The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #117615   Message #2535538
Posted By: JohnInKansas
08-Jan-09 - 07:09 PM
Thread Name: CD-R Questions
Subject: RE: CD-R Questions
Not directly to any point of importance here but:

Some people claim to have good luck with the stick on labels but they will not play in my truck.

Most players designed for use in vehicles use (or did a while back) a "damper" which is usually a small felt pad mounted on a light spring that rides on the top surface of the disk at the outer edge to keep the disk from bouncing around. A label that goes "clear to the edge" may snag or otherwise hang up on the damper and prevent the disk from playing.

In worst case, the damper rips little bits of the label off and jams everything up. The "little bits" don't have to be big enough to be conspicuous, as long as they can knock the disk cockeyed (while it's spinning it only takes a twitch) so that the disk itself wedges into something.

If you can use labels that leave a perfectly concentric clear outer rim about an eighth inch wide, this particular problem doesn't usually cause failure in the drive (or at least that's what I've been told by those who claim to know).

It's been reported that even some "direct printed" CDs can have trouble with this "feature" if the ink runs too close to the rim.

John