Copying MP3 Files onto CDs

If your computer has a CD-RW drive or DVD recorder, you can free up your hard drive by storing your MP3 files onto CDs.

The songs on a CD purchased at a record store are known simply as audio CDs. These songs are stored in a format different from MP3. They play in both your computer and your home stereo's CD player, but their bloated file format means only ten or so songs fit onto the CD. A CD with MP3 files plays on your computer, but it may not play on your home stereo's CD player, but on the plus side, MP3's compressed file format lets you store hundreds of songs on the CD.

Before you can create any type of CD, you need a CD-RW drive, DVD-RW or DVD+RW drive, and a pile of blank CDs. (A growing number of audio CD players now support CD-RW discs, which means you can erase the disc and burn a new set of songs - check your audio player's specs to see if it supports CD-RW media.)

To create either type of CD in Musicmatch, for example, follow these steps:

1. Create a playlist of the songs you want to store on the CD.

Simply fill your Playlist window with the songs you want to copy to CD.

If you're creating a CD for your home stereo, start with about ten MP3s. You probably won't be able to fit many more songs, although you'll be given that chance later.

2. Click the Burn button beneath the playlist.

The Create CD from Playlist window pops up, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Seven MP3 songs consume about 49 percent of this audio CD.

3. Choose the type of CD you want to create from the window.

To choose the type of CD you want, click one of the following buttons (shown in Figure 1):

• Audio: Click this button to create a CD for playing in your home and car CD player. This is the default selection.

• MP3: Click this button to create an MP3 disc, which stores a huge number of MP3s to play back on your computer, boombox, or on a portable MP3 player that can handle those CDs.

• Data: Click this button if you want to simply burn the MP3 files as data files on a standard CD-ROM.

Clicking one of the three buttons shows how much space you have left on the CD. In Figure 1, for instance, the seven MP3s listed in the Create CD from Playlist window have consumed 49 percent of the audio CD, leaving room for several more songs.

When you click the MP3 button, however, those same seven songs consume only 11 percent of the CD, leaving much more room. (That shows you how much MP3 compresses songs.)

4. Add or remove songs until the CD is filled.

Keep dragging or removing songs from the Playlist window until you're satisfied with the amount of songs stuffed onto the CD.

5. Place a blank CD or CD-RW disc into your CD or DVD recorder and click the Burn button.

Musicmatch converts the MP3 songs into audio format, if necessary, and copies them to the CD.

If you purchase the upgrade version of Musicmatch, you can print CD covers and jewel box inserts to go with your newly created CDs. It can print any artwork you'd like on the cover, or it can tile the covers from the works you've placed on the CD.

http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/copying-mp3-files-onto-cds/153076;_ylt=AsvsT0FUCx02s4s5kmg5.nESLpA5

Windows XP Media Player Headaches: My CD player will not play CD music.

Cause Most of the time, CD-ROM drives play CD music without any difficulties. However, there are a few settings that can prevent CD-ROMs from playing CD music. Before troubleshooting these problems, however, you need to make sure the CD-ROM drive is working. Try a different CD or an application CD to see if you can open and read the CD-ROM drive's contents. If the drive seems to be working as it should, except for CD music playback, then follow the steps in the Pain Killer.

The Pain Killer To get your CD-ROM drive to play CD music, follow these steps:

1. Click Start | My Computer.
2. In the My Computer window, right-click your CD-ROM drive, and then click Properties.
3. Click the AutoPlay tab. Under Actions, choose the Select an Action to Perform button. Choose the Play Using Windows Media Player action, as shown in the illustration, and then click OK.

4. Next, make sure the device is configured to play CD music. To do this, click Start | Control Panel. In Control Panel's Classic view, click System.
5. Click the Hardware tab, and then click the Device Manager button.
6. Expand the DVD/CD-ROM Drives category, then right-click the CD-ROM and click Properties.
7. Click the Properties tab. Move the slider to the right to set the CD Player Volume to High. If the Enable Digital CD Audio for This CD-ROM Device is selected, leave it selected. If not, select the check box and click OK. Close Device Manager.

8. Now open Windows Media Player. Click Tools | Options.
9. Click the Devices tab. Make sure that your Audio CD drive appears in this window. If it does not, try clicking the Refresh button.
10. If the CD-ROM drive still will not play CDs, go back to the Device Manager CD-ROM Properties window (see steps 4, 5, and 6) and click the Properties tab. Clear the Enable Digital CD Audio for This CD-ROM Device check box and click OK.
11. If the CD-ROM drive still will not play music, make sure you have tried several CDs. When you are sure you have tried all of these steps, it's time to get some help from technical support. Consult your computer documentation for support contact information.

