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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: mikhael on December 08, 2003, 09:10:04 pm

Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 08, 2003, 09:10:04 pm
I'm trying to burn a bunch of MP3s to a CD as an audio CD in Nero (v5.5.10).

When I finish the burn, I put the CD into my car. It spits it back out. When I put it into my PS2, it can't read the disc. When I put it into my boombox, it shows no tracks and ejects it if I try to play it. When I put it in the computer, I see several .cda files and all of them play silence if I try to play them in Winamp.

Is there anything special I have to do to set up an audio CD? I told Nero I wanted an Audio CD and I dropped 45min worth of mp3s onto the CD image. I've tried burning it track-at-once and disc-at-once.

Anyone have any suggestions, aside from switching CD burning programs or replacing the hardware? I should note that I have no troubles burning data CDs at all--its how I backup my 3d models and stuff, and I test the backup CDs regularly.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: WMCoolmon on December 08, 2003, 09:17:04 pm
Do you know that both the boombox and the PS2 can read burnt CDs? Have you tried using the 'Finalize disc' option?

Edit: Just noticed the part about them playing in silence in WA. Your CD channel is turned up and unmuted in the mixer, right?

All those being wrong are probably unlikely, but that's all I can think of right now...
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 08, 2003, 09:25:15 pm
Other notes of interest:

Windows Media Player will play the CD, but winamp will not.I'm rather confused at the disparity between WMP and Winamp.

If I put the CD into my FreeBSD box, and try to play it using the command line tool 'cdcontrol', or my custom CDplayer written in Python, it works.

I have tried with and without the "finalise" CD option. CD volume on the computer is not muted and the volume is maxed. The PS2 and the boombox play music CDs that I have copied CD-to-CD or burned from an image. I have never tried a burned CD in my CD player in the car, as I've only recently gotten a car with a CD Player.

In the end, if I can't solve this problem, I'll go buy a car stereo that will read MP3s from a CD. I'd rather save a few bucks though and just use the one I've got.

[edit]
It just occured to me to mention that I've verified the MP3s are good. I can play those on any mp3 playing device (PDA, computer, MP3 jukebox and MP3 portable) that I own.
[/edit]
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Admiral LSD on December 08, 2003, 09:55:06 pm
Just out of curiosity, have you tried using another application to create the CD? iTunes can create Audio CDs from MP3s fairly easily: just add your MP3s to the library, assemble the ones you want to burn into a new playlist and then select "Burn Playlist to Disc." I only bring this up as it's free and I know it does the job having had good luck with it myself when Nero failed me a few weeks back.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 08, 2003, 10:46:19 pm
I guess I can try iTunes later. I don't have any other CD burning software on this machine and I can't try using FreeBSDs stuff, since my FreeBSD box is my laptop, which has no burner.

I'll see what comes up. This isn't an issue now, but it will be later on down the road. My car doesn't have a tape player, so I have to record my audiobook tapes to CD first, in order to listen to them. Luckily, I've got a pretty good number of books on CD to work through before things get ugly. ;)
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Bobboau on December 08, 2003, 11:31:52 pm
try burning at a slower speed, or getting a diferent brand CDR/burner
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: aldo_14 on December 09, 2003, 04:25:08 am
Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau
try burning at a slower speed


That's what i'd recommend.... my brother has probs with CD's burned at 16x in his hi-fi / car, wherease I don't have any problems.... I have a feeling WMP caches CD data before playing it (so you can't plug headphones into the CD-player jack and listen), but Winamp might not use that strategy  - that might hint at the cause.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: TrashMan on December 09, 2003, 05:22:16 am
I have a similar problem.

Whenever I burn a audio CD it works fine on my PC, but not on my CD Player...
The same thing when I burn MP3's....

Some of my friends have trouble reading any CD I burn, regarrdless what is on it...strange
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 09, 2003, 09:29:34 am
Quote
Originally posted by Bobboau
...or getting a diferent brand CDR/burner


Quote
Originally posted by mikhael
Anyone have any suggestions, aside from switching CD burning programs or replacing the hardware?


Maybe I wasn't clear on that point. I will try a lower burn speed (I'm only using 8x now).
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: J3Vr6 on December 09, 2003, 09:52:54 am
I had that problem.  I had to end up burning at 1x to get it to work right.  Burning it any faster and apparently the computer forgets to finalize or something.  So you'd get a partial CD, or a CD that spits out.  But this was on an 450 mhz computer and a 4x CD burner.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Sandwich on December 09, 2003, 02:43:44 pm
Most read problems of this kind are related to CD media quality, which can soemtimes partially be alleviated by burning at slower speeds. Buy a 5-pack of the most expensive CD discs you can find and try with them.

