converting mp3 to audio cd

fane_j wrote:

However, virtually all DVD players, and many CD players of recent vintage, are able to play so-called MP3 CDs; and they have the advantage of holding many more hours of music than an audio CD.

It is a good idea to check the manual of your player (or perform tests) to see if there are any limitations on its ability to play MP3 format files. Some players have problems recognizing files with very long file names or unusual characters in the name. Some, mostly older CD players won't play CD-RW (rewritable) discs or 700 mB (80 minute) CD-R discs, regarless of format. Some don't play some MP3 encodings very well if at all, for instance VBR (variable bit rate) encoded files with certain (usually high) "quality" settings available in iTunes & other similar apps like Toast.

Note also that if you choose "MP3 CD" as the burn format iTunes will only burn songs on the playlist already in the MP3 format, so you will have to create an MP3 version of any songs not already in that format & make sure that version is the one in the playlist. Search iTunes help for topics like "Convert songs" or refer to this KBase article about how to do that. The most important (& not very obvious) thing to understand about this is the available format depends on the iTunes "Import Settings..." preference for saving converted copies as well as for imports.

This may help explain some of the reasons why gaginker (or others) might want to forego the space saving advantages of the MP3 format.

To expand just a little, when you've made your playlist, the burn button is at the bottom right of the window (iTunes 9) or you have to use the file menu to find the burn command in iTunes 10 as I understand it. Either way, when you click burn, you'll get a dialogue box up where you can select the type of CD to burn and the gap between tracks for audio CDs.

Click burn in that box when all is as you wish, then insert a blank CD when prompted at the top of the window.

typos edited by: noondaywitch

gaginker wrote:

Is there a fairly simple way to convert mp3 to audio cd?

Just one point (with apologies if you already know all about this).

The fact that you can doesn't mean that you should. MP3 is a lossy compression format, ie, during encoding, part of the audio signal is discarded -- for ever. 'Converting' MP3 to CDDA (audio CD) means decoding the MP3, without restoring the part lost during encoding. So the resulting audio CD offers no advantage whatsoever over the original MP3 files. Now, whether or not you will hear or notice that something is missing depends on many variables, not least of which are your own ears and musical education and training, as well as the type of music you are listening to.

There is only one good reason to do it, and that is, if you want to play music you only have as MP3 files on a CD player which reads only CDDA (ie, audio CDs). However, virtually all DVD players, and many CD players of recent vintage, are able to play so-called MP3 CDs; and they have the advantage of holding many more hours of music than an audio CD.

MP3 CD is not really a different format, but a data CD containing MP3 files. W/o going into tech stuff, such a CD should be written in the ISO 9660 file system (aka CDFS), rather than the Mac-native HFS+ file system. If you burn it with iTunes, the correct settings will be chosen automatically. You can go to iTunes > Help > iTunes Help > Organize your iTunes library > Burn discs > Create MP3 CDs for detailed instructions.

I have to say that I don't like iTunes because it makes me do things its way rather than my way.

If you really do want to do this after the caveats given above you might want to consider using Max (or something similar) to convert the MP3 files then burn a CD in your usual way.

Fane, first, many thanks for taking the time to explain the complxities of the different formats.

Here's the current project: My son made a CD of audio books in MP3 format, and our little player won't handle it. He told me it was easy to convert them, and as Ho Lee Mac (see above) instructed, I imported the disc into iTunes, but when it came to burning these files as audio , the time estimated was horrendous - something like five minutes for one chapter of one book, for a total of many many hours.

So what's needed is a much quicker way to convert , or I'll have to buy a newer player.

Thanks again for your time.

Michael Wasley wrote:

I have to say that I don't like iTunes because it makes me do things its way rather than my way.

Agreed. I never use iTunes for that purpose myself. But I believe it's designed for the less-experienced user, who doesn't want to bother with technical details like choosing between ISO 9660 and HFS+.

OTOH, I love iTunes for its scriptability. I do virtually all my tagging in iTunes, using various AppleScripts; moreover, this allows one to use LAME and FLAC with iTunes, which is very convenient.

That's the trouble with converting to audio format! The episodes will be the same length as they were when broadcast, usually 25 to 30 min segments, so one mp3 CD can need a lot of audio CDs to transfer to.

R C-R wrote:

It is a good idea to check the manual of your player

Always is.

Some players have problems recognizing files with very long file names

Very long names in ISO 9660?!

Some, mostly older CD players won't play CD-RW (rewritable) discs or 700 mB (80 minute) CD-R discs, regarless of format.

Granted, some drives may not play CD-RW, but 80 mins? How old a player did you have in mind? Sounds like an antique to me.

