CD-Rs can't be played on all CD and DVD players

["dsatz" <dsatz@xxxxxxx>]

In answer to Sheila Krynski's inquiry--

This problem is inherent in the CD-R medium.
There is nothing you can do to insure that a CD-R
will play on all CD players, except to select CD
players which are known not to have problems in
this regard.  (Among the worst:  older NEC and
Kenwood players.)  Also, make sure that you
aren't recording on "rewriteable" CD-R blanks,
because their reflectivity is even lower than that
of the usual "write-once" CD-Rs.  The low (~35%)
reflectivity of CD-Rs is the cause of the problem.

Note also that many DVD players will not play
CD-Rs (or not reliably), including many which
will play pressed (or "silver") CDs.  Again, there's
nothing much to be done about this.

A particular combination of blank discs and your
CD-R burner may improve matters in particular
instances, but please do not take seriously any claims
that such-and-such brand of blanks can solve this
problem in any general way.  It could do so only if
the blank had significantly higher reflectivity than
any CD-R blank to date has ever had.

The brand of blank I use most frequently (Kodak)
will sometimes be unplayable on one or another
player; using an alternate brand of blank (TDK)
has always solved the problem _for that player
alone_.  But I have also had CDs made with TDK
blanks be unplayable, and switching to Kodak
cured the problem.

Best regards,
David Satz