Went off to the pub last night for a pub quiz (we even managed to win !) but one of the questions that I felt silly for getting wrong was :
?What is the size in Mbs of a standard CD??
I said 650Mb with a big smile on my face only to find that the ?correct? answer was 700Mb. Since I bought a DVD burner I haven?t bought so many cd?s but I still thought that the standard size was still 650Mb.
How stupid am I?
And why is my keyboard printing a ? for a " 
Hey! No fair, I agree with your answer.
FWIW
It’s 650MB, assuming you stick to the strict CD specifications. But, as with music where it’s possible to squeeze an extra few minutes on to take it up to 80mins, it’s also possible to stretch the capacity to 700MB.
Somebody who knows what they’re talking about can now explain clearly what I’m gabbling about…
I agree, 650 (74 min) is the standard. I have a feeling that whoever wrote the quiz might have been mistaking popularity for standard…ness… er, right. Anyway, 700mb CDs are also sold as 80 minute CDs - and therefore sounds more “appropriate” to your average “I wanna put my music on a CD” consumer.
What happened was, new compression techniques made it possible to squeeze most information onto a cd. Nowadays, nearly all cd’s are 700mb, but the “standard” size is 650mb. Cd’s also have a lot of redundancy; if you get a sharp knife and put a scratch radially outwards from the centre of a music cd, it will play fine. But dont come crying to me if it don’t work…
Isn’t the 700mb CD just a case of squeezing the the tracks closer together? (I wouldn’t exactly call this a compression technology, which implies some kind of alteration to the actual data).
Thx people…makes me feel all warm inside that I’m not as stupid as I had thought
Well worth $5
And welcome to **Gavin G ** who is a Charter Member with 1 post !
I’ve got a stack of 100 blank CDs on the desk here, and behind me are 2 x 240 CD wallets - all of them are 700 MB.
Wrong. Compression has absolutely nothing to do with it. We are talking uncompressed storage capacity. Higher capacity is achieved by having a longer track by placing the successive tracks closer together and/or by taking it to areas of the disc outside the spec.
You would have to define “standard”. If you are talking about specs then I believe 650 MB is still the standard. If you are talking popularity then 703 is the most sold but I would argue that may be a “de facto” standard but not the specification standard.
well i duno, 700 mb ones play on pretty much all older CD players …