I use CD-Rs in my portable professional PA system (outdoor wedding ceremonies) and also in my car. I have a problem with the CD-Rs not reading properly and skipping on hot days. The CD-Rs have been sitting in the hot car for a few hours - the outside temp is 30+ deg so the inside temp is probably 60+ deg. Not much I can do about this - the CDs travel with me. Question is, is the skipping related to temperature or more to the quality of the CD-R, i.e., if I chose a high quality CD-R would this solve the problem. Of course, the players (PA and car) are also boiling hot. I don't have a problem with conventional pressed CDs in the car.
I am a professional DJ, and also have the same problem in the early days. The Cds plays ok if they are cold, but after a few minutes inside the player, they get hot, and begin skiping. In that time, i conclude it was caused by cheap media, but later, i tought it could be also the recording drive (at the time, i owned a HP).
it Could be any combination of factors, the heat in the Car is definitely playing a part in this, after all the laser in the writer heats the dye on the disk to create the pits that hold the data, heating up the disk in the car will likely result in these pits become shallower and therefore less readable, this is especially true for low quality disks that use a cheap dye. The writer can also play a role you can usually see the difference between a disk written by a New Good quality writer and a worn-out / cheap writer in the former you can usually see the area that has been written as a bright easily distinguishable part of the disk, whilst the later will sometimes almost show no difference between the written and blank parts of the disk again as with the heat in the car low quality disk increase this problem, lastly the drive actually doing the reading, if its low quality it might have a hard time reading CD-R to begin with never mind when they are Hot/Low Quality/Badly written
For what it's worth, I live in Phoenix, AZ and have cd-rs in my truck that have been in there for two years and still play fine. I have to park it outside where the interior wil get up to 125 deg during the summer. The discs are some old Pioneer 12X manufactured by CMC. I believe most of them were burned on a Yamaha CRW-3200. The quality of the media, the burner, and the player are everything.