Thanks, RC-R.Afraid we don't have the manual, but it's only a cheapie that is used with headphones.

Perhaps the easiest way out of this is to swallow our pride and buy a player that can handle mp3s and give the old one to charity!

But it's so good that people in the Community take the time to try to help. Much appreciated.

purbrookian wrote:

So what's needed is a much quicker way to convert , or I'll have to buy a newer player.

Don't confuse the duration of the conversion with the length of the track!

The problem is this. Most MP3 audio books are encoded in 64k or 128k, or even less. That means that 1 MP3 CD can hold 20 hours or more of content; whereas 1 audio CD can hold less than 1.5 hour of content. So, you'd probably need more than 14 CDs to burn the content of 1 full MP3 CD audio book.

Your only solution is a new player. If it's for audio books, look for one with USB and SD ports, which also plays contents from an SD card or USB drive. Or buy a cheap MP3 player instead. For audio books I use a low-end Sony Walkman I bought two or three years ago, which fits my needs very well.

fane_j wrote:

Very long names in ISO 9660?!

Sure. Some players handle file names near the 255 character limit allowed by the Rock Ridge extension to ISO 9660 without problems but some begin to act erratically with much shorter file names. I don't have any idea why. Maybe it has to do with buffer overruns in the player or some quirk in the burning software. I've seen speculation that it actually has something to do with the full path name length instead of just the file name but I don't know if that really is a factor.

Granted, some drives may not play CD-RW, but 80 mins? How old a player did you have in mind? Sounds like an antique to me.

I guess it depends on what you consider an antique but I do know that some players in mid 2000 vintage cars don't like 80 minute CD-R's & (very oddly) a particular model of a "pro" CD player often used in theatrical work sometimes has problems with them but the model it replaced did not.

R C-R wrote:

Some players handle file names near the 255 character limit allowed by the Rock Ridge extension

I should be very interested in a few specific examples of CD players which do Rock Ridge or can't handle 80 min CDs (buggy firmware excluded, naturally).

fane_j wrote:

I should be very interested in a few specific examples of CD players which do Rock Ridge or can't handle 80 min CDs (buggy firmware excluded, naturally).

I don't know if it has anything to do with supporting Rock Ridge specifically but the factory installed player in my 2008 Honda Accord plays MP3 files with filenames up to somewhere around 80 to 100 characters long, although the scrolling display truncates the names before they are all displayed. With filenames much longer than that, it just ignores the files completely. I don't know the exact limit or if it varies with some other factor.

It also plays & displays files with names containing some (but not all) characters not allowed by ISO 9660 level 1 standards. Maybe this has something to do with some attempt by Honda to make the player compatible with discs that don't completely conform to ISO 9660 standards, but that's just speculation on my part. All I really know is what I have observed from experimentation.

As for the 80 minute CD thing, I have been cautioned not to mention the name of the pro player that doesn't like them because of an ongoing legal dispute between a distributor & a performing arts center I sometimes work for. All I can say is it is a well-known brand & a current model in wide use in this kind of venue.

These players have features not found on consumer ones like setting frame accurate, instant start cue points. Again maybe that has something to do with it but that is just speculation. I suspect there is another more likely explanation but since that touches on the reason for the dispute, I can't talk about it. Sorry.

R C-R wrote:

I don't know if it has anything to do with supporting Rock Ridge specifically but the factory installed player in my 2008 Honda Accord plays MP3 files with filenames up to somewhere around 80 to 100 characters long

I asked for "specific examples of CD players". Honda Accord 2008 is not specific, because, in the same market, different configurations came equipped with different players; to say nothing of different markets. Moreover, the HU in at least some configurations included not a CD player, but a DVD player, which is a different ballgame.

As for the 80 minute CD thing, I have been cautioned not to mention the name of the pro player that doesn't like them

OK, but you said, "some players in mid 2000 vintage cars don't like 80 minute CD-R". Here is not "some players", but one single player (which, by the sound of it, has problems); and not "2000 vintage cars", but a professional model.

It all sounds like that old joke about the guy who won a BMW in a lottery. It was all true, except for two small points. He didn't win it -- it was stolen from him; and it wasn't a BMW -- it was his bike.

My Accord is a very specific example of one that handles file names longer than ISO 9660 standards suggest it should. I can't speak for every other Accord on the planet but that does not make it any less an example.

The point is simply that MP3 CD's are not as universally playable as "RedBook" audio format ones, which may explain why the OP wants to convert MP3's to that format.

Beyond that, I wanted to mention other issues that might be relevant to playability, including the fact that one might encounter players that don't work reliably with various kinds of burned CD's, including but not limited to 80 minute ones.

I can't say any more about the pro player other than it is in wide use.