Section 2 of 6 - Prev - Next
All sections - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

left or right track.  One issue with this method is that the track markers
apply to both tracks, so providing random access to specific sections can
be tricky.

If you're trying to copy a CD-ROM or VideoCD and running out of room, you
may have a different problem.  See sections (3-24) and (4-25).

Incidentally, don't get confused when you discover you have 700MB of audio
extracted from a CD that only holds 650MB.  Audio sectors use 2352 bytes
per sector, while standard CD-ROM data uses 2048 (the rest is for error
correction).  You can put roughly 747MB of audio onto a disc that only
holds 650MB of data.


Subject: [3-8-1] How well do 80-minute CD-R blanks work?
(2004/03/04)

In general, they work just fine.  Reports from people who have used
80-minute CD-Rs indicate that compatibility with different CD-ROM drives is
very good.  However, bear in mind the following statement, which was sent
by e-mail from a TDK representative:

  "The CD-R80 is a special product developed by TDK to meet the application
  needs of software developers and music studios.  To achieve its 80 minute
  recording time, track pitch and scanning velocity specification tolerances
  had to be minimized, reducing the margin of error between drive and media.
  This means limited compatibility between some CD-Recorders and CD-ROM
  Readers.  If you intend to use this recording length, please check with
  your hardware manufacturer.  Use of the CD-R80 is at one's own risk.  No
  guarantees of performance are made by TDK."

Whether it's better to use 80-minute discs or "overburning" (described in
the next section) is a worthy subject for debate.  Both can cause problems
on different CD-ROM drives, and not all recorders are capable of doing one
or the other.  Because of consumer demand, all recent drives can do both.

An 80-minute disc has roughly 360,000 sectors instead of the 333,000
defined by the Red Book standard.  This increases the CD-ROM capacity
from 650MB to 703MB.


Here's a few personal notes on my experiments with TDK 80-minute "green"
blanks, back in late 1997.  Back then it was hard to find 80-minute
discs and easy to find 74-minute discs; these days the situation has
reversed itself.  I was able to purchase a small quantity (three discs)
from Microboards at http://www.microboards.com/.  This section is rather
outdated now, but I'm leaving it in as a historical footnote.

The discs were part number SCWA-ETC80A-X, priced at US$40.00 per disc in
October 1997.  That was about 20x the cost for an extra 8% storage.  The
discs were unbranded.  The only difference I could see between these and
other TDK green discs is that on the hub it says "CD-Recordable 6129B-80".
Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3 showed 359,624 blocks (702.8MB in MODE-1) on the
TDK 80-minute blanks, versus 333,010 blocks (650.8MB) available on my
Mitsui gold 74-minute blanks.

The first challenge was finding software that would work correctly with the
discs.  Neither Easy-CD Pro 95 v1.2 nor Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3.0 would
allow me to do a test recording with more than 650MB of files.  I ended up
using mkisofs to create an image file with 341,163 blocks (666.3MB) of
data, composed of two large .AVI files, and three smaller pieces of one of
the other .AVI files.  (With Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3.5 and later, you
can choose to ignore a warning about the data size.)

Using a Yamaha CDR-102 with v1.0 firmware, the first thing I tried was to
burn the image file to a 74-minute blank.  Easy-CD immediately rejected the
disc, saying there wasn't enough space.  I then put the 80-minute blank in
and did a test run.  Easy-CD Pro 95 had no problems burning the ISO-9660
image file, until the screen saver activated and McAfee anti-virus "screen
scan" kicked in.  Good thing it was a test burn; I got a buffer underrun.
I killed the screen saver and virus checker and ran again, had a successful
test run, and followed it with a successful burn.

To verify the data, I used Easy-CD Pro 95's "compare track" feature.  This
failed, complaining that one track was shorter than the other.  My guess is
that the compare feature has some sort of track length limitation.  My next
attempt was to use the Linux "sum" command to make sure that the disc was
readable in my Plextor 8Plex.  This worked fine, and the output of "sum"
matched what I got on the 4x CD-ROM drive in the Sun workstation at work.
I also tried the disc in a Mac 7500 and a Dell Pentium, and had no problems
with either.

