Just A Minute

This really depends on what you mean by a hard copy.  There are two different CD formats, Audio CD and CD-ROM (or data disk) which work in two entirely different ways.  (Actually, there are more than two, but for our purposes there are two primary formats):

A CD holds 80 minutes of audio, or 700MB of data.  MP3 files contain highly compressed audio data.

When you take your MP3 and from it make an Audio CD (for play back in regular CD players) then the MP3 file is uncompressed and written as raw audio data.  There's no benefit to this, other than compatibility with CD players.  You're not going to suddenly regain the quality that was lost when the MP3 was created, so it's suggested you make audio CDs only in those instances where you need to play back through a regular CD player that supports the MP3 format.

When you burn a data disk, you're writing the file exactly the way that it's stored on your computers hard drive.  A 90 minute MP3 file in standard 128kbps quality will take up about 82MB (give or take, depending on how we define a megabyte, but that's another discussion).  Therefore, you could easily get about 8 MP3 files of this length onto a standard 700MB disk.  It won't play on a regular old CD player, but many modern players actually support the MP3 format and will be able to play back the disk.  You will, of course, also be able to access this MP3 on any computer with a CD or DVD reader.

DVDs similarly have audio and data formats, however there's nothing you can do to make a DVD play back in a regular CD player.  The big advantage that DVDs have as a method of archive is that they can hold considerably more data (about 4300MB).

I hope that answers your question

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 5:35 PM, delmelza <delmelza@...> wrote:

pardon my cluelessness but is there the only way to make a hard copy of a 90 minute audio show is to put it on a dvd disk?
 CD audio disks are 80 minutes generally or am I missing something?
 Thanks- Miriam



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