Naive and flat-out ignorant question

[vhawk]

if i wanted to copy a whole bunch of sound files of various types, gathered together in one folder, onto a dvd or cd(which would be best?), what 'exactly' would i do, with what, and how?

anyone reading this will doubtless be stunned at my abject ignorance.

i have it in my mind that it has to do with something called 'burning', an odd term but what can i do?
if i am allowed a second, cheeky, bite at the cherry, can i record sound and/or video on to such a cd or dvd, as it if it was tape? or have i not grasped the fundamental concepts of these things?

 

[mike1959]

If you are using Vista or 7 it's very simple to add files to a CD or DVD.
As long as you have a DVD drive with 'RW' or 'R' on it, put a blank CD-R/CD-RW/DVD/R or DVD/RW disc into the drive.
Now you have some choices. Use Windows software to burn the files, or use a third party program. If Windows, in an 'Explorer' window, go to the files you want to burn, be it a folder or files, use left click on the first one, hold CTRL and click once on each file you want to select. When all are selected, right click on one of them and choose 'send to' then go down the list to find your DVD drive. Select it. Then a balloon will appear in the taskbar, 'Files ready to be written to the disc'. Click on it, a window will appear with your list of files you choose, but the text will be fainter then normal. In the top bar of the new window you will see an option 'Burn files'. Click on that and when it's done the work, the DVD drawer should open. If you are using XP you can do much the same (I think) but XP will only burn to CD not DVD. If you install some third party software, 'Trueburner', 'Burn4free', 'CDXPburnerpro' or Nero (etc), then XP will burn to DVD also.
*Either CD or DVD work well, difference is CD hold 700MB, DVD holds 4.7GB, it's your choice.

 

[vhawk]

thank you very much for taking the time and trouble to enlighten me, it's very kind of you; i only have XP home, it looks as if a dvd might be better but might not play on a car cd player.


um, i'm ashamed to say i'm a lazy old git, there are many hundreds of files , it's a pity i can't just select them all to copy over, i guess i can't then? do those burner things explain what i'm supposed to do with them, bearing in mind i'm a complete dolt?

 

[CamaroMullet]

Hi vhawk. I would suggest getting either an iPod or MP3 player type device. There are many cords/adapters that you can use to hook those up to car audio and home theater systems.

I bought a cheap mp3 player/cord for my son, he uses it in his car, home, etc... cost less then $50 and very easy to use. You can grab all your music in one folder and copy/paste it onto the device. No more making beer coasters or having the limitations that CD's have.

 

[vhawk]

thank you, i believe the chap whom i want to listen to the very extensive number of chapters from an important and instructive audio book, comprising 4 cds in all, generally listens to such things in his car, and he's as skint-penniless- as i am myself. i could of course give him the cds but wishing to draw particular chapters to his attention, while retaining these precious cds in my sole care, hence the need to copy the files/chapters to a cd.

 

[mike1959]

So you have some Audio CD's? Can you list the separate chapters in a window?
If you can, what is the file type, possibly, .wav or .mp3 ?
If you want to select out certain chapters and burn them onto another CD it might be possible. 'Copyright' springs to mind though, unless you know otherwise.
As a general rule, to play home made CD's in a car player, you need to have your files in .wav format, (meaning a digital version of an uncompressed recording).
Then it needs to be burned as a .cda file. The program 'Trueburner' has all the options. You can download and use it for free, it's simple enough to use. Choose CD, then the type of disc you want to end up with, 'Audio CD'.
Then a small window opens, Choose 'Add files'. Navigate to where your files are on your C drive. Add more till you are near to 700MB (for a CD) then click 'Burn'.
That's it.
You can't record live onto a CD, but you can record through a mic into recording software. Then burn that file to a CD. It would be in .wav form, but you can then burn those recordings to CD (as above) or keep in mp3 format as an archive, or store on CD/DVD/Flash memory.
(Check that you have a CD RW or DVD RW drive in your pc first, a CD ROM won't do the burning you want.)