"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote in message
...
Packet-writing applications are fine as long as the CDs are for
your own use
only, but they cannot be read by anyone else who does not have
the software
used to write the CDs. I have personally experienced this. You
may not be
aware of it, but Graham is not only a Word MVP but also very
knowledgeable
about CD issues (esp. wrt music CDs). See
http://www.gmayor.com/CDR_Pages.htm

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
Word MVP FAQ site: http://word.mvps.org
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I'm surpised at you, Suzanne, and very disappointed! Your advice
is usually dead on and accurate: That's entirely wrong about
having to use them on the same machine they were burned on, and
certainly not the norm with any reasonable packet writing
application. What you say is true ONLY IF the user should decide
to not close the CD or to make it readable in other computers, so
they may continue to add data to them without losing previously
written data. Or, they choose some strange format. That's why
the end of writing choices are always a form of "leave as is", or
Close the CD, or Close and Write Protect the CD so it can't be
written to again". Closing a CD adds the toc and headers
required for standard CD readability. There are sometimes a
couple other options also and to date I've never seen an
application where those munues weren't turned on by default;
you'd have to turn off the notices manually; they're usually in
the Eject dialogs. A tracking misalignment could also cause
issues of course, and there are other reasons there could be
problems, but the packet-writing software has nothing to do with
those. It works well and as advertised unless you're using some
amateur's unknown works.

I can appreciate your supporting a fellow mvp, but what you say
just isn't true. I create CDs and DVDs with Roxio and/or Movie
Factory and those disks are readable in ANY computer to date to
which I;ve delivered them, which is approximately 200 or a little
less, that they've been played on, and are also, with Movie
Factory, playable in any reasonably recent desktop CD/DVD player,
that supports the CD/DVD formats. In fact, some will even play
JPGs and a couple other formats.
All the software has to do is meet the specs of the relevantly
colored book; it's not really rocket science.

I respectfully submit that you, and at least one other MVP here,
must have some very outdated experience with them. I've been
doing this for going on two years and a few months now, with zero
problems from the burning process.
It CAN be a problem if one isn't willing to RTFM, or at least
the onscreen instructions and menu notices and dialogs. Oh, and
I did have a batch of 50 once that were a problem; but that was
media problem, not software.

Oh, and Graham apparently isn't very "up" on CD background
either, because he's wrong and gave the same misinformation you
just parroted.

Regards,

Pop