On the other hand, if WMP can read it and Winamp can't...  hmmm. I wonder if it's some sort of DRM-related issue somehow.

I've noticed that if I burn a data disc of MP3's to play in my iRiver SlimX discman, it resets the discman's OS when it tries to play an MP3 with the copyright option tagged. Very weird.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 09, 2003, 03:01:20 pm
Since the tracks I'm using are ones I ripped myself (i'm testing with my Evanescence MP3s, ripped from my CD by me) and some mp3s I created from tapes, I can't imagine them having the copyright bit set.

The media in question is memorex, which I've had good experience with in the past.

Something else just occured to me. Would the fact that its 80min CDs be a possible problem? I'm not burning more than 45min at a time to the disks.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: DragonClaw on December 09, 2003, 03:11:55 pm
If I burn mp3s to a CD, I have to burn them as a data CD for them to work in my car mp3 player.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Sandwich on December 09, 2003, 03:24:21 pm
Quote
Originally posted by mikhael
Since the tracks I'm using are ones I ripped myself (i'm testing with my Evanescence MP3s, ripped from my CD by me) and some mp3s I created from tapes, I can't imagine them having the copyright bit set.

The media in question is memorex, which I've had good experience with in the past.

Something else just occured to me. Would the fact that its 80min CDs be a possible problem? I'm not burning more than 45min at a time to the disks.


Still, the copyright bit is worth checking. In Winamp, right-click on a mp3 in the playlist and select "File info" - the bottom-left box should have a "Copyrighted: yes/no" line.

And I doubt it's the 80-min CDs, altough I can't, of course, rule it out entirely.

Quote
Originally posted by DragonClaw
If I burn mp3s to a CD, I have to burn them as a data CD for them to work in my car mp3 player.


:wtf: Brain fart?

Quote
Originally posted by mikhael
...a bunch of MP3s to a CD as an audio CD...
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Drew on December 09, 2003, 03:52:47 pm
mik try burning them with WMP... its reliable.  last time i used   Nero to burn Audio CD's i would get a bunch of write problems.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Stealth on December 09, 2003, 04:00:42 pm
Sandwich:  I know what he's saying.  Certain CD burning applications you can burn either an "audio" CD, or a "data" CD... an "audio" cd is a CD that can only be played in cars, boomboxes, etc... to burn an MP3 CD you have to click "data".
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: kode on December 09, 2003, 04:02:29 pm
nero can take mp3:s and convert them to wav's automagically, sandwich.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Sandwich on December 09, 2003, 04:06:04 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stealth
Sandwich:  I know what he's saying.  Certain CD burning applications you can burn either an "audio" CD, or a "data" CD... an "audio" cd is a CD that can only be played in cars, boomboxes, etc... to burn an MP3 CD you have to click "data".


I know what he's saying, too, but apparently you missed what Mik is saying... Mikhael is trying to burn an Audio CD, not a data disc with MP3s on it. A Redbook CD, if you want the technical term.

Therefore, you have what Kode stated (which I already knew, too :p )

Quote
Originally posted by kode
nero can take mp3:s and convert them to wav's automagically, sandwich.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: DragonClaw on December 09, 2003, 04:16:58 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Sandwich
I know what he's saying, too, but apparently you missed what Mik is saying... Mikhael is trying to burn an Audio CD, not a data disc with MP3s on it.


Which, as I was saying, will not work with Nero, according to my experiences. If I burned them as an Audio CD, it didn't work in my car. I think that'll work only if you are burning .wavs as an audio CD. If I burned the mp3s as a data CD in Nero, it worked fine.

So, try burning as data.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Darkage on December 09, 2003, 04:24:52 pm
I burned a audio cd with mp3's and it worked fine any where in my friends car/stereo and on my own stuff.


I burn them at 48x on me Plextor plexwriter worked perfectly so far.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 09, 2003, 05:05:37 pm
The Boombox CD Player cannot read Data CDs. It cannot read MP3s. It is an old 1994-ish audio CD player with no, zero, nunca, jamais special features.

The CD player in my car cannot read Data CDs. It cannot read MP3s.
It is an 1996-ish audio CD player with no, zero, nunca, jamais special features.

Burning a data CD is NOT going to work.

