
Windows Media Player CDs don't play in my car?Dave, I'm using the latest release of Microsoft Window Media Player and am having a problem I thought you could help me with: the CDs that I burn in Media Player don't work on my car's CD player. How do I fix this problem? There are a bunch of reasons that your CDs might not work in your car. First question, though: does the CD work on your computer? If not, then you might be burning it incorrectly or have a spate of bad media. If the disk does work, though, then you probably have a media formatting problem that's related to how you're burning the disk itself. For an exact answer in this situation, I popped over to the Microsoft support site to see what they recommend in this situation, and here's their best advice... Your CD player might not be able to play the CD for several reasons, including the following:
Review the documentation that came with your CD player to determine its playback capabilities, and then do one of the following:
If your CD player can't play data CDs that haven't been finalized, you must use another CD burning or authoring software program to burn a finalized data CD. You can learn more about this complex subject at the Windows Media Knowledge Center.
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Never miss another useful Q&A article again! Subscribe to AskDaveTaylor with Google Reader. I had this problem with my Nissan Titan. I inquired at my favorite computer shop and was told to burn the CD at the lowest speed possible on my burner. I tried it, now my CD plays. I think it has something to do with the quality of the burn at the slower speed. Posted by: R W Driskill at March 5, 2005 12:05 PMGreat point, R.W. Modern CD burning software has "overrun protection" and automatically prevent this from happening, but the built-in burning software in XP might just blindly stream data to the CD device as fast as you specify, without checking to see if it's inundating the device and consequently producing burn errors. I always burn at slower speeds than my software recommends, actually, just for good luck. :-) Posted by: Dave Taylor at March 5, 2005 4:10 PMI have trouble using burned CD in a GM truck only if I put a paper lable on them. OK if no label. Posted by: Ray at March 6, 2005 3:51 PMAn excellent point, Ray. While it may be visibly cool to have printed labels on your burned CDs, you'll notice that commercial CDs have the image screened onto the plastic, so that there's no issue with the paper curling and the disk not spinning properly or, worse, getting stuck in your player. Posted by: Dave Taylor at March 6, 2005 11:19 PMYou mention "buffer overrun", but burning at a slower speed can also prevent "buffer underrun", probably more common with very high-speed burners. In essence, the drive can process the data in the buffer faster than the burning software can supply it, so the buffer becomes completely empty and the drive just writes garbage data. The result is a CD that won't play on any player. Setting the drive's burn speed to a lower rate will ensure that the software can keep up with the hardware. --Bob. Posted by: Bob Jonkman at March 7, 2005 3:39 PMAh, thanks for that clarification, Bob. Seems like a pretty poor interface when you have to get the speed "just so" for it to not produce garbage, I must say! Posted by: Dave Taylor at March 7, 2005 3:54 PMsome cds dont work on my stereo is it because the steroe is old? Posted by: bob at October 9, 2005 7:55 PMThat's quite possible, Bob. Some CD players are very picky about computer-burned CDs. Make sure you're making Audio CD format disks when you burn too! Posted by: Dave Taylor at October 11, 2005 6:51 AMThanks for giving that great answer on playing mp3's on portable cd players. I want to buy a religious audio disk that's in mp3 format and was wondering if it will play on my Sony portable radio. Take Care. hurel P.S: I thought maybe that math was a playful trick question and was wondering if you wanted the answer in digital,hexidecimal or Octal. :) Posted by: hurel (female) at August 19, 2006 3:34 PMi have a 94 pontiac grand prix and not all burned cds work in the factory cd player. i have well over 150 burned cds and only 2 work in the cd player. however, factory cds work fine. ive tried different brands of cds and cleaning the laser reader. if you have any helpful tips i would love a comment! Thanks: adawg!! Posted by: adawg at September 11, 2006 5:18 PMI am using WMP9 with Nero Fast Burning Plug-In to make audio CD's. Of the 4 CDs I made, 3 are perfect, but one plays 10 of 18 songs in the car, then starts stuttering on the 10th track, and ultimately stops, not playing at all during the 10th track through the 18th track. I tried using different CD's (3) and they all turned out the same. Playing on the computer (Windows XP Home) has all the tracks there and plays with no problem. I have even tried replacing the track with a different song where the problem begins, but each time the same thing happens. They are all MP3 files with no copy protection. Also, I have tried different car CD players....all results the same. Any suggestions? Posted by: Andrew at September 29, 2006 11:58 PMHi Dave I use media player 11. I bought music from Walmart in WMA format. How can I convert it to mp3 format to use on my Sony telephone/mp3 player? Thank you. Posted by: Joe at March 4, 2007 11:44 