Difference among Audio CD, MP3 CD and Data CD

Audio CD

An audio CD is similar to a music CD that you buy online or in a store: it can be played on any standard CD player (such as a CD deck or a portable CD player). Music is stored on Audio CDs as uncompressed (essentially WAV) digitally encoded files. When compressed audio files (RealAudio, MP3, etc.) are transferred to an audio CD, RealPlayer makes temporary uncompressed copies of each song before the CD is burned. This increases the time it takes to create the CD and requires up to 700Mb of free hard drive space.

Audio CDs can confidently be burned only onto CD-R media. While some CD players can read CD-RWs, not all are capable. You can use CD-RW with RealPlayer, but you should check with the manufacturer of your home or car CD player before burning CD-RWs for use in any of these devices.

MP3 CD

An MP3 CD is a specialized type of data disc. All files copied to an MP3 disc will be, if needed, converted to MP3 format. Like the Data CD, files can be organized into folders. Media files on the MP3 CD can be accompanied by M3U formatted playlists, which are used by some MP3 players to play the MP3 files on the disc. When placed in an MP3 compatible CD or DVD player, MP3 discs are played like any audio CD.

MP3 Discs can be created using CD-R or CD-RW media.

Data CD

A data disc is similar to a CD or DVD that is used to install software on your computer: it holds just data/files. Use this feature to backup or store your media files. RealPlayer compatible files (RealAudio, MP3, etc.) from your local drives can be burned directly onto a data CD. During burning, the files are copied to the disc just as they are, without conversion or modification. RealPlayer can also organize the files in folders based on artist and album. (See CD Burner details.)

Data discs may be created using CD-R or CD-RW media.

How to preserve ID3 tags using TuneClone

In most of my previous posts, I talked about how to use TuneClone’s virtual CD drive to burn DRM protected music, including iTunes music, Windows Media Player music, RealPlayer music, WinAMP music, Napster Music and Rhapsody music. Some of these media players like iTunes, RealPlayer and Napster support burning music with CD text, while others don’t. Therefore, in this post, I am going to show how to preserve the music metadata about title, artist, album, etc. while burning music with TuneClone Audio Converter.

For iTunes, RealPlayer and Napster

It is very easy to keep ID3 tags when you burn iTunes, RealPlayer or Napster music.

When you make the burning settings, make sure you tick the “Include CD Text” (in iTunes 8), “Write CD text to my audio CD” (in RealPlayer) or “Burn CD Text” (in Napster) option. The information will be well preserved after the burning and encoding process. Take a look at the screenshots below:

For Windows Media Player, WinAMP and Rhapsody

However, since Windows Media Player, WinAMP and Rhapsody don’t provide such an option, you will get the output files formatted as 01-1.mp3, 01-2.mp3, etc. This is very annoying since all the metadata information is missing.

Tuneclone Audio Converter comes to the rescue! You just need an additional step after the burning and encoding process:

Click the output songs in the manager screen and drag the counterpart original songs in Windows Media Player, WinAMP or Rhapsody to the “Track Info” panel of TuneClone one by one. The information about the artist, album, title, etc. will be automatically changed accordingly.

It would be a time-consuming process if you are burning a big collection of music. However, since Windows Media Player, WinAMP and Rhapsody don’t support CD-text burning, this seems to be the only way to get the information back.

If only TuneClone would consider adding the support for batch changing the information rather than dragging one by one!

Look forward to the improvement!

Burn iTunes playlist for more than 7 times

“iTunes DRM-protected music includes audio with a bit rate of 128 kbps and allows users to transfer songs and videos to up to five computers, burn seven copies of the same playlist to CD, and sync to an unlimited number of iPods.”

By “burn seven copies of the same playlist to CD”, Apple means you can only burn the same playlist to CD for seven times. However, it is very easy to break the limit if you really need to.