The next step was an 80-minute audio CD, and that's where things fell
apart.  Easy-CD Pro 95 v1.2 didn't work at all (!), Easy CD Creator Deluxe
v3.0 again refused to allow me to create a long audio CD, and with Jeff
Arnold's software (both the DOS version and CDRWIN) the test write failed
after a minute or so (after the lead-in had completed?).  Strangely,
removing the last two tracks from the cue sheet, which reduced it to 72
minutes, allowed the test write to succeed on both 74-minute and 80-minute
blanks.  It appears that the Yamaha CDR-102 drive is unwilling to write
that much audio data.


Subject: [3-8-2] How well do 90-minute and 99-minute CD-R blanks work?
(2004/03/04)

Small quantities of 90-minute and 99-minute blanks have appeared, but since
their introduction in late 2000 they haven't become as commonplace as other
lengths.  Indications are that many recorders and some software don't
really work with the longer discs.

The discs have capacity of roughly 791MB (90 min) and 870MB (99 min).
However, all the capacity in the world won't help you if you can't
read the disc after you write it.  If you're interested in larger but
incompatible discs, your best bet is probably DVD-R.  Other alternatives,
such as DD-R/DD-RW (section (2-37)), ML (section (2-39)), and GigaRec
(section (2-46)) never really took off.

CD time stamps are two digits (binary coded decimal, in case you were
wondering), so exceeding 99 minutes isn't possible.  You could, in theory,
declare there to be 99 seconds in a minute and 99 sectors per second, but
that would break just about everything that tried to read one.  The limits
of the specifications are being pushed at 80 minutes and even harder at 90,
so don't expect much more out of CD-R.  Some knowledgeable individuals have
stated that the longest possible CD-R is 79 minutes, 59 seconds, 74 blocks
long, because of the way that the last possible start time of the lead-out
is encoded, but you can use "overburning" (discussed in the next section)
to write past that point.  (Experiments suggest that the actual limit is
88 minutes; either way, you're pretty far from 99.)

See http://www.mmore.com/download/Technical_write-up-MMORE_90_min.pdf for
a tutorial on burning 90-minute discs with Nero.  In short: make sure your
drive supports overburning, set "Enable overburn" in the "Expert features"
tab of the preferences, ignore the warnings, and cross your fingers.
Always verify the disc afterward.


Subject: [3-8-3] How can I exceed the stated disc capacity ("overburning")?
(1999/10/10)

The capacity of a CD-R is calculated to allow enough space to hold at least
74 minutes of Red Book audio data and 90 seconds of digital silence.  The
silent area is called the "lead-out", and is included so that a CD player
will realize that it has reached the end of the disc, especially when
fast-forwarding.

When a recording program tells you the exact capacity of the disc, it's not
including the area reserved for the lead-out.  There's nothing magic about
this reserved area though.  With the right kind of setup -- and a
willingness to accept write failures as a matter of course -- you can put
data into the reserved area, and possibly into a few blocks past the end
of it.  This is often referred to as "overburning" a disc.

How much more you can fit depends almost entirely on the media.  Some
brands will hold as much as 78 minutes, but it varies from batch to batch.
You can use Feurio! (section (6-1-42)) to compute the maximum size of a
specific disc without actually writing anything on it.

You also need the right recorder and the right software.  The Teac CD-R55S,
Plextor PX-R412C, Yamaha 4xx/4xxx, and Memorex/Dysan CRW-1622 units have
been used to write "extra long" audio discs successfully.  The Philips
36xx, HP 71xx, and Ricoh 62xx units don't seem to be willing to do so.  In
some cases, getting the firmware revision may be important.  A recorder
that isn't able to do this sort of writing will usually reject the cue
sheet before writing begins.

To write such a disc, you need to use a program that won't refuse to exceed
the disc capacity.  Easy CD Creator, in an attempt to prevent you from
making mistakes, will refuse to allow you to write more than you should be
able to.  CDRWIN will warn you that the write may fail, but will allow you
to continue anyway.  Nero has a preference (under Expert Features) called
"enable oversize disc" that allows the longer write.

