One was listed as "Preowned", but was only $4.76 no shipping. I took a Five dollar gamble, but it is scratched and stops frequently. All the rest are fine.

 

[Golddollar]

I had some Batman series movies on DVD in a sealed container and none of them worked. I had no recollection of where I got them so I just ended up tossing them.

 

[Rustyt1953]

Jack, I am sorry for your disappointment. I can't remember the last time I used an audio CD. There are none in my house.

Technology marches on.

 

[BC38]

DVDs are recorded in either PAL or NTSC format. The two formats are NOT compatible, so you have to buy disks recorded in the format that your DVD player can play.
CD's don't have that kind of compatibility issues. A properly recorded CD should work in any CD/DVD player. BUT they do have to include the proper encoding that tells the CD player the bitrate, number of tracks, lead ins & lead outs (gaps beteen tracks), where each track begins and ends, etc.
If your CDs don't play, either your CD player has a problem, or you have CDs that were not recorded/encoded correctly.
One common problem with a CD player that hasn't been used for a long time is dust accumulated on the lenses. Have you tried cleaning the CD player? They make kits to clean the lenses...

 

[LVSteve]

Thinking again, the message "disc may not be finished" implies to me that the CDs are bootlegs.

 

[cndrdk]

Thinking again, the message "disc may not be finished" implies to me that the CDs are bootlegs.

Years ago we had a fairly expensive name brand CD/Tape/Radio sound system that would play factory CD perfectly. I we tried to play a CD that someone had made themselves, would not work. They would play perfectly in the car or small CD player, but would just not work in the nice sound system.

 

[BC38]

Thinking again, the message "disc may not be finished" implies to me that the CDs are bootlegs.

Very strong possibility. When you "burn" a CD-R (R=recordable) you have to tell the program used to write the CD to "finalize" the disk. Basically tell it where to mark the end of the recording and encode it so that nothing more can be recorded to the disk.

It is pretty easy to tell if a disk was created on a CD-R by looking at the disk. The recorded side is darker - less reflective - in appearance. If you compare it to a regular CD the difference is obvious.

If the recorded side is really silver-shiny in appearance then it isn't a CD-R and the error is probably due to a manufacturing defect rather than because it is a "pirated" counterfeit.

 

[GaryS]

Hey, my Rolx watch works fine. Twice a day that is.

My bet is that ordering on line from Walmart and Amazon gives a high probability of fakery. Kinda like buying a Rolex off of Amazon

 

[Breakaway500]

I bought the whole Barney Miller TV series on DVD (new) only to find season 5 was corrupt. Ive never had a bad cd other than an old scratched one.