AMI use media player 11. I bought music from Walmart in WMA format. How can I convert it to mp3 format to use on my Sony telephone/mp3 player? Thank you. Posted by: Joe at March 4, 2007 12:11 PMi want know how to copy to cd in windows media player 11 Posted by: sali at March 9, 2007 1:38 PMDear Sir I am talking about my CD Audio player mucic system and not the cd player of my computor. Can my audio cd player be converted into mp3 player Posted by: Nadia at March 10, 2007 6:04 AMI'm totally clueless about this... I found a website where the music files are mp3. How do i convert mp3 to a cd? Can I do it with the windows media player? what's the best software to use...especially if it's free? Thanks. Posted by: erica at April 1, 2007 11:36 AM Hello, I have windows XP & a dell computer. can't get windows media center to create my own cds. also tried windows media player & roxio. i used to be able to do it w/windows 98 just drag & drop. i need something simple if there is such a thing. if nothing else pls recommend some software that i can use to create my personal cds with selected music from my cds. also can i delete the music that came with the program in categories of my album, artists, genre etc.? thanks. for a great website i just happen to stumble upon. Posted by: barb at August 15, 2007 12:10 PMI am having audio problems with Windows Media Player 11. The sound is very "staticky" or has a sound of the speakers being over driven. My OS is Win ProXP SP2, my sound card is Creative SB Live (don't know release). I don't have this problem with any of the other playback devices, such as QuickTime, Creative Player, Music Match. Thanks. Posted by: Keith Jones at August 27, 2007 6:53 AMMy windows media player doesn't play anything it syas "Opening nedia" and then says "ready" but nothing happens this usually happens when I try to play videos from the internet. Does it make a diference whether you are on a wirkless network or not?b Also Windows Media Center wo'nt paly videos. Do you know what's wrong? It did work for a while but not now. Help would be much appreciated. No really REALLY it would be appreciated. THANK YOU. Posted by: a at September 21, 2007 8:09 AMmy windows media player (ver 11) cant burn anything at all. When I put in a cd-r it still says insert a blank CD. when i had the previos ver i could burn with that but with this media player i cant burn at all. Does any1 no what is wrong with it Posted by: B.G at November 4, 2007 11:57 PMDave Just a quick note to say thanks for your help, my CD's now play in the car. It was a simple thing I did wrong but being a computer thickie, your advice was a real help. Thanks again Kind regards Ian Posted by: Ian Howarth at November 30, 2007 12:58 PMI had a CD that I used for five years in my car. Bought a Vista equipped computer. Put CD into it just to see if it wud play and then when I tried to play it in car again, it kept ejecting. Posted by: Dave at March 12, 2008 8:49 PMdave, in windows media player (10) i try to burn an audio CD for my mom but it stops when i click start burn and says "inspecting" next to the first song and on the other side goes back to: No files on the CD. Please answer i need CD for tomorrow! Posted by: nik at May 10, 2008 1:47 PMsrry i got it it was bcause i had 2 songs in the list that werent on my computer bcause of an entirely different problem i havent fixed yet (All 5 star songs disapear from my hard drive?) ne ways thank you anyways peace :ΒΆ Posted by: nik at May 10, 2008 1:52 PMno, dave, its Vista. I've been burning CDs for years using itunes on XP and playing them in my car. the second i got Vista, the same stack of CDs will no longer play. apparently, this is a widespread problem. Posted by: Tom at June 11, 2008 7:34 AMHello Dave, Thanks, Andy Posted by: Andy at June 13, 2008 3:33 PMOK, I am at my wit's end. I have tried reconverting all 156 songs thru an mp3 converter to get them all in the same converter definition. Still my Kenwood only sees 80. Have tried the slowest burn setting, different brands of CD's, and different computers and burner programs. Tried putting files in a folder, and not putting them in a folder. Tried deleting all extraneous album art files. ALL with the same result. Only 1/2 to 2/3rds success. Can some of these MP3's be locked??!! I can't identify if they are. Frustrated.... Andy Posted by: Andy at June 16, 2008 8:21 PMHi I have a peculiar problem in my XP machine. Mp3 files written thru my Samsung DVD writer (model 202j) are not playable in other DVD or audio players. The tracks are jumping and disturbed. These tracks play ok even when you play on the PC from the same CD on which they are written. But not outside the PC. It does not play even in any other PC. What could be the issue? Recently I formatted my C drive and reinstalled the XP afresh and applied all the patches. Still the problem persists. Would appreciate if some one help me out. I have checked, there is no issue with the DVD writer. Thanks. Posted by: KN at August 4, 2008 3:29 AMHi, I also cannot play my home made CDs in my car. I've done all of the above tweaking. I've made an MP3 and a WMA copies at slow speed with Ativa brand cd and now Maxell. Both sound great in my home cd player and DVD player but don't work in the car. My car CD is a Delco digital/EQ and has a gorgous sound with factory cds. I cleaned the lens with a special cd