One approach to determining the maximum disc length is to gather a large
collection of audio tracks, and start writing.  Eventually the recorder
will attempt to write past the end of the disc, and the write process will
fail.  Now play the disc, preferrably in a player that shows the total
elapsed time for the entire disc.  When the music cuts off, make a note of
the time.  That's the absolute capacity of the disc.

Most (all?) CD players will display the total disc time when you first
put the disc in.  This value represents how much you tried to write,
not how much was actually written.  If you want to impress your friends,
try to write 88 minutes of music.  You won't get anywhere near that far
on 74-minute media, but the CD player will show it.

It should be possible to write a CD-ROM in the same manner as an audio CD,
but the space would have to be calculated so that the write failure
occurred when the lead-out was being written.  Otherwise, some of the files
that appeared to be on the disc wouldn't actually exist.

Recording in DAO mode may be helpful to ensure that the lead-in gets
written.  Without a table of contents, the disc is useless.  It's very
likely however that you will be able to finalize the disc even after the
write fails.

Depending on the disc and your player, you may have trouble seeking out to
tracks near the end of the disc.  Also, your CD player may behave strangely
when it walks off the end of the disc: one user said he had to open and
close the player afterward to convince it that a disc was still loaded.

The disc surface past the end of the area reserved for the leadout may be
unreliable.  Attempting to use more than 90 seconds (about 15MB of MODE-1
data) beyond the rated capacity of a disc could be asking for trouble.

It's possible to perform similar tricks on 80-minute media.  Experiments
with TDK 80-minute discs resulted in a recorded length of 82:09.  MMC
recorders don't seem to like having the lead-out position any later than
88:29:74, but that shouldn't get in the way.

Further commentary and instructions can be found at
http://www.cdmediaworld.com/ under "OverSize / OverBurn CD-Rs", including
a list of recorders that are known to work and step-by-step instructions
for using popular software.


Subject: [3-9] How do I put photographs onto CD-ROM?
(1999/03/31)

The first thing you have to do is get them onto your computer.  There are
three basic approaches: use a scanner to convert printed photographs, use a
video digitizer to pull images off of a video tape, or use a digital camera
to take pictures that can be transferred directly.

There are a great many different scanners, with different resolutions and
capabilities.  http://www.zdnet.com/special/filters/sc/scanner/ is a
fair place to start.  (If the link doesn't work, go to zdnet.com and
look for reviews of scanners.)

Video digitizers are mentioned in section (3-16).  If you're scanning off
of VHS video tape, you are going to get disappointing results.

Digital cameras will generally give you the best results.  A mid-range
digital camera will give you pictures that look as good (when printed on a
photo-quality printer, which are inexpensive now) as a 35mm point-and-shoot
film camera.  A few links:

	- http://www.steves-digicams.com/
	- http://www.imaging-resource.com/
	- http://www.dcresource.com/

Once you have the photograph on your hard drive, you may want to touch it
up a bit.  You can use software to correct for over- and under-exposed
snapshots, remove "red eye", and crop off bits that weren't supposed to be
in the frame.  Cameras and scanners should come with image manipulation
software that will help you manipulate and manage the images.  Adobe's
PhotoShop (http://www.adobe.com/) is the standard high-end solution, and
their PhotoDeluxe Home Edition may appeal to a less demanding crowd.

Once you've got the images in a reasonable state, save them in a widely
accepted format such as JPEG or TIFF, and write them to a CD-ROM like you
would any other files.  You may need to use an "Export" function rather
than "Save As...", because consumer photo software authors tend to use
proprietary image formats as the default.

If you want to create a PhotoCD that can be played in a PhotoCD player,
continue on to the next section.  If you're interested in arranging the
pictures into an album, see (3-9-2).


