# Burning an 87 minute music file
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-an-87-minute-music-file/349890
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 25, 2006, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-an-87-minute-music-file/349890 "2006-03-25T22:10:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dauerbach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dauerbach)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2006, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-an-87-minute-music-file/349890/1 "2006-03-25T22:10:27Z")
I want to burn an 87 minute music file. I guess I need to split it, but Roxio doesn’t seem to let me. Does anyone have any advice on how I can record this single large file to two separate CD’s?
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2006, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-an-87-minute-music-file/349890/2 "2006-03-25T22:32:49Z")
Is this a standard .CDA file or some other file format? Depending upon how picky you want to be about it, you might be able to compress it a little or reduce the sample rate; there would be some loss of quality, but the relatively small amount of compression or sample-rate reduction needed to put 87 minutes of CD-quality audio on a standard 70-minute CD is pretty small–you might not even notice it. I’m not familiar enoughy with Roxio (I use Nero, myself) to give you specific advice, but I believe it has tools which will will let you lower the sample rate or otherwise reduce the size to fit a standard CD, won’t it?
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### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-an-87-minute-music-file/349890/3 "2006-03-25T23:20:18Z")
Wouldn’t an 87 minute music file fit on a standard 700 Mb CD as a .wav or similar file with no compression? The format used by CD players isn’t very efficient AFAIK so 80 minutes doesn’t correlate to the full 700 mb, partularly once you take into account headers etc.
Have you looked at the actual file size to see how big it is?
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2006, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-an-87-minute-music-file/349890/4 "2006-03-25T23:32:44Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> Wouldn’t an 87 minute music file fit on a standard 700 Mb CD as a .wav or similar file with no compression?
Probably, but I’m assuming (quite possibly wrongly) that he wants to be able to play it in a standard CD player. There are some CD players that can play nonstandard file formats like MP3 or .WAV, but most of them can’t. Hopefully, he’ll return to clarify.
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### Author:  [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Piranha_Brothers)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2006, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-an-87-minute-music-file/349890/5 "2006-03-25T23:44:29Z")
First of all, a normal CD contains 80 minutes of audio (700 MB), and not 70 minutes.
In the past there also were 74 minute CDs (650 MB) but these are no longer for sale AFAIK. Also existing is a smaller CD, 21 minutes (185 MB) - that’s what the smaller circle in your cd tray is for. But forget that.
There are today also 90 minute recordable CDs for sale, capable of containing 800 MB.
To burn a 90 minute CD you require:
\*an empty cd for 800 MB
\*a drive capable of overburning - very old models will fail
\*software capable of overburning, such as nero burning rom
You have to enable overburning in the software settings. My experience taught me not to push the matter too far. I wouldn’t actually recommend to fill every one of those 90 minutes. But 87 is very well possible and will play on standard cdplayers.
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### Author:  [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)
#### Post date: [March 25, 2006, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/burning-an-87-minute-music-file/349890/6 "2006-03-25T23:58:42Z")
> [@SpinyNorman](#):
>
> First of all, a normal CD contains 80 minutes of audio (700 MB), and not 70 minutes.
Yeah, I knew that. Honest. :smack: