letters to the editor

Emedia Professional, June, 1999

Live in the Now ...

Living in the past, I'll say. Bob Starrett was right on the money with his March CD WRITER column, "Living in the Past," which lamented the difficulties of Windows CD recording. Try using a Macintosh and Toast and you'll wonder why in the world so many people are busy blasting their feet off with Microsoft's lousy OS. I'm not a zealot, just a system administrator who supports Windows 95/NT, MacOS, and UNIX, and there is no question in my mind which works best. If you want to simply accomplish some task, with minimal fuss, use a Mac. If you enjoy tinkering, raising your blood pressure, and possibly throwing your equipment out the window in frustration--well, you decide.

Bob Schatzman

... Burn on the Mac

First off, I want to say that I enjoy your magazine very much. I also enjoy Bob Starrett and Dana Parker columns in particular. I was reading "Living in the Past," this month's installment of THE CD WRITER, wherein Mr. Starrett bemoans the erratic behavior of his PC-based CD-R systems and concludes the "perfect" system is a Pentium running MS-DOS 6.22 with a Philips CDD 522 CD-R and Personal Scribe software.

I would like to offer another suggestion, one I'm sure you'll hear repeated quite a bit. I've been creating CD-R content for about five years on various Macintoshes from a lowly 660AV to the next-to-most-recent PowerMac G3 Desktop, using first a Pinnacle Micro RCD-101, then a Yamaha 400tx and now a Yamaha 4260tx. My software of choice is Adaptec Toast, which is the favorite by a wide margin in the Mac market. In all that time, I can honestly say I've only experienced two failures: one time when I stupidly tried to duplicate a CD from a 4X CD-ROM to a 4X CD-R, and the other early on when I created a strange multisession hybrid disc that had the bizarre effect of causing PC CD-ROM drives to spin faster and faster. But I've never experienced driver failures, weird discs (besides that one), or other problems. I can make pure Mac, ISO 9600, hybrids, XA, and Video CD discs as well as mixing in almost any audio track. I find the setup so reliable that I'm more inclined to move my PC files to a Mac via Ethernet, then bum the CD on the Mac. I make CD-Rs with almost no more thought than writing to a Zip disk and with about as many problems--or perhaps less.

I know that most of your readership is PC-oriented, and probably always will be, but I think it's important that knowledge of this alternative at least be made available.

Thanks for the excellent articles.

Jeff Lewis

Any Redress for CD Redressing?

Say I bought a commercially available CD in the store. The CD is a compilation of love songs. With all these new accessories available for CD-R labeling, I decide to "change" the appearance of the CD image by stickering a photo of myself and my wife on the actual CD, created with the CD labeler. In addition, I remove the booklet and "create" a new booklet with our photos, personal notes, etc. I present this as a gift to my wife for a special occasion. The music itself has not been duplicated or transferred; only the images have changed from the original. Have I infringed on intellectual property? And let's say I show the disc to a friend and he asks me to create one for his wife, and I charge him $20 for my troubles. In that case am I liable?

Victor French

CD WRITER columnist Bob Starrett responds, "As for your first question--altering the cover to make the disc a more personal gift--I wouldn't think you'd be in violation. You own the CD--you can change it, destroy it, use it as an ornament, play it, whatever you want. As for your second question--repeating the process for a friend--if by `create' you mean buy another CD and modify it, that would seem to be an acceptable use as well. If you mean copy the one you have and dress it up, then I think there is a problem."

The 8X Media Match Game

I'm looking for a list of media that have been proven to work with the new Plextor 8X CD recorder--proven, that is, in testing by any of your contributors or editorial staff. All media I've tried worked perfectly at 8X: TDK, various Taiyo Yuden derivatives (Sony, Philips Premium, some BASF), Kodak, and nonbranded (including "Lead data" and others).

Have you had similar success with these, or discovered any others?

Lisa Whelchel Peekskill, New York

In Hugh Bennett's review of Plextor's Plex-Writer 8/20 recorder (an Editor's Choice selection in the March 1999 issue), he cites the following media brands as having proven compatible with the Plextor drive during testing: Eastman Kodak, Fuji, Mitsui, Ricoh, Taiyo Yuden, and TDK Those interested in finding discussion of the technical issues involved in accrediting media for 8X recording can read Bennett's review in the March print edition of EMedia or on the emedialive Web site at http://www.emedialive.com/awards/ award23.html. For the latest information on new media brands claimed as compatible by Plextor, stay tuned to http://www.plextor.com/ 8xmedia.htm.

Flattery Will Get You Everywhere ...