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In 2018, I overburn-tested a cheap no-name-brand CD-RW.

Overburning means attempting to burn beyond the disc's apparent maximum capacity at the risk of overshooting the actual limit.

When playing back that audio CD-RW using a very old CD player, towards the outermost edge, the disc rotation which is very slow starts speeding up more and more until it spins faster than at the beginning of the disc.
The audio fades into noise and then the CD player fails finding the track.

I am not sure whether this is the case with all CD-RW's or other disc types such as CD-R's.

Side note: Some older optical drives might have problems burning unknown brands of optical discs such as burning a CD-RW with the wrong laser strength making it appear blank.

In 2018, I overburn-tested a cheap no-name-brand CD-RW. Overburning means attempting to burn beyond the disc's apparent maximum capacity at the risk of overshooting the actual limit. When playing back that audio CD-RW using a very old CD player, towards the outermost edge, the disc rotation which is very slow starts speeding up more and more until it spins faster than at the beginning of the disc. The audio fades into noise and then the CD player fails finding the track. I am not sure whether this is the case with all CD-RW's or other disc types such as CD-R's. Side note: Some older optical drives might have problems burning unknown brands of optical discs such as burning a CD-RW with the wrong laser strength making it appear blank.

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[–] • 1 pt

That's indeed interesting. Lately I have been thinking about BR media and whether I should trust them, as people use optical media less and less these days and I have a fear that BR hasn't been tested broadly enough yet.

[–] • 1 pt

as people use optical media less and less these days

Because they don't know the benefits.

There are a few additional issues such as:

  • Proprietary optical drive firmwares
  • Some optical drives do not allow error scanning (e.g. HL-DT-ST. TSSTcorp sadly quit in 2016.)
  • HD-DVD with the more physically robust centered data layer, instead of co-existing like DVD+ and DVD-, never made it.
  • DVD+RW DL that could have been read-only supported by existing optical drives, only made it to prototype.