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http://tech.yahoo.com/gd/windows-xp-media-player-headaches-my-cd-player-will-not-play-cd-music-/3185;_ylt=AgWvVVB.9OUUeaEcfK9CyxISLpA5

Deciphering the mysterious 'M-Error'

It didn't take too many memberships to CD clubs to realize that my CD collection would get pretty unwielding pretty fast. Early on, I knew that every time I wanted to listen to a CD, it wasn't going to work to leave the room I'm in and hunt for the disc, only to be trapped into listening to only that album. I had friends buy 300-disc changers to solve this problem, but I wasn't all that happy with that solution either. Even if it gets all the discs queued up, it doesn't help me find the music I want, and it certainly doesn't easily facilitate taking my music with me to another room, let along out of the house.

Given that I had pretty thoroughly wired my house for a local area network, I was confident early on that whatever solution I implemented would include ripping my CD collection to MP3s. Most people have gotten this far. But then the question is begged, "Now what?"
My First MP3 Player (not by Fisher Price)

My first attempt to answer this question was with an MP3 player network device (the "Audiotron" by Turtle Beach). This was basically a hardware device that introspected the ID tags (the metadata tags behind an MP3 that record the artist, album, track, genre, etc of the song) and creates a basic menuing / browsing mechanism in the device. So, I could hook the Audiotron up in my entertainment system in the family room, use its embedded web server to point it at a share somewhere on my network where a bunch of MP3s lived, wait for a few minutes while it built a catalog by scanning the share, flop on the couch and go to town with a handy IR remote included with the unit. And with relatively little trouble or expense, my stereo contains a network-enabled MP3 player component.

I was happy with this for a while, but it didn't solve my take-it-with-me requirements. I could play music in my office (through my PC's speakers, playing the MP3s through iTunes or equivalent) or I could play music in the family room (through my Audiotron), but in the bedroom or the random other room -- nothing. Not only that, but the Audiotron only played music. What about movies, photos, DVR functionality, etc. C'mon, man, I need integration!

Let's take a look at some other options?
TiVo HomeMedia

TiVo is pretty much the leader in the digital video recorder space. Now, they've opened up the home media market as well with their new HomeMedia addition to the Series-2 TiVo. This software does the same thing my Audiotron did, but integrated with the oh-so-beautiful DVR functionality of TiVo. Works the same as the Audiotron in that you plug your TiVo to your home network, it scans the music on shares you make available, and it plays you your favorite music. And yes, they do photos too.

Microsoft MediaCenter PC

Another option is from Microsoft. A couple years back, they introduced a new version of the Windows XP operating system that was only to be sold with specific PC hardware configurations to bring you yet another unit in your entertainment center. This PC / special O/S combination plays music (MP3s) just like you can on any old PC using Windows Media Player (WMP), but has a great new shell with which to do it. The "shell" is the screen you see when you interact with the TV. Where a normal Windows XP shell (you know, "Windows Explorer") is intended to be operated from 2 feet away with a keyboard and mouse, the MediaCenter shell is intended to be operated from 20 feet away with a remote control. And it looks (not surprisingly) like the TiVo shell. Go figure.

This box is everything Windows Media Player is and then some. Movies, music, photos, even a DVR functionality similar to TiVo. But I digress...

The Distribution Problem

So, in my mind, all three of these options are better than a stack of CDs and an N-disc CD changer. TiVo and Media PC definitely beat the stand-alone boxes (like the Audiotron) for one-stop-shopping, but none of them has adequately addressed my desire to play music wherever I go in the house. TiVo claims to have this problem solved, but I haven't really messed with it. Anyone want to post your experiences on this front?

But, with the release of Microsoft Media Center 2005, Microsoft has a pretty slick solution to the distribution problem. Basically, you buy a 2005 Media Center PC and a set of "extender devices", one for each TV in the house. They communicate with each other over the home network and pretty much magically allow you to watch what you want where you want. And they're even building XBOX versions of both Media Center and the extenders, making this solution even more available. And the fact that you can buy extenders for about $65 a pop doesn't hurt either. The fancier wireless guys'll cost you more like $250.

The Portability Problem

Okay, so I'm digging the MediaCenter, especially if I can integrate my XBOX. But what happens when I want my tunes to follow me outside the house? Now it's time to go portable.

The iPod is the clear leader here. It integrates with iTunes in the coolest of ways (a subject for another article), but it'll happily play MP3s that were ripped and are typically played by WMP. So, my solution is to use the MediaCenter at home and synch up a few hundred MP3s to my iPod, so I can treat it as a walkman. And there are even great options for plugging the little guy into your car stereo. Steven Jones has written a TechLore article on this topic here.

