Need basic information on CD-Rs

  • Thread starter Thread starter chicagofan
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chicagofan

The articles I've gotten from Google searches are either too simple or
extremely technical. If someone here has time to tell me how to make
basic decisions... on what disks to use and how much to record on one
disk, I will be eternally grateful.

For example I want to burn recent music purchases to CD, lest my
computer crash... and they are lost.

I have 13 tracks that MMJB says is 55.55 [mins ?], and 73.45 MB.

When I look at the disks that came with my old computer, they are
1x-24x, 700MB, 80 MIN.

What determines how much this disk will hold?

What's the difference in 1x-16x and 24x?

If I put 74 MB on a 700 MB disk, that's pretty wasteful isn't it?

Or is the 80 MIN time limit what I should go by?

As you can see I don't mind exposing my ignorance, but I've never burned
any CD's before. And if someone will help me sort this out... I won't
forget it. Thanks, for your time!
bj
 
chicagofan said:
The articles I've gotten from Google searches are either too simple or
extremely technical. If someone here has time to tell me how to make
basic decisions... on what disks to use and how much to record on one
disk, I will be eternally grateful.

For example I want to burn recent music purchases to CD, lest my
computer crash... and they are lost.

I have 13 tracks that MMJB says is 55.55 [mins ?], and 73.45 MB.

When I look at the disks that came with my old computer, they are
1x-24x, 700MB, 80 MIN.

What determines how much this disk will hold?

What's the difference in 1x-16x and 24x?

If I put 74 MB on a 700 MB disk, that's pretty wasteful isn't it?

Or is the 80 MIN time limit what I should go by?

As you can see I don't mind exposing my ignorance, but I've never burned
any CD's before. And if someone will help me sort this out... I won't
forget it. Thanks, for your time!
bj
Click to expand...

You can burn either
1) a music/audio CD that you can listen to on your hi-fi or in your car.
When you burn in this mode, the limit is 80minutes
2) or if you burn a data/mp3 CD you treat the CD like a big floppy and
you can stuff up to 700MB of files onto it. However that limits the
devices you can play music back with

The 1x-16x etc refers to the writing speed of your burner
 
Mike said:
chicagofan said:
The articles I've gotten from Google searches are either too simple or
extremely technical. If someone here has time to tell me how to make
basic decisions... on what disks to use and how much to record on one
disk, I will be eternally grateful.

For example I want to burn recent music purchases to CD, lest my
computer crash... and they are lost.

I have 13 tracks that MMJB says is 55.55 [mins ?], and 73.45 MB.

When I look at the disks that came with my old computer, they are
1x-24x, 700MB, 80 MIN.

What determines how much this disk will hold?

What's the difference in 1x-16x and 24x?

If I put 74 MB on a 700 MB disk, that's pretty wasteful isn't it?

Or is the 80 MIN time limit what I should go by?

As you can see I don't mind exposing my ignorance, but I've never
burned any CD's before. And if someone will help me sort this out...
I won't forget it. Thanks, for your time!
bj
Click to expand...


You can burn either
1) a music/audio CD that you can listen to on your hi-fi or in your car.
When you burn in this mode, the limit is 80minutes
2) or if you burn a data/mp3 CD you treat the CD like a big floppy and
you can stuff up to 700MB of files onto it. However that limits the
devices you can play music back with

The 1x-16x etc refers to the writing speed of your burner
Click to expand...

Thank you so much, Mike! I don't know why I didn't stumble across that
in all of the reading I did, but I promise you... I did read a LOT.

One more question, am I right, that once you burn a CD-R, you can't go
back and add to it? TIA...
bj
 
chicagofan said:
Mike said:
chicagofan said:
The articles I've gotten from Google searches are either too simple
or extremely technical. If someone here has time to tell me how to
make basic decisions... on what disks to use and how much to record
on one disk, I will be eternally grateful.

For example I want to burn recent music purchases to CD, lest my
computer crash... and they are lost.

I have 13 tracks that MMJB says is 55.55 [mins ?], and 73.45 MB.

When I look at the disks that came with my old computer, they are
1x-24x, 700MB, 80 MIN.

What determines how much this disk will hold?

What's the difference in 1x-16x and 24x?

