MP3s and Writing CDa

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Newt

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Can anyone tell me the best way to transfer MP3 files from my computer onto a CD that will play in a CD player? I thought that if I bought a CD player that plays CD-R/CD-RW discs, I could record MP3s onto a CD on my computer and then play it on such a CD player; however, I have recently read that these CD players will play *audio* CD-R/CD-RW discs, but not *computer* discs. Is this true? If I use *audio* discs in my computer to record the MP3s, will these then play in a CD player?

Any suggestions/advice is much appreciated. Thanks!
 
Yer just a wee bit confused :)

a) An Audio disc is one that contains audio tracks. Audio tracks are NOT the same as data tracks. The type of media here isn't important...CDR, CDRW, CD, whatever. Any of these media types can contain audio tracks. However, most CD players will not recognize CDRW discs; you must use CDR if you're burning your own.

b) An MP3 is not an audio track. It is an audio data file. The keyword here is DATA. An audio CD player expects audio tracks, not data.

c) Most CD burning applications want to deal with .wav files when burning audio, though some might decode mp3 on the fly.

Therefore, the most effective way to go about this is to:

1) Convert your MP3 files to WAVE files. Yep, they'll be HUGE.

2) Burn the waves to CDR (not CDRW) as audio tracks.

Now I know you were probably excited to make these MP3 CD's with like 100 tunes per disc....but that's not going to happen unless you happen to have a CD player that will recognize and play MP3 files. They exist, but are still fairly pricey.

How do those CD's from MP3.COM work? They're enhanced CD's. Enhanced CD's all the combination of audio and data on a single disc. A DAM CD from MP3.COM is a mixture of CD audio tracks and the original MP3's on one disc.

Slackmaster 2000
 
That's good advice, Slack..
Make sure you print this out, Newt!

A good MP3 Encoder/Converter is SCMPX.
This is a free download & will convert your MP3 files to .wav, which you can then burn to CD.




[Edited by Dougie Johnson on 10-30-2000 at 13:37]
 
Thanks to both of you!

So, will any standard computer CD-R drive allow for burning of wav files as audio tracks (as opposed to data)?

I was also surfing around and found a couple of products which apparently allow you to burn audio CDs from MP3s without the intermediate WAV step:

Audio CD MP3 Studio (http://www.biznest.com/software/mp3/mp3-audio-cd.html)

MP3 CD Maker
(http://www.zy2000.com/news.htm)

Do either of you (or anyone else out there) know anything about these or other similar products?

Thanks!
 
Yep! Any CD burner will burn audio.

As far as those products you mentioned....well...I've never tried them. It *kinda* sounds like they're just cashing in on the MP3 buzzword.

Most encoder/decoders will allow you to batch conversions. That is, you can select say 100 MP3 files and convert them all to wave with one command. Then use any burning software to create your audio CD. The benefit here is that you can use the decoder you like best (they are not created equal) and the burning software that you've found most reliable.

However, it never hurts to try new things, so give it a whirl if there's a way to try them out!

And yeah, as Dougie said, SCMPX is a killer free encoder/decoder. (enter SCMPX into any search engine and you'll find it!)

Slackmaster 2000
 
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