Do CD-Rs damage a Sega CD?

[Cinder6]

I've broken down and downloaded a ROM of Snatcher, since it's unlikely I'll ever buy it soon (plus, I want to see if it's worth spending the money on). So now I have a question: I read last night (here, in fact) that playing CD-Rs on a TurboDuo/TG-CD will damage the lens--does the same hold true for the Sega CD?

Thanks

[c2000]

I don't think so..

[Jorpho]

I read last night (here, in fact) that playing CD-Rs on a TurboDuo/TG-CD will damage the lens

o rly?

[CosmicMonkey]

Just use decent quality branded media and burn the disc as slow as possible.

[G-Boobie]

Yeah. whoever told you that a CD-R will damage the lens of anything is a nutter.

Some early lenses might not read a burn, but damage them? How? Riddle me this.

[COUNT SMRIFNACK]

Go check out the PCEngineFX board and search " cd-r laser" and read some of the posts it brings up. The poorer quality of the cd-r causes the laser to work harder and sometimes to get mis aligned. It happens. Trust me.

[ssjlance]

First hand experience here?

Anyways, I've used burned media in almost all of my CD consoles, and never had anything bad happen. But as said, I always use good/decent quality burning media and burn as slow as possible. Currently, the slowest my laptop's drive can do is 8X. I use 4X when possible.

[Ze_ro]

Go check out the PCEngineFX board and search " cd-r laser" and read some of the posts it brings up. The poorer quality of the cd-r causes the laser to work harder and sometimes to get mis aligned. It happens. Trust me.

How exactly does a laser "work harder"? It's a beam of light.

It's possible that it might have a hard time reading poor quality discs and have to re-read a particular track, but this would cause fatigue to the motors that move the laser, not the lens itself or any nonsense like that. If you're worried about that, I would think the best thing would be to periodically (maybe once a year) open the system and clean/lubricate the appropriate gears to keep things in good, working order.

Personally, I think the whole "CD-R's damage systems" is just BS that companies want you to believe so you don't pirate stuff.

And PCEngineFX is a bad source for stuff like this. NEC's systems seem to have poor quality laser assemblies to begin with. Many Duo's die a premature death even without reading a CD-R in their life.

--Zero

[DefaultGen]

.....

[RCM]

You might want to try running a Genesis emulator off of your PC, at least there won't be any question of risk in terms of ruining your drive.

[shadowkn55]

How exactly does a laser "work harder"? It's a beam of light.

It's possible that it might have a hard time reading poor quality discs and have to re-read a particular track, but this would cause fatigue to the motors that move the laser, not the lens itself or any nonsense like that. If you're worried about that, I would think the best thing would be to periodically (maybe once a year) open the system and clean/lubricate the appropriate gears to keep things in good, working order.

Personally, I think the whole "CD-R's damage systems" is just BS that companies want you to believe so you don't pirate stuff.

The beam of light needs to be reflected off the disc so the data can be read back. CD-R's of poorer quality have lower levels of reflectivity and thus cause the laser to increase the intensity of light so that the reflected light comes back at an acceptable level. This is where the "damage" is caused from using cheap blanks. It is sending more current through the diode than it is normally spec'ed to do. The quality of the burner is just as important as the media. (ie. my laptop burner doesn't hold a candle to my desktop Pioneer drive)

[Jorpho]

CD-R's of poorer quality have lower levels of reflectivity and thus cause the laser to increase the intensity of light so that the reflected light comes back at an acceptable level. This is where the "damage" is caused from using cheap blanks. It is sending more current through the diode than it is normally spec'ed to do.

I have never heard of a drive increasing its laser power in response to its inability to read a disc. Pardon me if I say poppycock.

[COUNT SMRIFNACK]

He's right, it has to do with the cd-r's having lower reflectivity. There are certain cd-r's that are made differently and supposedly don't cause these problems.
It doesn't matter if you don't believe this to be an issue. It is up to the person making the decision to use cd-r's or not. If you want to risk it, go ahead.
Just know that it is accepted in the TG/PCEngine community that copied cds can cause damage to cd systems.
I used a cd-r for the first time last week, on a perfectly great working TG CD unit. The cd-r was burned to fast I think and it took a long time to load. When it did run, it had odd load noises at times. Then the background audio dropped out. In less than 30 minutes of playing it I quit. Then next day I went to play a normal cd game and the unit still experiences the audio drop. The laser was "stressed" and is mis aligned to an extent, but not ruined. But I still have to pay someone to fix it.