Summary

So, summing up. Yes, I think CDs are pretty much history. Buy them, rip them to MP3s, slap them on a server, and distribute them ubiquitously with something like TiVo or Media Center. The iPod will even get them to your car or the coffee shop with you. Done. No shiny little disc required.

http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/10529/

Ringing False: Digital Audio's Ubiquitous Filter

Much as I like the prospect of being able to grunt a heartfelt Je ne regrette rien immediately before expiring, I know there will be too many what-ifs and wish-I-hadn'ts to make that even remotely possible. But here is one missed opportunity that won't flash before me, because John Atkinson has granted me a second chance.

A couple of years ago, when the issue of the "energy smear" caused by digital filters was red hot (it's still smoldering), I determined to address some of the controversies surrounding this issue through what I reckoned to be a rather neat experiment. It involved designing a set of related digital filters, notionally for 44.1kHz anti-aliasing purposes, and applying them to 24-bit/96kHz material transferred to hard disk from DVD-Video discs (mostly Classic Records DADs) using a DVD player that supports 24/96 via its S/PDIF output (I used a Pioneer DV-939A). The whole project went swimmingly until it came to the vital listening comparisons, which took place in circumstances that proved, in the event, way too informal to elicit useful results. With a pressing deadline, there was no opportunity for a reprise, so the article was written and no useful conclusion reached. It rankled, but, as other projects commanded my attention, the subject was relegated to the Pending tray.

And there it might have remained had not Roy George of Naim Audio mentioned the piece to me during a conversation at the AES UK Conference earlier this year, reopening the old wound. So I asked JA: Please can I do this again, for Stereophile, and get it right this time? He agreed, and here we are: confronting a still touchy issue in digital audio while exorcising a personal demon.

Low-Pass
Since the earliest days of digital audio, engineers have had to confront the issue of high-rate, low-pass filters and their possible effect on sound quality. Claude Shannon's sampling theorem (footnote 1), on which the whole of digital audio is based, states that the information contained within a continuous signal will be fully captured by a discrete time-sampling process provided that its amplitude is recorded at a rate at least twice that of the highest component frequency. To ensure this, and to prevent the aliasing distortion that results if this condition is breached, the first stage in any analog-to-digital converter is a low-pass filter, usually called an "anti-alias filter" to clarify its function.

There are two quite separate issues to take into account when determining whether such low-pass filtering is audible or not. First and most obvious, the removal of frequencies above the filter's corner frequency may itself have audible consequences. It has often been assumed that if the filtering removes frequencies only above the accepted upper limit of human hearing (nominally 20kHz), then no audible effect is possible. But various experiments have established that we do indeed respond to ultrasonic frequencies that, when presented separately, we cannot hear (footnotes 2, 3). So it can't be taken for granted that the removal of these frequencies is perceptually benign.

Second, there are side effects to the filtering that may have undesirable consequences within the passband. In particular, the filter may introduce phase distortion, and its oscillatory behavior ("ringing") may modify the signal in the time domain. These factors—phase distortion and the nature of the filter's impulse response—are not separate but intimately related.

These issues were not lost on the academic world at the time of digital audio's inception. So, as you would expect, listening tests were undertaken to establish formally that the anti-alias filtering required for a nominally flat response to 20kHz, even at the 44.1kHz sampling rate—the sternest test because the transition band from 20kHz to 22.05kHz is so narrow, demanding an extremely steep filter rolloff—has no audible effect. Many informal listening tests were conducted too, often using Sony's PCM-F1, because it was the first 16-bit digital recorder that most people were able to lay hands on. The outcomes of this testing, formal and informal, were overwhelmingly positive. Many PCM-F1 users claimed that a signal passed through the machine's A-to-D and D-to-A stages was indistinguishable from the feed, and some still cite that experience as proof that 16-bit/48kHz audio, properly realized, is essentially perfect.

But even in the earliest days of domestic digital audio there were dissenting voices. Many hi-fi writers, myself included, were thoroughly underwhelmed by our initial experiences of Compact Disc, and so were some influential audio professionals, such as Doug Sax. Over a period of some years the intensity of this opposition to CD decreased somewhat, but many commentators and ordinary audio consumers concluded that there was something fundamentally amiss with 16/44.1 and 16/48 audio. Many of them voted with their feet, continuing to prefer the sound of the "obsolescent" LP.