cleaner several time also. Please help Posted by: Lynda G at August 18, 2008 3:37 PM I have a problem with WMP (V11)in burning CDs of video clips - I have a Dell laptop with Windows XP and I get the following message - 'it is not possible to burn this list of files because all of the files have errors or are missing burn rights. To learn more about the problem click the icon next to each file in the burn list' I've tried to find out more but no icon exists next to the file. I've checked in the file properties and it says the file is not protected. Please can you help. David Posted by: David at September 2, 2008 10:58 AMHi Dave, something really simple. I couldnt play cds that I burnt on win media player. lokked at this page and you gave me the answer, i was burning data cds not audio cds!! thank you for your help. Posted by: Gaz at January 4, 2009 1:37 PMjust converted wma to wav after 2 hours trying,find the file, left click,`save target as`send to desktop and use mp3 to wav convertor BINGO IT WORKS Posted by: fred whan at January 31, 2009 4:37 PMi am burning audio cd using nero. when i play on cd player it doesn't start auto playing. so many times even selecting and playing also not responding. I have dvd player Posted by: kaushik shah at February 10, 2009 5:47 AMdave i need your help. i've burnt cd R's on fast burn and slow burn using windows media player on an XP system. these cd's still won't play in my truck. i've also used nero which i don't like and was unable to get it to play. how do i fix this? Posted by: Richard at April 8, 2009 3:28 PMI would like your help Dave, if you could. All I want to do is burn a Cd on Windows Media Player. I've done it several times before. Now, all of a sudden, it tells me I have to connect a burner and restart the player. My cd burner is internal. My cd drive works, it can plays cds, and on the properties, there is a recording tab and i've enabled cd recording. So what is going on? Posted by: ALM at June 3, 2009 10:27 PMmy whole audio library is in mp3, I have a converter, put them back into .wav so that i could play them in my mazda, I burned them at 8x, (lowest setting on my mac) but when i go to play them, the cd player reads it all as one track and no audio plays. Is my computer burning as data? how do you tell? and how would you change it back to audio on a mac? I was having problems playing a data CD with recorded audio in my CD Player, I tried mp3, wma and wav, nothing worked. Then I saw the free copy of Roxio had a "Make a CD for playing in your CD player" conversion - voila! 5 minutes later I had 3 CDs that worked with no problem. The blank CDs were data CDRs, not audio CDs. They sound great. I did have a weird problem in my car CD player a few years ago. The 'recorded' CDs would get hot and stop playing after a while. Store bought prerecorded CDs would play forever, but the ones I recorded from mp3s would play 30 minutes or so and then get 'hot' or warm and stop playing. No labels, just bare CDs. Had to alternate between store bought and downloaded CDs on long road trips... Posted by: Audio at August 10, 2009 12:05 AMOk, I feel your pain. I have a few mp3 cd players. An older sony(that works), a cheapo Car player, & 2 Durabrand players. Now the Durabrand and the car player are awful(iow cheap). They both support mp3's & Wma's, BUT theyre a pain to use. Say you burned your entire Kenny G/New Kids collection to one disc. One album/song may play while there others are skipped as if non-existent. I think the cause is the variable bit rates of each mp3. One album could be 320K & the Other 128k. I guess it all depends on what your player supports &/or if you can mix and match on one disc. Anyway... My two cents. Peace out~ Jon Posted by: JonWesley at September 1, 2009 3:11 PMsir i have wasted x numbr of cds.... i use nero 6 to burn them... i ve tried other softwares too... in all formats... mine is a sony expload car stereo..... plz suggest..! Posted by: AJAY at September 13, 2009 4:49 AMI have a general question about mp3's and mp3 compatible players. Bare with me, as I try to elaborate. When a cd player claims that it plays mp3's (especially most new 2009 car stereos), does it mean that it only plays mp3 tracks burned in standard cd format on a cd-r, or does it mean that it can read mp3 files on a playable and/or storage disc? I am having problems playing mp3 files on cd-rs. I have even tried dvd-rws (which could be a problems), but I didn't have problems burning them as a playable bulk mp3 file disc. I did more than just store the files, using Vista I used the "Mastered" option when burning the files to cater to newer music players and not to just make a file storage disc. Yet I still am getting an error when I try playing it in my mp3 playable Sony Xplod head unit. It may be the dvd-rws. It may be the brand. But really I just want to know what it truly means when a stereo says it plays mp3s...whether be it file, track or both. 10 to 25 tracks as opposed to 80+ mp3 files. Do most or some stereos have trouble reading large amounts of files on cd-r, cd-rw, dvd-r, dvd-rw?..or do only cd-rs work in mp3 readable stereos? Also, what disc brands do you recommend? Thanks, I hope you can help. =) Posted by: Dustin at October 3, 2009 8:47 PM
I have a lot to say, but ...
I do have a comment, now that you mention it!
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