Home audio & video forum: Do CDs and DVDs cause damage to players?

Hi Learner7,

I have used self burned CD's years and I have still over 10 years old CD player and cd drive in my computer. No damage.

Maceman

I gave some copied discs to a friend, who says that they made both her players go wrong, and also that experienced technical friends told her that copied discs make the machines go wrong !! Like you, I have never had this experience myself, but thought I should check it out!

Bob,
Those seem to be specific issues related to players not being compatible with certain media. I can't remember ever reading or hearing about CD-R or DVD-R self-recorded media damaging a player based specifically on the fact that it was self-recorded media. I have a CD player from 1985 that still works and plays CD-R discs perfectly. I just haven't come across data that agrees with the OP's original question, so I could be wrong.
Dan

I find it hard to believe a cd player from 1985 could play a cd-r disc: it takes more than just a laser, it takes the software codecs required to interpret the data, which wouldn't have been around in 1985 (when the only file type the player would have been programmed for would be the proprietary Sony/Philips cd format). I have a dvd/cd player from 1999 which can't play anything other than commercial discs, which would be typical until a year or two after writeable discs first came out. If you have the correct date for the player, can anyone explain how it could work?

I would definitely heed Bob's advice regarding burning CDs to make them more compatible with additional devices. There's really no reason to use CDRW media anymore either since free burning software such as Nero can utilize CD-R to function like a CDRW disc. {wrote while Looking over at the unused cake boxes of CDRW blanks....}