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What CD writer will put an MP3 file on a CD?

Asked by steppenwolf,

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steppenwolf

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What CD writer will put an MP3 file on a CD as an MP3 file? The CD writers that I have put MP3's on a CD as a CD4

file. The CD writers convert the MP3 to CD4. I am on vista. I have Windows Media Player and BurnAware free edition.

I am looking for a simple to understand CD Writer.

Thanks in advance.

18 answers to this question

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Grand Master

Budious

Posted
Posted
Will it work on CD players?

Thank you all for replying

You generally have to use a program such as Nero which has a "finalize" CD option which must be checked. This means the CD can only be written to once, and any empty space is filled with null data. Using a multi-session CD will not work in most standalone audio players with MP3 functions.

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Grand Master

Joel

Posted
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I am trying to burn MP3s to an audio CD as an mp3 for playback on an average CD player and for archiving for an mp3 player.

That made no sense. If you burn an audio CD, the MP3s were converted to the audio CD format. If you leave them as MP3s on a CD, many players won't play them. You can't have both, you have to choose; compatible with every player or MP3 storage.

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Community Regular

steppenwolf

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If you burn an audio CD, the MP3s were converted to the audio CD format. If you leave them as MP3s on a CD, many players won't play them. You can't have both, you have to choose; compatible with every player or MP3 storage.
I did not know that. I thought the point of mp3's was for them to be playable on cd players and every thing else.

Thanks in advance.

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Mentor

Starbuck84

Posted
Posted

If you burn MP3 files as an Audio CD, most (if not all) burning applications will convert the MP3 to the Audio CD format. The thing is, if you really want MP3 files on your CD, just must burn it as an Data CD, but this type of CD is not readable by most CD players. But if you have an DVD player, changes are you can play your MP3 Data CD's perfectly on it.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I use InfraRecorder for all my Data and Music CD's. Why? Because it's free ;)

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Grand Master

Borbus

Posted
Posted

What on earth is CD4?

If you want MP3s on a CD that can be read by a CD player that support MP3 (ie. a car stereo or CDJ player) then you need to create a "Data CD" which is a CD-ROM (Yellow book) and just put the MP3 files on there.

You can actually burn a CD with both Red book (CDDA) and Yellow book sessions. These are known as Enhanced CDs or CD Plus etc. They contain the first session as CDDA which is readable by any Audio CD player and the second session is data readable by PCs (not sure about CDJs etc.) The downside of this is that you will not get 80 minutes of audio on the disc.

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Rising Star

SakuraKira

Posted
Posted
I did not know that. I thought the point of mp3's was for them to be playable on cd players and every thing else.

Thanks in advance.

MP3 is just an audio format.

Normally when you burn an audio CD, that is all it will be, an audio CD for playing with your average CD player. And unfortunately with audio CDs, you are severely limited by the number of songs being 74-80 minutes.

A data CD can hold many more songs because the limit is usually in file size (MB), rather than in minutes.

If you want to burn a data CD with the MP3 files on it, your CD player must be capable of playing it. CD players that are capable of this will usually have it as a selling point, like this player that specifically states "Plays regular CD's and CD's with MP3 files/CD, CD-R, CD-RW compatible."

A lot of modern/newer players have that as a feature, but most older ones do not.

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