Like, if you want to burn a playlist to an audio CD, however, the playlist has been burnt for seven times on different occasions, you may perform like this:

Create a new playlist;
Add all the music from the original playlist (reaching the burning limit of seven times) to the new playlist; Add or delete one or two songs to the new playlist to make it just a little bit different from the original playlist;
click Burn;
Done.

A little bit farfetched. Yet, if you don’t mind the minor change of the playlist, it does sound like a good idea, don’t you think so?

Also, you can do in the same way when you are burning iTunes music using TuneClone virtual CD burner, which I discussed many a time in this blog.

Here is another tutorial post about how to convert DRM protected iTunes M4P music to MP3 with the burning-and-ripping method and that of using TuneClone virtual CD burner. You can take it for your reference if you are interested.

How to convert iTunes 8 protected AAC(M4P) music to MP3 with TuneClone

More than two months ago, I wrote a tutorial entitled How to convert DRM protected iTunes M4P music songs to MP3. In that post, I introduced two ways to convert iTunes M4P (protected AAC) music to MP3. With the release of Apple iTunes 8, the second method of converting iTunes M4P music to MP3 with TuneClone isn’t applicable. So, I’d like to post the step by step tutorial about how to convert iTunes 8 protected AAC or say M4P music to MP3 with TuneClone here:

1. Download TuneClone from http://www.tuneclone.com and install it.

TuneClone is fully compatible with Windows XP and Windows Vista. A virtual CD drive will be installed. This virtual CD-RW will be used to convert music files.

2. Make settings in TuneClone

Click the “Settings” button at TuneClone. In the pop-up window, you can specify the “output folder”, “output filenames”, “output format”, etc. for the output files.

Note: Apart from MP3, TuneClone also allows you to convert iTunes M4P to WAV and unprotected WMA.
Tip: You can get the output protection removed music folder by clicking the “Folder” button after the whole process.

3. Make settings in iTunes 8

Create a playlist, and then add the files you want to convert into the playlist.

After you have created the playlist ready to be burnt, click the “Burn Disc” in the bottom right of iTunes.

In the pop up window of “Burn Settings”, make the settings as highlighted below:

4. Start to burn

Click the “Burn” button to start burning.

After the burning gets started, TuneClone will automatically convert the music file to MP3, WMA or WAV. You can open the manager screen to show all the converted music files.

The most important step is to choose the CD burner. Then the software can convert the music files automatically. It is exceedingly easy when you want to batch convert lots of files.

You may also show interest in:

How to convert DRM protected iTunes M4P music songs to MP3
How to strip DRM off iTunes music on Windows and Mac
TuneClone V1.20 download

How to virtually burn RM music to MP3 with RealPlayer

TuneClone is a unique audio converter application. Compared with other audio converter programs, TuneClone converts music files via a virtual CD Drive. All you need to do is burn your playlist to TuneClone’s virtual CD drive by using your media player software, such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, WinAMP, etc. The key step to use TuneClone is to select TuneClone’s virtual CD-RW drive as CD burner. Your music files will be automatically converted during the burning process.

Below are the detailed tutorial about how to burn RM music to TuneClone’s virtual CD drive with RealPlayer:

Step 1. Download TuneClone from http://www.tuneclone.com/ and install it.

TuneClone is fully compatible with Windows XP, Vista. A virtual CD Burner will be installed. This virtual CD-RW will be used to convert music files.

Step 2. Launch RealPlayer and Click Burn/Transfer button. Change the Current Burner/Device to Audio CD Burner.

 
Step 3. Click the Edit Options… button and you will see the dialogue window below:

 
Click the Advanced Options… button. In the following dialogue window, change the default CD burner to TuneClon Virtual_CD-RW.

 
Step 4. Start burning.

Back to the main screen, add music files to the list and click Burn Your CD button.

After the burning gets started, TuneClone will automatically convert the music file to MP3. You can open the manager screen to show all the converted music files.

 
The most important step is to choose the CD burner. Then the software can convert the music files automatically. It is exceedingly easy when you want to batch convert lots of files.