I have some stuff on mp3 (kids story readings, nothing copyright) on my computer, that I would like to get onto ordinary CD so my kids can listen to them in bed. I also want to burn some of my English teaching dicatations onto CD from mp3 so that my less high tech students can take them home and work on them by themselves.
Is it easily done? My husband is far more computer savvy than I am but only about things that interest him - this doesn’t, so it’s been met with blank looks. But if I can point him in the direction of how to start, he’ll help me I am sure.
The only such program I have had dealings with is Nero Burning ROM which seems to be the benchmark by which other CD/DVD burning is measured by. It is very very simple to create a CD from MP3s using Nero but the downside is, it isn’t free.
I’m sure there will be some free programs you can use to do this but will leave it up to people with experience using them to recommend you a reliable one.
Yes, just about any CD burning software will do this for you… just look for an ‘audio CD’ option and specify your MP3 files as the audio source tracks. You should be able to get about 72-80 minutes of audio on per disk. I think windows media player and some other media playback suites have some limited burning functionality for this sort of thing as well.
Do you have a CD burner yet? If so, is there any burning software that you’re already comfortable with??
Most cd burning programs will do this for you. Nero, Roxio will, for example. Just be sure to tell the program you want to make a standard audio Cd (not an mp3 CD) and the program SHOULD convert any mp3 files before burning.
Before you all yell at me - my computer and its operating system are in Japanese, and I have become used to navigating menus by memorising “third one along, fourth down”. Then my husband upgrades and I’m all at sea again!
I will now call my husband who is away for the week, and we will have a mind bendingly annoying conversation along the lines of:
Him: Find the menu headed #%#%’##’"‘9
Me: Is is the fourth along
Him: Dunno, my computer isn’t the same as yours, remember? It’s the kanji for %&#)(#’
Me: There’s one here with a little man on the side, and a hat on the top, with a sort of half assed version of “walk” in the middle, is that it?
Him: ???
I’d be a computer whizz if only I could read.
If you’re looking for freeware that will do this, then either of CD Burner XP (which, despite its name, will run on other versions of Windows) and DeepBurner will do the job.
You do need to make sure that your audio files have a sampling rate of 44.1KHz, or they will not play at the correct speed on the CD (assuming they can even be written to it).
You deserve an award if you manage to get it to work, that must be a nightmare. I’m sure you can setup windows to quickly switch between languages and keyboard configurations though.
I did this once, but damned if I can remember how.
Um. Let me rephrase that.
Basically, you need to convert the MP3 files to “WAV” files, which can then be converted directly into a CD.
Many consumer CD/DVD burning programs can handle this smoothy. As an example, the Nero Express that came with the DVD burner in my computer here at work allows me to select audio files, including MP3s, for burning to a CD. When each one is selected, the program ‘analyses’ it and converts it to the appropriate format. The program also keeps track of how much space the selected files will take, compared to the space available on the CD.
Keep in mind that an MP3 file of a song is greatly compressed compared to the equivalent WAV file. An MP3 file is also of lower quality than a WAV, because of the compression.
One reason MP3 files of songs gained popularity was because they are smaller and could fit in the first generation of MP3 players, which often had much less capacity than a CD (32 or 64 megabytes, as opposed to 700 megabytes on a CD).
Many online record labels, such as Magnatune, offer their files as MP3s and as WAV files (and in other formats too). The MP3s are convenient for iPods or whatever; the WAVs are for making a full-quality CD. I’ve bought from Magnatune and the MP3s of an album are around 80-90 megabytes; the WAV files are 600 or 700 megabytes for the same album.
But none of this is relevant, because she just wants to burn some CDs, and there’s no practical reason to do anything but use a CD-burning program. All of them will do this automatically.
To the OP: tell hubby to either stop upgrading things, or get the English versions next time 'round.
MP3s may be greatly compressed but that compression is variable and can usually be set by the user at rip time. I always rip at least compression which makes for very little loss in quality.
Though the question has been answered, I would like to cast another vote for considering MP3-capable CD players.
You simply burn the files to CD as data files, no conversion needed, and then listen to them with a portable CD player that can play MP3s.
Such a player costs 30-40 dollars and a CD of MP3s holds several hours of audio.
I use these when I go on long runs (~2 hours) so that I can plop in an entire audio book or a disc with eight great albums on it and not worry about getting bored. An added bonus is that I don’t care if I smash up my player; I can always get a new one with more features at half the cost of the one I killed.
As said–most good software has a “CD Wizard” thing that you just tell it you want to creat a standard audio CD, and you pick whatever sound files you want and it converts them over for you.
They are nice/cheap, but one thing you need to be aware of: most of these I have seen could not navigate an unlimited number of directories. The earliest ones could only play files that were in the root directory of the CD. Newer ones can go 3 or 4 directories deep, so you can orgainze the music by album, artist, or whatever. But if you try one with a CD that uses subdirectories and you can’t access all your files, this might be why.
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