Subject: [3-9-1] How do I create a PhotoCD?
(1999/03/31)

First off, you need to be aware that certain aspects of PhotoCD creation
are proprietary to Kodak.  Programs like Roxio's Easy CD Creator will
allow you to create CD-ROMs with PhotoCD image files, and you will be able
to view the images with Mac or PC programs that understand the PhotoCD file
format, but you won't be able to look at the disc with a PhotoCD player.

http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/corp/pressReleases/pr19950328-10.shtml
has the glossy brochure information, with some Kodak contact information.
The Build-It and Arrange-It software, which allow you to create "real"
PhotoCDs, costs about US$450.  Kodak apparently pulled the software from
the market in December 1997, so it may be difficult to find.

http://www.shiresoft.com/ gives you step-by-step instructions and software
for creating "real" PhotoCD discs with Kodak's software.  The Build-It
program will only write to Kodak CD recorders, but a translator available
from this web site will allow it to work with GEAR or CDRWIN.  Follow the
Kodak links on that page.

There are some utilities that will convert images into PCD format, but they
only support the uncompressed base resolutions.  The higher resolutions are
compressed with an algorithm proprietary to Kodak.


Subject: [3-9-2] How can I set up a photo album on CD-ROM?
(1999/12/18)

There are programs available that will do this for you, or you can take
a "do it yourself" approach.  Some examples:

Roxio "Photo Relay" (part of Easy CD Creator Deluxe Edition - see
section (6-1-26)).  According to their web page, it "lets you organize
digitized photos and videos, then create Slide Shows, Web Albums and Video
Postcards that can be stored to CD and shared with others - no proprietary
viewer is required by the recipient!".

Cerious "Thumb's Plus" (http://www.cerious.com/).  Helps you organize
images and create slide shows.  Free evaluation version.

Firehand "Lightning" (http://www.firehand.com/lightning/).  Photo albums,
slide shows, screen savers.  Free evaluation version.

Tlonstruct "CDView Pro" (http://tlonstruct.com/).  Fancy picture viewer.
Free shareware download.

G&A Imaging "PhotoRecall" (http://www.ga-imaging.com/).  Commercial
program with lots of features.

InMedia "Slides & Sounds" (http://www.inmediapresents.com/slideshows.html).
Create fancy presentations.  Demo available.

Extensis "Portfolio" (http://www.extensis.com/portfolio/).  Heavy-duty
software for "media asset management".  Supports every file format you've
ever heard of, and has support for hybrid CD recording.

The do-it-yourself approach.  Make an HTML page with pictures, using a
program like Microsoft FrontPage to create thumbnails (the auto-thumbnail
feature is *very* handy), so that when you click on the thumbnail image you
get the full-sized image.  Put the HTML page and all of the graphics onto a
CD-ROM, and view the pictures with a web browser.  For bonus points you can
use "shellout" with autorun.inf (section (3-21)) to have Windows
automatically launch the default web browser when the disc is inserted, and
"mkhybrid" to create a disc with long filenames and correct file types for
Rock Ridge, Joliet, and MacOS.

The "Film Factory" software that comes with some Epson printers has an
"export to web page" function that works pretty well.  The "lite" version
that comes with their greeting card paper may or may not support this
feature.


Subject: [3-9-3] How can I show digital photos on my DVD player?
(2002/12/09)

The easiest way is to use a program that does it for you.  Ulead's "DVD
PictureShow" will create VideoCD or DVD discs with your photos on them.
More information is available at http://www.ulead.com/.  A similar
product is PictureToTV from http://www.picturetotv.com/.

The first step is to make sure your DVD player can play CD-R media.
Create an audio CD on CD-R media, put it into your DVD player, and try to
play it.  If it works, great.  If it doesn't, try the experiment again,
this time with CD-RW media.  If neither works, or CD-R doesn't work and
you can't record CD-RW discs, you're out of luck.  See section (2-13) for
more about DVD players and compatibility.

The next step is to find a way to display the photos.  Some DVD players can
display PhotoCD discs, but there isn't a way to create "real" PhotoCD discs
with currently available software (see section (3-9-1)).

The alternative is to create a VideoCD with still frames.  Each still frame
is a medium sized (704x480 in NTSC) JPEG image.  By gathering these into a
collection, you can create a VideoCD "slide show" that will play on most
DVD players.  Be careful though: a fair percentage of DVD players do not
support VideoCD.  You should be able to figure this out by looking through
the manual.  If no reference to VideoCD can be found, you'll just have to
try it and see.

See section (3-16-1) for more about VideoCD.

