This is the recommended recording mode. It is faster than analog, with recording speeds up to 5 times play speed. The success with which your drive will be able to record in digital is based on the drive's ability to accurately seek digital information. It is also dependant on whether the manufacturer has chosen to support digital extraction (the Redbook standard).
Approximately 35% of current drives are not able to extract digital audio, or do so in such a poor manner that the sound quality is compromised (jitter). If this is the case, your MusicMatch Jukebox will configure itself upon initialization to record in analog mode. You may try to record in digital anyway by going to the OPT screen of the Recorder and changing the settings. It may work, or it may work with reduced sound quality (clicks and pops) or it may fail midway through the song and start the recording over in analog mode. Be sure to try recording with Error Correction on, which will reduce the jitter.
You will need to choose between CD Quality, Near CD Quality or Radio Quality compression modes. You must also choose whether to record in MP3, .WAV or RealAudio formats.
The difference in sound quality between digital and analog should be minimal, depending on the quality of your sound card and PC system.
If you receive a green box on the progress bar at the end of your recording session, this means that recording was successful with optimum quality. If you receive a yellow box, it means that recording was successful but with reduced sound quality. If you usually receive green boxes and suddenly receive a yellow box, this is usually due to a flaw or dirt on the CD. Try cleaning it and re-recording. If you receive a red box, it means that recording was unsuccessful. You will then see an error code at the bottom of the screen explaining your error. Click here for Record Error Code Descriptions.
For further help with digital recording, please also refer to this section: