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A typical audio CD can hold several hundred megabytes of information. When copying CD tracks to your hard disk, you generally do not want to use as much disk space for the tracks as is available on the CD. To use less disk space, the CD tracks should be compressed when they are copied to your hard disk. However, some audio quality is lost when the track is compressed. The better the audio quality when a track is copied, the more disk space is required.
Windows Media Player automatically compresses CD tracks when you copy them to your hard disk; otherwise one CD would use hundreds of megabytes.
To view or modify the settings for copying CD tracks, on the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the CD Audio tab.
The following table shows the range of disk space used for different audio qualities:
| Quality | Bit rate | Disk space* |
| Smallest Size | 64 Kbps | 28 MB |
| Medium | 96 Kbps | 42 MB |
| High | 128 Kbps | 56 MB |
| Best Quality | 160 Kbps | 69 MB |
*Refers to the amount of disk space required if you copy an entire CD according to quality level.