I have been creating 'Backup / Archive' CD's and DVD5's from the music compilation I have on my computer, the files that I have are either MP3, WMA, OGG, and FLAC.The software program that I am now using to create the backup discs is Ashampoo Burning Studio 8, if anyone is familiar with it. From the options to choose from I have been using the "Burn Files and Folders" > "Create a New CD/DVD/Blue-Ray Disc". The reason for my using using the choice that I did is this: I not knowing about making an MP3 Long-Play CD,when I wanted to store a lot of MP3 music files/folders onto one CD ( I didn't have a DL DVD Device in the humble box I had),I would use the WinXP's "Send to CD" option and this would create a 'DATA CD' with 20 albums and 12-13 hours of CD's on it that wouldn't play on standalone CD players, only on the computer::: Storage to me, as I only had a 20GB HDD. I have discovered that the CD's I make using the Ashampoo Studio 8 do play in stand-alone machines, however, I noticed that thee files on the CD have changed their extension from MP3 to .cda I could use the choice to create a MP3 CD(/DVD/Blue-Ray Disc )to make something to play using the car stereo or any other CD player. I was trying to create a DATA disc, one that contained an exact copy of the data ext's and formats that had been sent to the disc. Now comes the piece that really hacks me off; I had used the above method to archive to CD & DVD5 discs, a largish collection of FLAC files, music and images, and I have discovered that the ext of the music files is MP3, not FLAC. I guess its just as well that I looked into this and that I still have the FLAC'd music compilation stored on my computer's HDD, as I was almost about to delete them. What should I best be doing; unflacing the files/folders back to WAV and burn to disc as if in their original package, or create an ISO image from the stored folders and send it to disc. I can create ISO's, I have ImgBurn and PowerISO and the Ashampoo Studio creates/burns disc images--ISO, CUE/BIN and ASHDISC files? Any other options ? Advice please, because I can't see another way to store the Flac//Wav files onto disc without having their file extensions and format altered, especially into an MP3 format. Wasted benefits of their being FLAC/WAV originals. Compaq Presario S3010AN (PC) FIC KM266-8235 MoBo (AM35) AMD Athloan XP2000+ 1.67GHz WXP Pro + SP3 Radeon 9000 Series graphics card Asus DRW 1814BL DL Multi WD 80GB EIDE & Quantun Fireball 30GB HDD's ( UDMA 5) 768MB DDR SDRAM ( PC2700 )
Well I think I have come to a conclusion on how to save/store library of flac audio files to disc. I created 3 images of a folder that contained <1GB> of Flac audio files. 1st: ISO 9660 - Level 1, Joliet;.....ISO Image & data still Flac. 2nd: CUE/BIN; BIN Image Still has data as Flac, also a CUE image to create discs with. 3rd: ASHDISC: ISO Image, data still Flac. So, in using any one of the above 3 options would I be applying a correct method to store onto CD/DVD,the flac files that I have? I have read in some of the Threads here that the CUE File is a handy option to have. Opinions and advice always welcome. (Even negative ones: the mother of inspiration).
I read your posts, but I'm not really sure what you're trying to do. When you create a data cd/dvd, the inference is that the data is copied over as-is, no conversions take place. If you create an audio CD, the program will convert mp3/flac/wma and create a REDBOOK compliant Audio CD. It's unambiguous. However, the Ashampoo may be causing the confusion. I would research it's various modes and see what they do. There are other choices, such as Imgburn.
cheers Davexnet What I am trying to do is save to CD or DVD the Flac audio files I have on my computer without them becoming compressed into MP3 files which will cause the loss of the benefits of FLAC (or WAV). Flac and Wav are new to me and most of the music that I had previously loaded to computer was in MP3 format. Creating a CD from these MP3 files was usually done using iTunes, Windows Media Player v.9/10 or11 or Nero 7 or 8 and to the best of my knowledge they were are recorded to disc as MP3 or .cda. From what I have read about the .cda format is this, and its a bit confusing to me as there are contradictions Commercially produced CD's: contain audio tracks and they are in a .CDA format. Browsing the .cda format I get info that .cda is a Windows file that contains no audio at all http://www.fileinfo.net/extension/cda and more here http://www.coolutils.com/Formats/CDA this one says .cda files cannot be stored on a computer:: I have them on my HDD (?) and not do I have them on my computer but I can create/burn CD's from these .cda non-entities. Yeah, basically I want to archive/store to Optical discs,all of the Flac and Wav files that I have on computer and not have those files altered to a lossy format. Obviously, to me, if I store to CD or DVD these Flac or Wav files and use the Ashampoo Burning Studio 8's "Create a Data CD or DVD" option, I am going to end up with compressed audio files in the MP3 format; I have 7 DVD5's of audio that were once lossless Flac or Wav files. As I said, luckily I hadn't deleted the files from my computer after I had sent them to disc. Analogy....put a dollar in the bank and only get 25c of it back from the bank (including interest) The only way for me to retain the audio files as 'Lossless' would be for me to either leave them as-is on the com's HDD, convert Flac to Wav and Create/burn indiviual 1 folder > 1 CD or an artists discography to 1+ DVD5 or DVD9. Or to create an ISO image of the Flac/Wav audio files and send the ISO to disc. Can you suggest another method I can use to transfer my data from HDD to optic disc without the data being altered in any way? Please let me know. Thank you.
footnote: I did not try to create an MP3 CD or DVD. I would have used the option to create an MP3 disc in that case. I wanted to create a data disc that was an unadulterated replica of the data at its source. I still do want to do this. Ta
A little further checking into the DVD's that I had created using the Ashampoo Burning Studio 8 'Create a Data CD/DVD/Blue-Ray' disc shows them as having Flac audio files that I had sent to disc were in fact recorded to disc as audio files of Flac format. This makes me very happy. Forgetting that I had added 3 or 4 folders to the compilation and that these folders contained material that was MP3 format and that some of the Live material contained in the 10.1GB d-load is in MP3 format, this combined with Murphy's Law ( the luck of the draw being that the one DVD I had created and checked to see what the audio format is, just happened to be the one containing MP3 data. Random choosing of a folder on a couple of the other DVD's of the compilation I'd created bought Sod's Law into play because I chose from the DVD, the folders that had MP3 audio files in them.) So, it would appear that the creating of 'Data CD's or DVD's' does retain on the optical discs a faithful record of the source data. All good. If you can decipher my verbose explanations and feel you can advise me on my Storage/ archive/back-up modus operandi, your advice is still welcome. Cheers