Sorry to be a dick. I just need to make it clear that the files must be burned as audio tracks to an audio CD here.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Admiral LSD on December 09, 2003, 05:42:44 pm
80 minute CD-Rs can cause problems with some hardware (I've witnessed this myself on a number of occasions) but they generally *always* play in computer CD players (at least) which didn't explain why Winamp refused to play it so I didn't think of it as a possibility, particularly when mikhael mentioned that previous audio CDs he'd burned had worked fine.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: WMCoolmon on December 09, 2003, 05:45:51 pm
Have you tried decoding the mp3s to .wavs and then burning the .wav files?
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 09, 2003, 05:49:18 pm
Windows Media Player will NOT burn MP3s to an audio CD. It keeps telling me that they're of an invalid file type.

Converting these to wav is going to suck, but I'll try it now.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: DragonClaw on December 09, 2003, 06:09:48 pm
Then why were you even trying to burn mp3s to an audio CD? If your CD Players can't read mp3s, its pointless... :wtf:
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 09, 2003, 06:49:00 pm
Okay. Maybe the concept just isn't getting across here.


WHAT I AM NOT TRYING TO DO:
I am not trying to burn a CD full of MP3s. That's trivial and easy and works with no errors.


WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO:
I am trying to burn an audio CD. That is a CD with audio tracks. The good old fashioned kind that they invented around the time The Empire Strikes Back was in theatres. You know the ones, I'm sure. ]

Nero, like many programs, supports using MP3s as the SOURCE of the data that ends up in the STANDARD AUDIO TRACKS. Many programs also support using WMA, WAV, RAW, PCM, AIFF, AU and other formats. Me, I just want MP3s as the source and STANDARD AUDIO TRACKS ON THE CD as the target.


I really do hope that gets the point across. I would have thought when Sandwich mentioned Redbook Audio, that the point was well and truly clear.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: karajorma on December 09, 2003, 07:00:50 pm
I've burnt audio CDs previously with Nero and mostly it worked well. I did find that my mum's CD player wouldn't play them (which was most annoying as she'd asked me to burn her a CD which therefore made it worthless). Every other CD player I could find would play the CD fine but that particular one wouldn't.

*Wonders if he can get Murphy's law repealed* :rolleyes:
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: WMCoolmon on December 09, 2003, 07:22:20 pm
Quote
Originally posted by DragonClaw
Then why were you even trying to burn mp3s to an audio CD? If your CD Players can't read mp3s, its pointless... :wtf:


It doesn't matter what format the files were in when they were burned to an audio CD, they're converted to the Redbook audio format (or whatever it is).

You could try DbPowerAmp (http://www.dbpoweramp.com/) for converting the files. It looks like they have a CD burner version out, too. It's easy to use, but it also weaves itself into Explorer through context menus and file info popups. Not that it's a bad feature, but it might cause a bit of slowdown. I think said features are optional, too.

Edit: Added info to wrong paragraph :o
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: DragonClaw on December 09, 2003, 07:25:28 pm
Quote
Originally posted by mikhael
Blah blah blah blah


Well, when you are burning an "audio CD" in Nero, all it is doing is generating .cda files for play information, that certain players require, its still burning the actual mp3 files to the CD. This is not the same as the standard CD audio format.  I'm sure there's a way to make Nero convert the mp3s  to the "redbook format" while its burning, but thats not the way you were doing it. So what you were ending up with was a bunch of .mp3s and .cdas, nothing that could be used without an mp3 player.

Coolmon; thats not the way Nero works. At least not mine.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: WMCoolmon on December 09, 2003, 07:34:19 pm
Quote

Burning MP3 files (.mp3) with Nero



MP3 audio files (extension .mp3) have become one of the most common file formats of the Internet community if compressed audio data is to be transmitted. That's why Nero now supports burning of MP3 files. These files can now be dragged and dropped into Nero audio compilations just like wave files (.wav) or audio tracks (.cda).
Nero is able to burn MP3 files on the fly, which means that you do not have to convert them first in wave format, or to store the uncompressed audio data into a cache file before burning them. The maximum burning speed for MP3 files depends highly upon the speed of your processor, since uncompressing MP3 files requires a great deal of floating point operations.


^ Directly from the Nero 5.5.4.9 help file.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: DragonClaw on December 09, 2003, 07:45:47 pm
You also ommitted the last part...

Quote
"Nero's MPEG3 library currently supports only standard MP3 files (that means ISO MPEG 1.0 layer 3, 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, stereo)."


Anything else won't work...
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 09, 2003, 09:03:00 pm
Ah, now THERE is a useful tidbit. I missed the 16bit myself. These files I've been using for test have been all of them VBR mp3s.

This still doesn't explain why WMP can play them--if they are being converted as if they're 16 bit then they'll be mangled by the transform--nor why my FreeBSD box can play them as a standard audio CD.

