SenutyEnool Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 G'day folks, I'm making an arbitrary guess here that a lot of you have MP3 capable playback systems/machines that do not have stackers. For those of you that like to make your own music CD/DVDs and wish there was a way around not having a stacker and are sick of having to change CD/DVDs continuously a trick that I came across some time ago is that you are able to put 160 MP3 music files on 1 CD and up to 800+ MP3 files onto a DVD and they will play back perfectly. Now with those figures quoted above I'm averaging a simple MP3 file as 5Mb and at approximately 4 minutes duration, this will give you on average of over 13 hours of listening pleasure on 1 CD and a whopping 60+ hours on a DVD.......... How is this possible???? It's actually quite simple, when burning MP3 files to CD or DVD, do NOT use the burn as 'audio' CD/DVD option, but instead use the 'data' option when burning. The files burnt do not lose any of their sound quality when using the 'data' option in case you're concerned about this happening. The only other 'rule' to stick to is that you can not have sub-folders on the CD/DVD, but it must be one continues list. Another thing you may have to do, this is personal preference if you want to put the files in any sort of order, is that you may have to do a lot of renaming. By that I mean that as you know when you look at a music file, most of them are prefaced by a number; eg; 1. Music File One, 2. Music File Two, etc. and if you were to burn them without changing file names they would be burnt in numerical order, thereby having no order to the music as such. This will work fine if you don't mind randomising your music. However, depending on your CD/DVD burning software, it might only be a simple task of moving files up or down to the order you want to burn them in. For this, the software I use is Nero7, where it is a simple matter of highlighting the file and moving to the position I want to burn them in. There are no doubt other programs out there that do this, but that's my preferred option. And one last trick I use is that I compile my CD/DVDs on re-writable media, that way when I won't to change my compilation, it's a simple erase and re-burn. Is this a pipe-dream? Not at all, the reason I know that you can squeeze so many MP3 files on is because I have successfully burnt a compilation to CD and also to DVD with no troubles playing them in MP3 compatible devices. Soooo, get your compilations together and happy burning and listening. (@ Mods - not sure if this is the correct topic to post this under, if it's not please move it to the relevant area.) Cheers :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
corjello Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 yes ive seen that done before, its just that you must have a pretty nice//expensive cd player that can read a data disc. Most boomboxes and stereos for like a bedroom arent that nice. It just depends on what you will be playing the cd/dvd on. The newer the stereo the more likely it will have this ability. )corjello( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SenutyEnool Posted March 31, 2006 Author Share Posted March 31, 2006 yes ive seen that done before, its just that you must have a pretty nice//expensive cd player that can read a data disc. Most boomboxes and stereos for like a bedroom arent that nice. It just depends on what you will be playing the cd/dvd on. The newer the stereo the more likely it will have this ability. )corjello( <{POST_SNAPBACK}> As I explained in my initial post, it just needs to be MP3 compatible, not 'data' capable. As you pointed out a lot of the older boomboxes/stereos won't play the CD/DVD because they are not MP3 compatible and only read CDA tracks, hence why it won't work in that instance. But nowadays you can find a lot of 'cheap' systems that are MP3 compatible and won't give you any problems. Hope that cleared things up. Cheers :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokoike Posted March 31, 2006 Share Posted March 31, 2006 MP3 CD players are cheap as dirt these days! I've owned two in the last few months, and I paid under $50 for both of them, and they weren't from crappy companies either (they were Panasonic and Philips). Also, both had reasonable battery life and substantial skip protection, not to mention they looked pretty cool! As far as organizing your MP3s into folders on the CD, some players do accept this, but most will only play files 1 or 2 folders deep. So, if you like to organize your files to death, your disk may not work. If you do something like: System of a Down > Bounce.MP3 most players would be able to find/play that. But if you do this: System of a Down > Toxicity > Songs about getting knocked up > That are funny > And yet disturbing at the same time > Bounce.MP3 most players wouldn't be able to access it. The last thing I wanted to metion is that while the transfer from your computer to a CD won't result in any lost quality, compressing a .CDA file into an .MP3 in the first place will. For most people, this is common knowledge, but I just thought I'd clarify. Good info, Senuty! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SenutyEnool Posted March 31, 2006 Author Share Posted March 31, 2006 The last thing I wanted to metion is that while the transfer from your computer to a CD won't result in any lost quality, compressing a .CDA file into an .MP3 in the first place will. For most people, this is common knowledge, but I just thought I'd clarify.<{POST_SNAPBACK}> What you've stated there is absolutely correct, but I was aiming this at those folk who already have a multitude of MP3 files on there system and were trying to cram more than the average songs onto one CD. Not only is this very handy to have, but it saves a shed load of money because you're not burning a squillion and six CDs when one CD (or possible DVD) would suffice. Cheers and I'm outta here, the weekend beckons :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokoike Posted April 1, 2006 Share Posted April 1, 2006 Not only is this very handy to have, but it saves a shed load of money because you're not burning a squillion and six CDs when one CD (or possible DVD) would suffice. Cheers and I'm outta here, the weekend beckons <{POST_SNAPBACK}> A squillion and six... And yes, it certainly never hurts to backup! Actually, that is something I really need to do more often. I personally save all of my audio as FLAC, back it up onto my external hard drive, and burn it to DVDs. My audio is probably the most important data on my computer, other than a few of my typed documents. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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