Various explanations emerged as to why digital audio might be failing to convince a substantial proportion of enthusiast listeners. The importance of correct dithering during quantization and requantization became apparent. So, too, did the significance of jitter. Meanwhile, the development of psychoacoustically designed noiseshaping began to offer greater than 16-bit performance over critical parts of the audible spectrum.

http://www.stereophile.com/features/106ringing/

Rage Solo Sound Skateboard BMX Helmet w/ Speakers

Two of my favorite activities are bicycling and listening to music. Historically, they have not been a good combination, because headphones can block out traffic noise that you need to hear to stay safe.

Last year, I received a Rage helmet with built in speakers. It plugs into standard sound jacks on portable radios, CD players, and mp3 players. I first tried using it with my CD player. I was surprised at how well the speakers worked, and that I could still carry on a conversation with my husband, who was riding next to me. I do mostly trail riding which can be a little rough at times, and I had some problems with the CD player skipping. This convinced me that my new toy (the helmet) needed a new toy of its own. I bought it an MP3 player.

I have been using the combination of the MP3 player with the speaker helmet for about a year now. I absolutely love it, and have loaded music specifically to help me keep a steady cadence when I ride. I find it hard to believe that there are so few helmet options like this.

You can purchase the helmet at many sporting goods or toy stores. They are running between 14.95 and 29.95, depending on where you buy them. Do not expect incredible sound, but you will be able to hear your music and the world around you at the same time. The speakers are located directly above and behind your ears, so that your ears are not blocked from hearing traffic noise. The helmet is really designed for skate boarding, and I would like to see some more options as far as style and color. I would like something with a sun-visor, and more traditional bicycle helmet styling.

It is great to be able to bring my music with me. I hope that this product will get some competition from the more traditional cycling helmet makers. There are a lot more advances that could be made in this direction, hands free radios to talk to other people who are cycling with you would be my number one request for the next gadget and helmet cross.

http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/11024/

Why Does 57MB of Music Take Up 700MB of Space?

Question:
I ripped a CD to my computer. When transferred, the folder reads 57.8MB. However, when I attempted to burn it back onto another CD, I was only able to add another 5MB of songs. I thought the CD could hold 700MB. Therefore, why couldn't I add at least 30-40 songs if the songs did not exceed 700MB?

-submitted by Robotic007

Answer:
The problem you're facing is that music ripped from a CD is normally compressed to take up less space on your hard disc drive. Otherwise, you'd be taking up 650 or so megabytes with every CD that you rip to a computer. Your CD, when compressed, will take up somewhere between 30MB and 60MB of space, depending on quality settings, format, etc.

In order for a CD to play in standard CD players, the songs need to be decompressed and written back onto the CD as a PCM signal (also known as WAV). Depending on the program that you're using, selecting "Make an Audio CD" tells the program to make CD player compatible discs. So your 57MB files will turn back into 650MB to 700MB files when written back to CD.

Some newer CD and DVD players can playback certain compressed music files. MP3 is the most common, but you may be able to find players that read other formats like WMA, AAC, or OGG. If you have a player like this, don't select anything that refers to an Audio CD in your CD burning program when you burn audio files. Treat it like a data disc, and the files will be written to the disc in a compressed format.

Matt Whitlock - Editor, TechLore.com

Did You Know...
It's possible to put your CDs in storage for good, and play MP3 files on your home stereo instead... and you don't even need an extra computer to do it. Read "How to Play MP3 Files on Your Home Stereo Without a Computer".

You can have access to your entire MP3 music collection from anywhere in your home. The Sonos is a popular new device to get you in control of your music. Read Michael Czyz's long term review.

While You're At It...
There are many different kinds of compressed music formats. Knowing which one to use for your situation can make your music experience much more enjoyable. Read "Understanding Digital Music Formats" to get them straight once and for all.

http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/12079/

Rootkit On Sony

To those of you who have purchased Sony Walkmans with Sonic Stage 3.1 CD and many other Sony product CD's, There is a big question about rootkits messing up computers. Take it from experience, I've already replaced my hard drive since this NW-E505 MP3 Walkman was purchased for Christmas for my son. I've had nothing but trouble with it since we started, because of all the problems with my computer.

Download Rootkit Revealer, make sure you have a zip program to decompress and run it on your computer. So far there is no way to detect rootkits with any other antivirus or spyware, but it's a problem for sure!!!

Spotting the Affected Discs
To know if the CD you're buying includes a rootkit, look on the back for a little box labeled "Compatible with." If that includes the Web address "cp.sonybmg.com/xcp", or check out the EFF's Spotter's Guide.

http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/13315/