The MPV (MultiPhoto/Video) specification was announced in November 2002.
It's purpose is to define a standard way of storing pictures, videos,
and audio on digital media.  This should allow you to create discs with
multimedia content easily and display them on compatible DVD players.
See http://www.osta.org/mpv/.


Subject: [3-10] How do I make a CD that will work on a PC or a Mac?
(1998/04/06)

[ Moved to section (3-35). ]


Subject: [3-11] How do I access different sessions on a multi-session CD?
(2004/01/12)

As always, it depends.

MS-DOS lets you see the first data session.  Usually.  Win95 lets you see
the last data session.  Usually.  Roxio's Session Selector and Ahead's
MultiMounter will let you choose which session you see.

Some CD creation software (e.g. Roxio Easy CD Creator) writes a complete
table of contents in each session, some of which refers back to the files
from the previous session, allowing a form of incremental backup.  (This
will work for ISO-9660 discs, but won't work for HFS.  However, this is
less painful than it seems because a properly-configured Macintosh will let
you mount all the sessions as individual volumes.)

Software like Nero or Easy CD Creator will allow you to combine the
contents of several previous sessions by creating a new session (load the
file/directory info from more than one session, then write and close a
new session with that directory structure).

For some older systems your success with multi-session discs may depend on
the SCSI or CD-ROM driver you have installed.  It's reasonable to expect
a disc with two sessions to be treated the same way on just about every
system, but once you go past two it's unwise to expect consistent behavior.

If you just can't seem to find your files, you can use IsoBuster
(http://www.isobuster.com/) to access the data manually.


Subject: [3-12] How do I transfer my records or cassettes to a CD?
(2001/05/29)

Conversion of cassette tapes and vinyl records is increasingly popular.
Common reasons range from plans for long-term preservation to a desire
to listen to old favorites while driving in a car without a tape player.

There are two basic kinds of CD recorders: those that attach to a computer,
and those that stand alone.  The latter, described in detail in section
(5-12), are usually connected to a stereo system.  They are easier to work
with, but less flexible.

The first step, regardless of equipment, is figuring out how to physically
connect your tape player, turntable, or wax cylinder player to something
else.  You almost always want "line-level" sound.  The output from a
turntable is typically not line-level, so it has to be connected to a
receiver or pre-amplifier "phono" input.  You then use the outputs from
the receiver or amplifier; if you can find outputs labeled "tape out" or
"preamp out", use those.

(A pre-amplifier raises the voltage level from the phono cartridge up to
"line level" voltage.  An amplifier increases the signal from line level
to whatever is needed for your speakers.  A pre-amplifier will also
compensate for pre-emphasis in the recorded material.)

You could connect your recorder to the headphone jack on the receiver or
amplifier, but that's not the best way to go.  The voltage level coming
out of the headphone jack varies on the volume setting, while line-level
output doesn't.  This makes line-level easier to set up.  If all you can
find is a headphone jack, you will have to fiddle with the volume control
until the sound is as loud as possible without "clipping".  If one of your
devices has little colored bars that bounce up and down according to how
loud the sound is, you need to play something "loud" on your tape player
or turntable, and adjust the volume until the loudest parts rise up just
shy of the maximum.

Connect the output from your tape player, receiver, or amplifier into
the CD recorder (if you have a stand-alone model) or the "line in" on the
sound card on your computer (if you're using that).  Continue with section
(3-12-1) if you have a stand-alone model, section (3-12-2) if yours is
attached to a computer.


You can find odd bits of hardware that will play or enhance playback of
older recording formats (78's, LP's, 16" Radio Transcriptions) at Nauck's
Vintage Records (http://www.78rpm.com/).

For those of you wondering what the deal with pre-emphasis is, this
little tidbit is courtesy Mike Richter:

  "Preemphasis has been used since the earliest days of commercial recording.
  In general, the high-frequency content of the music (or whatever) being
  recorded is low and the noise is high.  Therefore, treble was boosted and
  lows were cut by a preemphasis curve which was removed in playback.  The
  standard RIAA curve for turnover and rolloff (the amount and frequency
  for treble and bass, respectively) was not accepted universally until the
  50's, and some fine preamps offered selectable values with presets for
  the common curves into the early transistor era."


