Creating your own CDs

With Windows Media Player, you can create (burn) your own audio or data CDs from the tracks you have stored in Media Library. Live streams, such as radio stations, cannot be copied to CDs.

A data CD can contain all audio files, but the files are much smaller than typical audio files. Therefore, a data CD can contain a lot more audio files than an audio CD. Most computers and some CD players can play audio files on a data CD.

You can use the player to create the following types of CDs:

• Audio CD. Tracks use the most space on the CD.
• Data CD. Tracks use the least space on the CD. The tracks are data files. Only certain players and computers can play data CDs.

To create a CD, you must have a CD recorder (burner) and blank CDs to which you can copy tracks.

File types

You can copy the following file types from the Player to a blank CD:

• Windows Media files with a .wma extension
• .mp3 files
• .wav files

Audio quality

The compression quality that you use to copy CD tracks to your computer affects the sound quality of the track, but does not affect the length of the track when copying from your computer to a CD. The better the sound quality you use to copy a track to your computer, the better the sound quality when you copy it from your computer to another CD. If you use the best quality sound to copy a track to your computer, more disk space is used on your computer. Other variables such as the speed of your CD-ROM drive can also affect the quality of the copy.

This section covers:

• To create your own CD
• To change CD recorder drive settings

Related topics

• To create a playlist
• To add items to a playlist
• Understanding licensed files
• Using CDs
• Compressing copies of CD tracks to use less disk space
• To view error information about files

Types of blank CDs

You can copy tracks either to a compact disc-recordable (CD-R) or a compact-disc rewritable (CD-RW). With CD-Rs, you can copy tracks only once, but play them by using any CD player. With CD-RWs, you can copy tracks many times, but typically you can play them only by using a CD-ROM drive. If you want to copy tracks to a previously used CD-RW, you must use another program or My Computer to erase the disc before you can use the Player to copy tracks to the CD again.

Note   Because you can copy only once to a CD-R, be certain about the tracks you want to copy and their length so that they use most of the space on the CD. You must copy all tracks at the same time. For example, you cannot copy four tracks on Tuesday and then another four tracks on Saturday.

The playlist or list of tracks that you select to copy cannot be more than the CD-R time limit. The phrase Will not fit is displayed in the Status column for a track even if you have exactly 74 or 80 minutes of audio selected because the Player inserts seconds (spaces) between the tracks. Tracks marked Will not fit are not copied to the CD.

CD copy process

When a track is copied to a CD, the Status column in the Items to Copy pane displays the following information for each track. The CD burning process includes the following steps:

• Opening or Inspecting (includes the percentage of conversion done). The Player inspects the selected tracks for errors.
• Converting/Converted (includes the percentage of conversion done). Each file is converted to the selected quality level or compression rate and stored in a temporary location on your computer. Each file is converted before copying begins.
• Copying to CD (includes the percentage of copy done). Each file is copied.
• Complete. The CD is not finished until Complete is displayed in the Status column for each track. When the last track is copied, Closing disc is displayed briefly for the last track.

  Note   You can resize the Items to Copy and Items on Device panes by dragging the split bar that is between them. You can also resize any column in either pane by selecting the separator between the columns, and then dragging it.