What format should I use to burn audio CDs

When computers started becoming equipped with additional features like CD burning, online music downloading took off. With the invention on iTunes and other music downloading services, you can download songs in a matter of seconds and create your own audio CDs to listen to in the car or wherever you would like. However, if you don't burn the CD in the right format, you will not be able to play it in your care or other CD devices. Depending upon the age of the CD player, it may play the CD just fine, but older players don't always recognize the format and they will spin the CD around a few times before ejecting them. To help you burn your CDs right, we have created a simple guide for you.

CD types
When you go to the store, you will see a couple different types of CD options to purchase. Since you want to burn audio CDs, you need to purchase CD-RWs. You can also use them for data CDs as well, but this is the best type for audio files. An audio CD is designed specifically for audio as it has 44,000 samples per second. This basically means that the CD can hold about 70 minutes of music as it has 633,600,000 bytes per second of uncompressed data.

When you purchase data CDs, or CD-Rs, they are designed specifically to hold data. It is similar to the memory on your computer as they are designed to hold and transfer files. It is built with a file system, directories, folders, and files. An audio CD only has one blank section of raw data to be filled without all the folder, directories, and systems. To test the difference, pop in a CD-R that has been burned with a computer program, you will see how the computer reads it differently and pulls up the files for you to view. When you pop in a CD-RW with audio files, the computer will most likely ask you which program you would like to run it in, Windows Media Player, or another music player. It doesn't give you the option of opening the CD to view a directory of files and programs.

CD players
As you now know the difference between the two CD formats and types, you can understand why a computer will have no problem reading an audio CD that you have recently burned and why your car's CD player cannot recognize it. A standard CD player is designed only to read audio CDs. This means it will not be able to understand what files, folders, and system directories are.

Here is the other difference. A CD-RW is an uncompressed disk of audio. Each second on the disk will be utilized with music, even if it is silence. When you use an iPod or an MP3 player, you are actually working with compressed data. This is why an MP3 player or iPod is able to hold more than a CD-RW because the files are much smaller. As the music is played from your iPod or MP3 player, the music becomes decompressed only as it is played. If your car doesn't have a hook up for an MP3 player or iPod, it doesn't have an idea about compression and what to do with it. The only way to use your player is to get an adapter and play the music over a radio station in the car.

CD burning
So how can you burn a CD from your computer to play in different CD players? Most computers come with a CD burning program like Roxio's Easy CD creator. If your computer doesn't have a CD burning program, you can download one for free on Download.com or you can download a trial one. The CD burning program will walk you through the entire process. You will insert the CD and the computer should automatically recognize what type of CD it is and then it will ask you what you would like to do with it; `Create an audio CD, create a data CD', etc. Since you want to burn a CD for the car, use the Music CD creator that is built-in with the Roxio program. You can then click on the files you would like to place on the CD. The program will also show you how much room you have available on the CD so you can take away or add more files to it.  Once you have all the files on the CD, simply click next or `burn disk' and the program will automatically transfer the files to the CD. Once the disk is done burning, it will eject the disk or give you the option to listen to it. Test it on your computer to see if it burned correctly using Windows Media Player and then test it in a CD player in your home.