If I put 74 MB on a 700 MB disk, that's pretty wasteful isn't it?

Or is the 80 MIN time limit what I should go by?

As you can see I don't mind exposing my ignorance, but I've never
burned any CD's before. And if someone will help me sort this
out... I won't forget it. Thanks, for your time!
bj
Click to expand...



You can burn either
1) a music/audio CD that you can listen to on your hi-fi or in your
car. When you burn in this mode, the limit is 80minutes
2) or if you burn a data/mp3 CD you treat the CD like a big floppy and
you can stuff up to 700MB of files onto it. However that limits the
devices you can play music back with

The 1x-16x etc refers to the writing speed of your burner
Click to expand...


Thank you so much, Mike! I don't know why I didn't stumble across that
in all of the reading I did, but I promise you... I did read a LOT.

One more question, am I right, that once you burn a CD-R, you can't go
back and add to it? TIA...
bj
Click to expand...

Sent this too soon... have another question.

I don't have a portable MP3 player, but I'm buying a DVD player that
says it will play WMA and MP3 disks. What is the best format to record
music in, when the expense of disks, computer space and quality of music
are your main concerns? Am I making sense?
bj
 
You cannot have it all - saved space and quality music. You have to settle
for either or make compromises.
Best quality for the average user is 'audio loseless' setting in WMP10 - or
you can record DVD audio at even better (5.1 or up) quality depending on
your audio card and software. This setting requires about 30MB per 4 minutes
audio. If you use 'on board audio,' you do not need to bother unless you
plan to upgrade or play the music through an amplifier.
Next best is 'audio CD quality' - size is about 4MB per 4min audio - good
for car stereos, PC speakers, headphones.
Last would be MP3 (about 1.5MB per tune) with more or less
compression/sampling - fit mostly for headphones and deaf country music
fans.
Roughly, the differences would be similar with DVD versus VCR SD (or so -
the setting that could record 8hrs on a 2 hrs tape) recording.
Michael

chicagofan said:
chicagofan said:
Mike said:
chicagofan wrote:

The articles I've gotten from Google searches are either too simple or
extremely technical. If someone here has time to tell me how to make
basic decisions... on what disks to use and how much to record on one
disk, I will be eternally grateful.

For example I want to burn recent music purchases to CD, lest my
computer crash... and they are lost.

I have 13 tracks that MMJB says is 55.55 [mins ?], and 73.45 MB.

When I look at the disks that came with my old computer, they are
1x-24x, 700MB, 80 MIN.

What determines how much this disk will hold?

What's the difference in 1x-16x and 24x?

If I put 74 MB on a 700 MB disk, that's pretty wasteful isn't it?

Or is the 80 MIN time limit what I should go by?

As you can see I don't mind exposing my ignorance, but I've never
burned any CD's before. And if someone will help me sort this out...
I won't forget it. Thanks, for your time!
bj



You can burn either
1) a music/audio CD that you can listen to on your hi-fi or in your car.
When you burn in this mode, the limit is 80minutes
2) or if you burn a data/mp3 CD you treat the CD like a big floppy and
you can stuff up to 700MB of files onto it. However that limits the
devices you can play music back with

The 1x-16x etc refers to the writing speed of your burner
Click to expand...


Thank you so much, Mike! I don't know why I didn't stumble across that
in all of the reading I did, but I promise you... I did read a LOT.

One more question, am I right, that once you burn a CD-R, you can't go
back and add to it? TIA...
bj
Click to expand...

Sent this too soon... have another question.

I don't have a portable MP3 player, but I'm buying a DVD player that says
it will play WMA and MP3 disks. What is the best format to record
music in, when the expense of disks, computer space and quality of music
are your main concerns? Am I making sense?
bj
Click to expand...
 
Thank you so much, Mike! I don't know why I didn't stumble across that
in all of the reading I did, but I promise you... I did read a LOT.

One more question, am I right, that once you burn a CD-R, you can't go
back and add to it? TIA...
bj
Click to expand...

You can go back and add more files to a CD-R as long as it is "multi-session".
Once the disc has been finalized, that's it.

View the best CD-R FAQ on the web. http://www.cdrfaq.org/
 
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