Burning a CD is the act of storing files on a CD-ROM. There are several varieties of CD on the market now and it is important that you choose the correct one for the job that you are doing.
Types
CD-R : Will Store files but once burnt cannot be updated or
deleted.
CD-RW : This type is re-writeable and can be updated with new
information.
DVD: This type is required to store video information and requires the
use of a DVD burner.
Storage
Note that the old floppy
disks held approximately 1.3 Mb,a
CD-ROM will nominally
store 720Mb of data,which is about 700 times the
storage capacity. DVD disks
store Gigabytes of information,required to hold all of the video information.
Speed
CD/DVD drives can burn at different speeds - rather like the old 33/45/78
vinyl system - and it is important that the burn speed is within the
range of the drive you wish to read the disk. The drive will have legended
upon it "16 max" or something similar which indicates the maximum burn speed
it can read.
Software
These days,XP and VISTA take care of burning CDs with use of MS MEDIA Player
Version 9+,but you can get dedicated software for the job and often this
is packaged with the drive. NERO is the most well-known package,but note
that the software bundle may ONLY work with the drive it was bundled with.
Ripping
If you wish to take audio tracks from a CD to turn into
MP3s then MS Mediaplayer 10+ will
do this for you - make sure that you check the TOOLS menu for the location
of the stored files and whether they are turned into
.WMA or
.MP3.
You may find that you do not have the MP3 option available - in which case you may need a CODEC - this allows Mediaplayer to turn files into .MP3s for use with MP3 players.
If you are burning files to make an audio disk to play back on a stereo then
you will need to store .WAV files
onto the CD and m ake sure the CD is a "CD-R" type.Make sure also that
your CD-ROM is capable of burning CDs.
If you are burning files to a CD then with Windows XP and after it is merely
a matter of copying and pasting the files to
the CD. The CD will transfer "temporary files" before asking you to write
the files to the CD.
To transfer files to a CD:
My documents folder and CD folder open with two files selected
for burning. Once the files are transferred to the CD-ROM window, temporary
files will be created ready to be written to the CD. After the CD
has been burnt the temporary files will be destroyed automatically. If you
do not wish to keep the files on the hard drive after they are burnt to CD,they
too can be destroyed manually. |
Points to remember about burning CDs:
See Also: |
|
|
Burn Express |
|
Nero |
|
CD-rom |
|
CD-RW |
|
DVD formats |
Ripping Music[Doc] |