[mikhael]

I'm trying to burn a bunch of MP3s to a CD as an audio CD in Nero (v5.5.10).

When I finish the burn, I put the CD into my car. It spits it back out. When I put it into my PS2, it can't read the disc. When I put it into my boombox, it shows no tracks and ejects it if I try to play it. When I put it in the computer, I see several .cda files and all of them play silence if I try to play them in Winamp.

Is there anything special I have to do to set up an audio CD? I told Nero I wanted an Audio CD and I dropped 45min worth of mp3s onto the CD image. I've tried burning it track-at-once and disc-at-once.

Anyone have any suggestions, aside from switching CD burning programs or replacing the hardware? I should note that I have no troubles burning data CDs at all--its how I backup my 3d models and stuff, and I test the backup CDs regularly.

[WMCoolmon]

Do you know that both the boombox and the PS2 can read burnt CDs? Have you tried using the 'Finalize disc' option?

Edit: Just noticed the part about them playing in silence in WA. Your CD channel is turned up and unmuted in the mixer, right?

All those being wrong are probably unlikely, but that's all I can think of right now...

[mikhael]

Other notes of interest:

Windows Media Player will play the CD, but winamp will not.I'm rather confused at the disparity between WMP and Winamp.

If I put the CD into my FreeBSD box, and try to play it using the command line tool 'cdcontrol', or my custom CDplayer written in Python, it works.

I have tried with and without the "finalise" CD option. CD volume on the computer is not muted and the volume is maxed. The PS2 and the boombox play music CDs that I have copied CD-to-CD or burned from an image. I have never tried a burned CD in my CD player in the car, as I've only recently gotten a car with a CD Player.

In the end, if I can't solve this problem, I'll go buy a car stereo that will read MP3s from a CD. I'd rather save a few bucks though and just use the one I've got.

[edit]
It just occured to me to mention that I've verified the MP3s are good. I can play those on any mp3 playing device (PDA, computer, MP3 jukebox and MP3 portable) that I own.
[/edit]

[Admiral LSD]

Just out of curiosity, have you tried using another application to create the CD? iTunes can create Audio CDs from MP3s fairly easily: just add your MP3s to the library, assemble the ones you want to burn into a new playlist and then select "Burn Playlist to Disc." I only bring this up as it's free and I know it does the job having had good luck with it myself when Nero failed me a few weeks back.

[mikhael]

I guess I can try iTunes later. I don't have any other CD burning software on this machine and I can't try using FreeBSDs stuff, since my FreeBSD box is my laptop, which has no burner.

I'll see what comes up. This isn't an issue now, but it will be later on down the road. My car doesn't have a tape player, so I have to record my audiobook tapes to CD first, in order to listen to them. Luckily, I've got a pretty good number of books on CD to work through before things get ugly.

[Bobboau]

try burning at a slower speed, or getting a diferent brand CDR/burner

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Bobboau
try burning at a slower speed

That's what i'd recommend.... my brother has probs with CD's burned at 16x in his hi-fi / car, wherease I don't have any problems.... I have a feeling WMP caches CD data before playing it (so you can't plug headphones into the CD-player jack and listen), but Winamp might not use that strategy  - that might hint at the cause.

[TrashMan]

I have a similar problem.

Whenever I burn a audio CD it works fine on my PC, but not on my CD Player...
The same thing when I burn MP3's....

Some of my friends have trouble reading any CD I burn, regarrdless what is on it...strange

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Bobboau
...or getting a diferent brand CDR/burner

Originally posted by mikhael
Anyone have any suggestions, aside from switching CD burning programs or replacing the hardware?

Maybe I wasn't clear on that point. I will try a lower burn speed (I'm only using 8x now).

[J3Vr6]

I had that problem.  I had to end up burning at 1x to get it to work right.  Burning it any faster and apparently the computer forgets to finalize or something.  So you'd get a partial CD, or a CD that spits out.  But this was on an 450 mhz computer and a 4x CD burner.

[Sandwich]

Most read problems of this kind are related to CD media quality, which can soemtimes partially be alleviated by burning at slower speeds. Buy a 5-pack of the most expensive CD discs you can find and try with them.

On the other hand, if WMP can read it and Winamp can't...  hmmm. I wonder if it's some sort of DRM-related issue somehow.

I've noticed that if I burn a data disc of MP3's to play in my iRiver SlimX discman, it resets the discman's OS when it tries to play an MP3 with the copyright option tagged. Very weird.

[mikhael]

Since the tracks I'm using are ones I ripped myself (i'm testing with my Evanescence MP3s, ripped from my CD by me) and some mp3s I created from tapes, I can't imagine them having the copyright bit set.

The media in question is memorex, which I've had good experience with in the past.

Something else just occured to me. Would the fact that its 80min CDs be a possible problem? I'm not burning more than 45min at a time to the disks.

[DragonClaw]

If I burn mp3s to a CD, I have to burn them as a data CD for them to work in my car mp3 player.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by mikhael
Since the tracks I'm using are ones I ripped myself (i'm testing with my Evanescence MP3s, ripped from my CD by me) and some mp3s I created from tapes, I can't imagine them having the copyright bit set.

The media in question is memorex, which I've had good experience with in the past.

Something else just occured to me. Would the fact that its 80min CDs be a possible problem? I'm not burning more than 45min at a time to the disks.

Still, the copyright bit is worth checking. In Winamp, right-click on a mp3 in the playlist and select "File info" - the bottom-left box should have a "Copyrighted: yes/no" line.

And I doubt it's the 80-min CDs, altough I can't, of course, rule it out entirely.

Originally posted by DragonClaw
If I burn mp3s to a CD, I have to burn them as a data CD for them to work in my car mp3 player.

Brain fart?

Originally posted by mikhael
...a bunch of MP3s to a CD as an audio CD...

[Drew]

mik try burning them with WMP... its reliable.  last time i used   Nero to burn Audio CD's i would get a bunch of write problems.

[Stealth]

Sandwich:  I know what he's saying.  Certain CD burning applications you can burn either an "audio" CD, or a "data" CD... an "audio" cd is a CD that can only be played in cars, boomboxes, etc... to burn an MP3 CD you have to click "data".

[kode]

nero can take mp3:s and convert them to wav's automagically, sandwich.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Stealth
Sandwich:  I know what he's saying.  Certain CD burning applications you can burn either an "audio" CD, or a "data" CD... an "audio" cd is a CD that can only be played in cars, boomboxes, etc... to burn an MP3 CD you have to click "data".

I know what he's saying, too, but apparently you missed what Mik is saying... Mikhael is trying to burn an Audio CD, not a data disc with MP3s on it. A Redbook CD, if you want the technical term.

Therefore, you have what Kode stated (which I already knew, too )

Originally posted by kode
nero can take mp3:s and convert them to wav's automagically, sandwich.

[DragonClaw]

Originally posted by Sandwich
I know what he's saying, too, but apparently you missed what Mik is saying... Mikhael is trying to burn an Audio CD, not a data disc with MP3s on it.

Which, as I was saying, will not work with Nero, according to my experiences. If I burned them as an Audio CD, it didn't work in my car. I think that'll work only if you are burning .wavs as an audio CD. If I burned the mp3s as a data CD in Nero, it worked fine.

So, try burning as data.

[Darkage]

I burned a audio cd with mp3's and it worked fine any where in my friends car/stereo and on my own stuff.


I burn them at 48x on me Plextor plexwriter worked perfectly so far.