[Richter Belmount]

no no its all how your burn the cdr!

[neuropolitique]

All this is true. But there is even worse that can happen when using a CD-R. A poor quality CD-R not only causes the Drive to increase the power of the laser, but it also has to re-read the same data sometimes because it didn't get it all the first time. Couple that with the increase in laser power and you can actually burn right through the disc and damage the drive on the other side.

Play it safe. Use only high quality, super reflective CD-R media. Even though only a few companies actually produce CD-Rs, the quality can be affected by rebranding!

[digitalpress]

Is it still April 1st?

C'mon... I KNOW we're smarter than this.

Lasers don't RESPOND. They READ. The only stress on a laser is from its movement up and down the rail. Does it see something it doesn't understand and suddenly blow up? No. On a good system it backs up and tries again. Still doesn't understand? What does the brain say... try again or give up?

If you're willing to sit there as your laser and its brain tell each other "try again" one hundred times then YEAH, you're subjecting your laser to a permanent issue. What's happening is you are making your laser read the same spot on a CD over and over and over. That's a quick way to age a laser.

Imagine if you were asked to walk to the corner shop to pick up a loaf of bread. You head over there only to find that the corner shop no longer exists. Never mind that, try again. Seriously, who sits at their drive longer than 3 minutes waiting for this to happen? On a normal day, looking for something that exists, your laser will succeed. But suddenly faced with your crappy scratched or badly burned CD-R's... could be a very "aging" day.

And in these cases it will try and try and try anyway... still, it will probably outlive most normal humans. And by "normal" I mean the kind who don't continually stress-test their laser with crappy scratched or badly burned CD-R's.

[Daria]

Even if extended use could damage a laser... it's Snatcher. How much of the game are you planning on playing? Playing through one 10 to 15 hour game (just guessing on the average length of an adventure title) is a drop in the bucket compared to the number of hours your system will work through out it's lifetime. Quit antagonizing and play your burn already. :P

[Poofta!]

laser diodes are only spec for a certain voltage/frequency. they WILL NOT and CAN NOT work outside of their means. a laser's life is always quoted as if it were to work at max voltage/frequency. NEC is known to use cheaply made lasers in all their cd products in the early 90s. including pc drives. do not buy into this BS. this is why the internet sucks -- anyone with a keyboard has the potential to be believed.

[shadowkn55]

laser diodes are only spec for a certain voltage/frequency. they WILL NOT and CAN NOT work outside of their means.

That assumes the device has the necessary circuitry to prevent over voltage (which most do). Late model fat ps2's (v9, v10) used an inferior protection circuit and early model slim ps2's (v12) lacked one altogether due to Sony trying to cut costs. These caused the premature deaths of modded systems and even a few unmodded systems. The romeo mod and comsoft laser fix were created out necessity to address these problems.

[TheDomesticInstitution]

All this is true. But there is even worse that can happen when using a CD-R. A poor quality CD-R not only causes the Drive to increase the power of the laser, but it also has to re-read the same data sometimes because it didn't get it all the first time. Couple that with the increase in laser power and you can actually burn right through the disc and damage the drive on the other side.

Play it safe. Use only high quality, super reflective CD-R media. Even though only a few companies actually produce CD-Rs, the quality can be affected by rebranding!

You speak the truth. In fact, one time, not only did my PSX burn through and damage the other side of the drive- it burned a hole through the top of the CD door and left a small dot in the faux-wood grain of my entertainment center.

The only sure fire way to test the quality of the reflective layer of a CD-R is to compare it next to a bathroom mirror. Follow these simple steps to insure optimum luminosity.

1. Make ! sure you have a 75 watt incandescent light bulb (in a lamp of course !)
2. Plug it in next to your bathroom mirror and turn it on. !
3.Take the CD-R and place it next to the mirror (with the lamp bulb between the mirror and disc)
4. Take a light meter, and measure the light reflected off both the mirror and disc.
5. If the mirror and CD-R are ! within 1 F-stop (or the CD is within 75% of relative infrared reflected light spectrum) then the CD is of a superior quality.
6. Or if you don't have a light meter but have access to a digital ultraviolet spectrograph, then just measure the color temperature of the reflected light (provided it's with a neutral light source of 5000K) and determine if ! it's within 500K tolerance of a 6500k benchmark.

It's really ! that simple.