CD Format?

[jlyle58]

I'm new to this game.....what is the standard format of a store bought CD's music, assuming that I would want to convert my PC's MP3s to be burned to a CD with the same format as a store bought? Thanks

[LtData]

Re: CD Format?

the format is .cda, but most programs that burn audio CDs convert it to this while burning, as long as they recognize the audio format they are already in.

I.E. Nero can burn an audio CD from mp3s, but not from .ogg files unless you fix it to where it can decode ogg files.

[ChristinaS]

Re: CD Format?

I'm new to this game.....what is the standard format of a store bought CD's music, assuming that I would want to convert my PC's MP3s to be burned to a CD with the same format as a store bought? Thanks

A normal store bought audio cd is referred to as "audio cd", the individual tracks are in cda format.

You don't convert to .cda yourself though, rather you create an "audio cd" from a selection of files you have using the cd burning software that you may have. dMC CD Writer can take a variety of input formats and create an audio cd (it will do all the necessary conversions internally, for everything that it has codecs for). Nero can only take wav or mp3 (and, with the the proper plugin, also wma) input. Various media players can burn audio cd's from their proprietory formats (like Real Player).

If you want to know beforehand how your audio cd will sound, you can convert your mp3 files to 16-bit, 44.1KHz, 2-channel stereo wav, using dMC, and listen to them on your computer. The audio cd you create will sound the same.

Now one other thing to keep in mind is that an audio cd has to be "closed" - in other words, once you've burnt all the tracks you wanted to it, no further burning is possible. If it's not closed, it will not play in ordinary cd players.

Usually all burning software has options to ensure the cd is closed right after the burning session. It may not be the default, so you'd better check that.

A good practice when you make an audio cd is to collect all the tracks you want to put on it and burn it all at one time, closing at the end of the session.

[Spoons]

Re: CD Format?

you will need to check if you can even rip the music off the cd in the first place. as in store cd's are comming out more and more with some sort of media protection preventing you from ripping. you can check the various protection methods and what to look for here: http://club.cdfreaks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=80