Subject: [3-12-1] ...with a stand-alone audio CD recorder?
(2000/12/02)

Once you've got everything hooked up, hit "record" on the CD recorder
and "play" on the other device.  Wait a while.  You're done.

You may want to fiddle with it to mark the start individual tracks.  See
the instructions that came with your recorder.


Subject: [3-12-2] ...with a CD recorder attached to my computer?
(2003/05/23)

Recording into a PC is a little trickier, but you have much more
control over the final result.  It's easy to edit away silence and
reduce or remove clicks and hissing.

In addition to the material here, you may want to read one or more of
these tutorials:

  http://www.blazeaudio.com/howto/lp-overview.html
  http://www.delback.co.uk/lp-cdr.htm
  http://www.ganymede.hemscott.net/tutorial.htm
  http://www.gmayor.dsl.pipex.com/copy_vinyl_to_CDR.htm
  http://www.pcabusers.net/vinyllp/vinyllp.htm

The page at http://www.octave.com/library/audiocd.html is also useful.


The most crucial component is the sound card.  The sound card converts the
audio signal from analog to digital (an "A/D conversion").  Some cards do
this conversion better than others.  You can use the A/D converter built
into a sound card like a SoundBlaster 16, but the sound quality will not
be very good.  The sound cards from Turtle Beach (Tropez, Tahiti) and
CrystaLake are a step up, and a Digital Audio Labs CardD+ is about as good
as it gets for internal A/D cards.  If you're really serious, you should get
an external A/D converter like the Symetrix 620 or the Lucid AD9624 and feed
the digital output from that into the computer.  (Looks like the Lucid device
has superseded the Symetrix one -- it's the same company.  Relevant URLs
are http://www.symetrixaudio.com/ and http://www.lucidtechnology.com/.)
Other products can be found at http://www.midiman.com/.

Another way of accomplishing the same thing is to record to an audio DAT
deck and then use the digital output on the DAT recorder; see section (3-13)
for details.  With some decks, such as the TASCAM DA-20 mkII and DA-302,
it's not even necessary to record to tape.  You can play straight through
the recorder.

A problem with some sound cards (really cheap Opti and ESS cards have been
named) is that the crystal that controls the recording sample rate is off.
If the card doesn't do the sampling at the correct rate, the recorded audio
may end up slightly slower or faster than the original.  This will become
apparent when the sound is played back off of a CD or through a better
sound card.  Most sounds cards don't have this problem.

If you have questions or need a recommendation on a sound card, you might
want to try:

	news:rec.audio.tech
	news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.tech

Some highly technical benchmark evaluations of cards are available at
http://www.rockpark.com/soundcards/ and http://www.pcavtech.com/.

Roxio's Easy CD Creator (section (6-1-26)) includes an application called
"Spin Doctor" that performs most of the tasks needed to transfer LPs to CD.
Depending on your needs, it may provide a simple all-in-one solution.

A simpler approach is to use a program capable of recording large amounts
of audio from the sound card.  An editor such as Cool Edit or GoldWave
should work.  Whatever you choose, you should again play a loud passage and
watch the "VU meter" display to make sure you're getting as much signal as
you can without clipping.  If the little colored bars are slamming against
the top, you're clipping.  The Windows volume control panel (double-click
on the yellow speaker icon in the lower-right-hand corner) has a VU meter
in it, and allows you to set the input gain.

Configure the application to record 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo sound, click
"record", hit "play" on your tape player or turntable, and wait a while.
When the music is done, stop the recording on the computer.  You can
either record the result directly to a CD, or clean it up a bit first.
See the next section for some suggestions.

Bear in mind that CD-quality audio uses up about 10MB of disk space per
minute, so one side of a 45-minute tape will require roughly 450MB.  Make
sure you have enough disk space before you start.


