[TriLUG] Sound recording/editing/archiving - where to start?

Jeremy Portzer jeremyp at pobox.com
Thu Oct 24 09:15:15 EDT 2002


Catching up on old threads, huh?  :-)

On Thu, 2002-10-24 at 02:26, al johson wrote:
> >
> > There's no such thing as "preformatting" a CD.  All blank CD-Rs are
> > created equal (well, except for dye types and such).  The CDs marketed as
> > specifically for audio use are more expensive because they include a
> > licensing fee of sorts for the RIAA.
> 
> =================
> "no such thing as 'preformatting' a CD ?"--Well there is such a thing if
> you're creating a UDF disk. And yes, you can put music files on a UDF disk,
> if you just want to play music on your computer! The UDF format is used to
> pre-format a CD so that you can use it almost like it were a Zip disk!! When
> you want to put one or more files on a UDF disk you just issue the save
> command from the O.S. and it will be saved on the disk. You can also delete
> any file later on, but unfortunately because the file is burned on the disk
> you cannot recover the space!

You are correct, there is this method.  This is done very rarely with
CD-R's (it's mainly useful for CD-RW's, where the space can be
recovered), so that's why I didn't mention it.  Thanks for clarifying
though.  I've also never heard of this technique, also called "packet
writing," being used in Linux, but there's probably a way.  It's
possible that there's an intellectual property issue with the UDF
format.
 
> "these special music cds are more expensive..."---well sometimes they
> aren't!! For example, recently I was in Compusa recently looking for few
> inexpensive CD-RW's for a job I needed to perform. The regular el-cheapo
> CD-RW's were rather expensive, but then I noticed that their AUDIO CD-RW's
> were much cheaper in the same small quantity I was looking for. In fact,
> they were cheaper that day than the regular CD-RW's in a large quantity!!
> Remember that in our economic system prices are always fluctuating and many
> times strange things happen in the way of unexpected bargains. In case you
> wondered, yes, you can use Audio CD-R's and CD-RW's to store data that isn't
> audio!! And there is a bit more space on the audio disks (700 vs. ca. 660
> Megs).However, I haven't yet figured out how to get my burning program to
> recognize that those extra bytes exist on the blank disks! ---Bon

Actually, the distinction between 700 MB and 640MB discs doesn't have
anything to do with the so-called "Audio CD-Rs".  Most blanks CDs of all
types are 700 MB now (this is acheived by spacing the tracks slightly
closer together).  Your CD burning program should be able to
automatically detect the capacity of the CD; if not, it should be easily
selectable.  For example in xcdroast, the setting is listed under "write
parameters" and is specified in minutes of audio capactity.  74 minutes
is the standard, 640 MB type.  80 minutes is the 700 MB type.  Both
audio and data CDs can be recorded for either type.  (Plus, there are
shorter lengths available for the minidiscs / credit card discs.)

When downloading ISO files to burn, it's important to be aware of what
size CD-R/RW they require.  For example, Mandrake requires the 700MB (80
minute) type, but Red Hat only needs the standard, 640MB type, though
you can always use a larger size.

HTH,

Jeremy




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