For two years now I've burned VCDs on regular CD-Rs and have watched them on my Pioneer DVD player. Until recently there was never a problem; now, although I'm still using the same type of CD-R there's this loud annoying whistling sound when I want to play a VCD. It's so loud that I can't watch it, and sometimes the player doesn't accept the VCD at all. The only CDs the player accepts are really expensive CD-RWs now but no longer the regular CD-Rs.

I'm assuming the player needs to be cleaned somehow? Is that possible?

PS: I can play the VCDs on the regular CD-Rs on my computer without problems, so the CDs themselves are okay!