Burning WAV files into CDs

[frog1]

I have many wav files from my audio lectures, most of them are around 60 minutes in length and 65 MB in size. I would like to burn them into CDs so that I can play them with my CD walkman.

If I burn them as audio CDs, one standard CD-R disc can only accomodate 1 wav file of mine.

If I burn them as data CDs, I can burn 10 such files into one CD-R disc but such data CDs can not be played on my CD walkman.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[jscheuer1]

There are walkman type CD players that can play data CD's. Riovolt is one brand. Make sure it is rated for mp3 and windows media. Even with such a player, you will fit more onto a data CD by converting to .mp3 format.

[djr33]

Best idea is to make an actual audio cd that will be playable in anything. Many programs can do this, such as itunes (free, though not exactly freeware), and likely many freeware/shareware apps you could try/use.
MP3s would be fine, but only for some players and you'd need to convert anyway... so... just make an audio CD, I'd say.

[jscheuer1]

Hi,
I have found a great [broken off topic link removed] service provider when I need to make lot of copy of any particular CD and it works very well for me. it works very well for me. you can get lot of copy of your CD in short of time. Good luck.

This was not the question, the OP of this rather old thread only wanted to burn CD's for his/her own use, besides - your link was broken anyway, it went nowhere.

Best idea is to make an actual audio cd that will be playable in anything. Many programs can do this, such as itunes (free, though not exactly freeware), and likely many freeware/shareware apps you could try/use.
MP3s would be fine, but only for some players and you'd need to convert anyway... so... just make an audio CD, I'd say.

How does this help with:

If I burn them as audio CDs, one standard CD-R disc can only accomodate 1 wav file of mine.

??

[tech_support]

Wav files take up a lot of space. If you make it an audio CD, I think it'll only count the minutes, not the MB's.

[djr33]

Audio CDs use the AIFF format, and a special setting within that. A wav file is uncompressed audio (generally), and that is bound to be large. Just like a DVD movie which isn't just the raw video data, the audio on a CD is in fact somewhat compressed, but not in a very lossy way. Storing a raw wav is neither useful nor efficient in terms of listening to it, so it's much better to use a program that will *automatically* convert the data to Aiff (standard format for CDs) and burn a disc that will be playable in any CD player. (A few really old players don't like burned discs and will only play professionally produced discs, but those are very rare now.)

Yes, it sounds "minutes", but also megabytes. That 74 minute limit (or whatever it is, as it varies per CD format-- is it 80 now?) is based on the datarate of the aiff format. So, sure, minutes more than size, if you're automatically converting. Using mp3 has a slight advantage there (though NOT in compatibility) in that it will be able to fit more songs on a disc as mp3 compresses to a smaller size (at more, though not very noticable, quality loss) than aiff.

[jscheuer1]

Wav files take up a lot of space. If you make it an audio CD, I think it'll only count the minutes, not the MB's.

Looks like this old 2005 thread has been resurrected due to a now deleted post by yerveries who it appears is no longer a user (banned). However, there seems to be a bit of misinformation being offered so I will try to clarify.

First of all, for a spoken word type CD, as was originally mentioned here, .wav need not necessarily be all that large. It's quality can be reduced and it can be made monaural. If compression is desired though, mp3 is the most universally supported format.

Yes, it's true that an audio CD will be the most universally supported format in common CD players. However, the aiff or whatever it is called is rated as minutes per CD, regardless of quality, not bytes. And there are players that support mp3 and wav, even other formats. Even at a very high quality, mp3 will take less room on the disk than burning it as an audio disk.

This is not just theoretical here. I suggested the riovolt (and others) to frog1 because I have one. It is a small walkman type player. If I burn my own compilation CD's for it in high quality mp3 format, I can fit hours and hours of music on one disk. My biggest problem is often finding enough songs that really go together to put on one disk, not fitting those few 'must haves' into 80 or less minutes (this varies by burner, some will only allow 74, audio disks could always technically fit 80 minutes - it just isn't advised). This has several advantages over dealing with a large multi-disk changer. Aside from cost and size of both the player and the media, I can shuffle all of the tunes easily, rather than just one disk at a time. The larger multi-disk player would also most likely use more energy and be more prone to requiring servicing or replacement. The small 'Rio' can also handle the common audio CD's in my collection.

So for one person's use, it should be obvious that to carry around his/her old lectures on disk for personal use, something like the 'Rio', using a compressed format like mp3 would be a real advantage, if 'as the caller says' they want to fit as many as possible on one disk.

[djr33]

mp3 is the most universally supported format.

Simply wrong. All devices (computers [nearly all media players therein as well], dvd players, and all CD players) will play a standard audio format.
mp3 IS smaller, and it will also work well for portable mp3 players, but not when the desired output is a CD. The only use for mp3 is stuffing more info on a particular CD, and that is only useful when the particular player is mp3-compatible, which is far from all (and then limited to that and other mp3 compatible cd players).

As for that being the most efficient... no, it's not. CDs are by now an outdated format and their only real use is: or 2. if you happen to have an mp3 compatible player, go for mp3-- fine. But otherwise, just go for an actual mp3 player*, like the ever popular ipod or any number of similar devices. There's a reason they're so popular-- convenient, easy, no discs to deal with, and an incredible number of songs can be stored. MUCH more efficient than any compression ratio with CDs. Perhaps DVDs burned with mp3s could put up a fit in that argument (or bluray would be interesting), but such players do not exist to my knowledge. Plus, not having the discs around is perhaps the best part. mini-disc players became popular because they were smaller and more efficient than CDs, but they quickly died out in favor of the even better mp3 player.

*Note, though, that mp3 is also an old and outdated format. Now, AAC is up there among the best, or there are other formats that might get it even smaller, at the loss of a bit more quality. AAC is what itunes uses, and I now use that for the soundtracks to any video clips I release on the internet. Great quality, tiny bitrate.

WAVs can be compressed, but not too well (even though the original design of the format was uncompressed media storage). Anyway, it's irrelevant, as they aren't designed to work on portable devices in general.

As for this thread being three years old now, well, evil spammer, I say. But an interesting discussion nonetheless.

[jscheuer1]

If compression is desired though, mp3 is the most universally supported format.

mp3 is the most universally supported format.

Simply wrong.

Try to restrain yourself from quoting out of context. My information is correct as regards the original question, when it was posed.

However, feel free to use whatever you like for your private collection of your own recorded lectures that you wish to listen to on a Walkman type device. .

[djr33]

No, I meant this in terms of CDs. I'm not claiming you meant that as a format for anything in general.

For YOUR personal situation I do agree that mp3 on CD makes sense, but that category is by far a minority of people today.