Registered: Nov 1999
Location: washington, dc
Posts: 82

CD RW's

A (non-Visor) question for you great technicial people.

1. Teenage sons (14 and 11) have huge music files on our home computer (napster, kazaa, etc). (had to upgrade hard disk from 6 gig to 40 gig. and upgrade memory from 64meg to 64+128=192 meg, but all still running on a Celeron 433.)

2. They want me to get an (external) CD-RW drive to put their music on CD's

3. What machines will play CD-RW's
a. any computer (I presume so).
b. Home stereo (DVD/CD player)?? don't know
c. Their room stereos (the $300 all-in-one systems)?? don't know.
d. CD player in the car?
e. portable CDs players?

Thanks.

What's a good source of information on this? Or a recommendation for an external CD-RW (if that's what we should get)?

Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Raleigh, NC
Posts: 832

Don't know how to tell if a player will play a burnt CD, there are also two types, you can burn a CD as a data disk - which, if played on a computer or a MP3/CD Discman, will give 10 hrs or so of music, or a music CD, which is 74-80minutes, but will play on most machines. My music CD's will play on every CD player I have (Changer,Car,Portable,Puter,Boombox(s)), but won't play in my dad's factory CD player in his van, I think it's just trial and error as far as compatibility

Registered: Mar 2001
Location:
Posts: 347

Most cd burners come with software now that will allow you to point it at a folder worth of MP3's and say "burn me an Audio CD". That CD will be usable in any car or home audio cd player. However, you need to know that the files on the CD are no longer MP3 files. They are most likely WAV files converted by the software before being burned to the CD.

Some CD players now (car audio AND home) can actually read data CD's. This means that instead of 15-20 songs in WAV format, the disk can hold 150 songs in MP3 format and still be playable.

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: NC, Indiana
Posts: 465

Aiwa stereo systems are CDRW compatible I believe. I have a Sony XPlod unit in my car and it plays CDRWs just fine.
Good Luck!

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Re: CD RW's

quote:

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Originally posted by srwdc1
[...] 3. What machines will play CD-RW's

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Registered: Mar 2000
Location: NC, Indiana
Posts: 465

True Toby, but burning onto CDRWs doesn't waste discs and allows you to reuse one disc for your music needs.

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-Vincent

Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

Unless the prices have dropped a LOT lately, there isn't a whole lot of reasons to use CD-RWs. CD-Rs cost pennies these days.

As everyone has said, if you burn a true music CD, pretty much any cd player out there will play it. If you want to keep all of your files as MP3s, you'll need to have an MP3-capable CD player.

Be sure to give the kids the speech about intellectual property rights before letting them loose.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:

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Originally posted by Vinny
True Toby, but burning onto CDRWs doesn't waste discs and allows you to reuse one disc for your music needs.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

quote:

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Originally posted by creole
However, you need to know that the files on the CD are no longer MP3 files. They are most likely WAV files converted by the software before being burned to the CD.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location:
Posts: 347

Thanks for the correction Yorick. I couldn't remember the file format.

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Atlantic Rim
Posts: 570

External? Why?

Arrgh. Why would they want an external writer? Most externals are USB, and limited to 4x write speed...even slower on RW disks. Portable, yes. Convenient, no.

The only reason you would really want a portable (aside from being an IT person who needs to travel) is if you have only one 5 1/2" drive bay and it is currently occupied by a DVD drive who's functionality you didn't want to sacrifice.

For $120 you can get an internal CD-RW that will burn at 24x, filling an entire disk with music in three minutes (the faster you write the less chance there is for the system to throw the write-head of the unit a curveball and spoil the disk too).

Installing an internal CD-RW is one of the easiest tasks to perform on your computer. Disconnect the power, data, and audio-out cables, remove the old drive, and slide in the new unit (you'd check to make sure that the master-slave setting was the same as the unit removed, in most cases it would be), connect all the cables and restart the machine. Install the Adaptec software and you are off the the CD-burning races.

Firewire and USB 2 enabled portable units will burn at faster speeds, but they cost alot more and require adding a PCI card for most users (almost the same degree of difficulty -- which isn't much -- as installing an internal drive unit).

Last edited by Keefer Lucas on 12-20-2001 at 07:49 PM

Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Raleigh, NC
Posts: 832

I can testify to the crawling speed of a USB CD burner, I was forced to get one because behind the extra drive slot I have sits a hard drive. Oh well, it still works, but really slow.

Registered: Nov 1999
Location: washington, dc
Posts: 82

is a parallel port external CD any faster than a USB?

(no room left in our machine)

Registered: Mar 2000
Location: NC, Indiana
Posts: 465

A parallel port is much slower than USB. USB was designed to replace legacy ports like those.

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