At no point are these files ending up on the CD as mp3s in any shape fashion or form. They end up there as standard Redbook standard audio tracks, that ARE readable in certain circumstances by certain players.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: DragonClaw on December 09, 2003, 09:10:08 pm
Well, then I'd like to have an explanation as to why, when I burned an Audio CD of mp3s, about 50 of them, they only took up 1/7th of the CD... and not gone completely over it. The standard format for Audio is extremely large and there's no way the 50 songs would have fit on the CD. I could have still burned more songs onto it if I wanted to.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: mikhael on December 09, 2003, 09:13:01 pm
You did something odd.

When I burn the mp3s of my Evanescence CD back to a (non-functioning) audio CD, the CD is about 2/3rds full (IE about 45min). this shows both in Nero AND on my FreeBSD box.

I believe you are burning a data CD with MP3 files on it and your CD player can understand MP3 files as tracks (many can). My CD player CANNOT do that.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Stealth on December 09, 2003, 09:42:35 pm
hey try a program called "Adaptec CD Creator".  it's always been my 'last resort' ;)  and if it doesn't work, then you know you have a hardware problem.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Sandwich on December 10, 2003, 01:33:48 am
Quote
Originally posted by DragonClaw
Well, then I'd like to have an explanation as to why, when I burned an Audio CD of mp3s, about 50 of them, they only took up 1/7th of the CD... and not gone completely over it. The standard format for Audio is extremely large and there's no way the 50 songs would have fit on the CD. I could have still burned more songs onto it if I wanted to.


Audio CD = CD with a maximum of 74 or 80 minutes of Redbook format audio (commonly mistaken as WAV format among computer users).

Data CD = CD with 650/700/800/etc MB of data, in CDFS format (as opposed to FAT, FAT32, etc.) CANNOT be read by standard Audio CD players. Meant only for PC use, although many discmans and CD players now support reading MP3 data files off these CDs and playing the audio encoded therein.

5 minute MP3 @ 128kbps 16bit stereo = ~5MB data file. Can be converted into WAV (an uncompressed format), where it will take up approx. 50MB. Redbook audio is also uncompressed, and therefore also takes up the equiva;ent of 50MB on Redbook audio CDs.

Hope this explained things. Nero can and does convert MP3s into Redbook audio before (or during) an Audio CD burn process. If you burned 50 songs and were left with 6/7th of a CD left, you were burning to a data disc compilation, period.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Darkblade on December 10, 2003, 02:18:42 am
I have a relatively old cd player in my car and a strange thing is that cd's which I burn with Nero Burning ROM do not play normally on this player (spits out almost immediately) but cd's made with Easy CD Creator work perfectly.

I do not know the reason even if I use similiar burning methods on both programs.

They use some kind of different ASPI protocol, Nero its own and Easy CD Creator the Native 2k/XP ASPI protocol. Not sure if that affects in any way though.
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: Stealth on January 01, 2004, 09:41:01 pm
yeah Sandwich, not many people have even heard of Redbook.  but because it's common for people to think of Audio CDs being burned as multiple WAV files, because Redbook CDDA and WAVs are so similar (i.e. about 10 MB per minute) ... that explains the hype about WAV files considered an audio cd

But yeah Dragonclaw... while new CD players and such can read MP3 format, some people think burning 80 MP3s on a CD is still considered an audio CD, but only Redbook CDDA (high quality 44khz 16bit stereo) is really an Audio CD ;) :)

Quote
Nero, like many programs, supports using MP3s as the SOURCE of the data that ends up in the STANDARD AUDIO TRACKS. Many programs also support using WMA, WAV, RAW, PCM, AIFF, AU and other formats. Me, I just want MP3s as the source and STANDARD AUDIO TRACKS ON THE CD as the target.


Mikhael:  Have you tried specifying what kind of CD you want to burn?  When you start up Nero, it should say "What kind of CD do you want to burn:  Data CD, Audio CD, Other Format", and it should have the "Wizard", unless if you've disabled it, but try enabling it and going through step by step.  i dunno, that seems the most obvious explanation
Title: Audio CDs and Nero Burning ROM
Post by: JC Denton on January 03, 2004, 01:05:53 pm
Just some random info from me that may or may not help:  I do have several VBR mp3 files, which I have burned to cd (as an Audio CD), and have not had any problems in playback.  So I'm of the opinion that the format of the mp3s is of no consequence.

And on the hardware end:  You do have an audio cable running from the analog audio port on the CD burner to the CD Audio jack on the soundcard, right?