"Universal" CD burning?

[jesaroj]

I am curious about how to go about making CDs of my images that are "universal."

I had a problem a few months ago with a CD I submitted which could not be opened

on the recipient's computer. Very embarrassing! Even more embarrassing is I had

no idea why she wouldn't have been able to view it - but through my research I

realize the problem was probably as simple as her having a Mac, and me making

the CD in Windows on my PC.

 

Before that problem with my CD, I thought that as long as you saved a file in

the type requested (JPEG in my case) that it would be accessible on any system.

Am I wrong? Are there free download-able programs that would enable me to make

universal CDs?

 

Thank you so much!

Jessica

[frank_skomial]

There is no such a thing as a "universal" CD.

 

Make sure you record at much lower speed than max apeed your burner can, have buffer underrun protection, use good quality CD media, test the CD before Burning in your burning software, and always verify your final CD that is free of problems.

 

While burning CD, make sure you do not run other applications, and your computer is not disturbed by any background processes started randomly from the Internet, or scheduled task.

[Ed_Ingold]

ISO and UDF CDs/DVDs can be read equally well on both PC and MAC systems. Unfortunately, CDs written to emulate floppy disc operation (e.g., InCD discs) can only be read with the software that writes them. There are other issues in graphics files, such as bit-order, in which MAC seems oblivious of the rest of the world.

 

CD/DVD backups are too important to rely on freeware. Buy a reliable program like Nero and go from there.

 

Frank's comments about speed are appropriate. In general, stay at or below 16x for CDs and 8x for DVDs. Be sure to do a file-compare after burning the disc, to catch any gross errors.

[cbender]

I'll second the recommendation for Nero. A properly burned CD or DVD should be useable on Windows, Macs, Linux, etc.

 

Be sure that you are actually burning (and closing out) the disk, not just using some drag-and-drop burn it as you fill it technique. That used to be popular, and I think is still an option on some burning software, but it is not viable if your disk needs to be read on different machines.

[gluteal cleft]

Quite often, burning software defaults to NOT closing a disc after the burn - to make it more convenient for the end users. Every once in a while, I run into a drive (mostly older models) that won't read a disc if it hasn't been closed.

 

Make sure that your software is closing the disc. In fact, choose disc-at-once (or whatever your software calls it), too. Unless their drive is so old that it won't read a CD-R or CD-RW, I've never had any problems so long as the disc was properly closed.

[jesaroj]

Thanks for all the responses! I actually have Nero, but I am not positive that is what I used (that particular time). I'll make sure to use only that, and to follow all the suggestions you've given.

 

Thank you!

[Ed_Ingold]

You can use Nero "Disk Info" in "Nero Burning ROM" to see what format the questionable disk uses. It is in the menu under "Recorder" at the top of the page.

[ofey_kalakar]

ISO 9660 is universal.

As mentioned above ensure that the CD is "closed".

Roxio Toast is an alternative to Nero.