Subject: [3-12-3] How can I clean up the audio before recording?
(2000/12/02)

There are a variety of programs that can automatically remove pops, clicks,
and hissing from digitized audio.  Few automated tools can do as good a job
cleaning up pops and other noise as an experienced person, however.  If you
want to perform the transfer by hand, the following method has been
suggested for PC users with Cool Edit:

 - Record directly into Cool Edit, using the highest possible input
   level that doesn't exceed the maximum.  You want to record 16-bit
   stereo samples at 44.1KHz.
 - In the "noise reduction" dialog, set FFT size to 8192, FFT precision
   to 10, and #of samples to 96.
 - Select a silent passage between songs or from the end of the record.
   It can have some crackling but no huge pops.  Set the noise level.
 - Select the entire track and perform noise reduction at about 70%.
 - Select the entire track and normalize it.
 - Manually remove any big pops (easily located by zooming in to the general
   area and switching to "spectral view" in the edit menu) by zooming in on
   them and amplifying them to about 8%.  You only need to select the
   channel (left or right) in which the offending data occurs.  If it occurs
   across BOTH channels, you may get a better result by deleting that part
   of the track and reconstructing it in such a way that it remains
   smooth... if that's not possible, make one channel smooth and then
   amplify the other to 8%.

Cool Edit optionally leaves a blob of data at the end of the .WAV file,
which is legal in the file format but not expected by some utilities.  To
avoid this, make sure the "Save extra non-audio information" box isn't
checked.

Software that may come in handy:

  GoldWave
    http://www.goldwave.com/, a good audio editor (shareware).
  Adobe Audition (formerly Syntrillium Cool Edit)
    http://www.adobe.com/, fancy commercial audio editor.
  Sound Forge
    http://www.sonicfoundry.com/, fancy commercial product with
    lots of plug-ins.
  Clean! plus
    http://www.steinberg.net/products/, designed for vinyl and tape xfers.
  Algorithmix
    http://www.algorithmix.com/, has a noise reduction program called
    SoundLaundry.
  DART and DART PRO
    http://www.dartpro.com/, designed for audio restoration ("click
    removal" and more).
  DCart
    http://www.diamondcut.com/, audio restoration.
  Pristine Sounds 2000
    http://www.alienconnections.com/, audio restoration.
  Gnome Wave Cleaner
    http://gwc.sourceforge.net/, audio cleanup under Linux.
  Waves software (various)
    http://www.waves.com/, fancy (and expensive) audio manipulation.
  CD Wave
    http://www.cdwave.com/, useful for splitting a single large WAV
    file on track boundaries.
  RIP Vinyl
    http://www.ripvinyl.com/, similar to CD Wave.

Wave Repair, from http://www.waverepair.com/, is a WAV editor designed with
analog recording and click-fixing in mind.  It's aimed at very flexible
manual repair with some helpful automation.  If you'd like something
a little heavier on automation and a little lighter on manual control,
try Wave Corrector at http://www.ganymede.hemscott.net/wavecor.htm.

Don't forget that CD audio is 16-bit PCM stereo samples at 44.1KHz, and
will chew up disk space at roughly 176K per second.  Playing back large
sound files is difficult with simple-minded applications like the standard
Win95 sound player, because they try to load the entire file into memory
all at once.  Windows Media Player should work fine.  (Section (4-20)
has some other suggestions on this same topic.)

See section (3-3) for some tips on avoiding clicks when committing the
audio to CD.

If, for some reason, you'd like to record "live" to the CD-R instead of
recording to the hard drive first, see section (3-54).


Subject: [3-13] How do I transfer an audio DAT tape to CD?
(2003/01/13)

Buy a card that will allow you to go from DAT to hard disk digitally.  Make
sure you get one that can handle the same digital standard the DAT recorder
uses, i.e. S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format, sometimes
referred to as "domestic") or AES/EBU ("professional").

Some of the solutions for the PC are:
  - DigiDesign AudioMedia - http://www.digidesign.com/
  - Zefiro Acoustics ZA2 - http://www.zefiro.com/
  - AdB Digital Multiwav Pro - http://www.adbdigital.com/
  - Digital Audio Labs CardD+ - http://www.digitalaudio.com/products.htm
  - Turtle Beach Fiji - http://www.tbeach.com/products/fiji.htm

The CardD+ comes highly recommended.  There may be newer versions of these
products, so be sure to check out the web sites.

Section 2 of 6 - Prev - Next
All sections - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

© allanswers.org | Terms of use