RE: [AV Media Matters] CD's Robust nature-cigarette burns

[dynafilm@yahoo.com]

10 years ago when I was working in an audio video
store we used to play back very badly usedcds on a B+)
(Bang and Olufsen) cd player to demonstrate the error
correction. The crowning achievement of the player
came when it  was asked to play a cd that had a small
cigarette burn. It did!
Who's to say  what will hold up and what willnot? I
recently picked up a free 8-track recorder+player and
tapes-after 30 years those badly designed  cartridges
stillplay as well!

Sally Fisher

--- James Lindner <jim@vidipax.com> wrote:

>A slightly different story - but one I can personally vouch for.
>Leah - the daughter of my partner JoAnn Watson - came home from
>school with a CD-R that a friend had made. As many of you know
>teenagers share EVERYTHING - and this was a borrowed CD-R. When I
>first saw it I noted that it looked a little different - but did not
>think much of it. Later when she took it out I noted that an entire
>section of the CD-R had delaminated. A section about 1" in diameter
>of the foil was completely missing - and some of the rest was
>peeling too - but this huge piece was totally gone. It was about
>midway between the index ring and the outer diameter (did not touch
>the index). AND the most amazing thing to me was that the darn thing
>played!! I asked Leah whether it acted strange - she did not notice
>anything unusual - although a couple of the songs did not play back
>- but the rest did - on plain old consumer type CD player both
>portable and home stereo types. I had never seen a CDR delaminate
>like this - but of course with a teenager it was thrown into a
>school backpack with everything else with NO protection whatsoever -
>so this did not totally surprise me - but the fact that the darn
>thing played really did surprise me. I asked her if I could keep it
>for some of my talks -but she had to return it to her friend. (Darn
>- lose more samples that way). But I must say that I was (and am)
>pretty amazed that it would play at all with a huge hole in it.
>
>>jim