In addition to plugins Ashampoo Media Player+ also supports add-ons - separate program modules that provide additional functions. The Ashampoo BurnIt! DataCD Add-On enables you to burn your current playlist to a data media CD. This works with all the media files supported by Media Player+ - videos, audio tracks and image files too! If it wasn't included in your installation package you can download it from the add-ons section at the Ashampoo website.
Autolaunch CDs
This Add-On can also create autolaunch CDs that automatically start Ashampoo Media Player+ with the playlist when the CD is inserted in your CD-ROM drive. The entire Ashampoo Media Player+ setup program is also included on these autolaunch CDs. When someone who does not have the program inserts the CD in their computer they will be asked if they would like to install it. This is great for sharing playlists with friends who don't yet have the program. (If they already have the program autolaunch CDs will simply start Ashampoo Media Player+ on their computer and load the playlist from the CD.)
Note: You can configure the program not to start these autolaunch CDs if you want. See General Options for details.
How to burn your playlist to a CD:
Just click on the BURN IT button in the main player window. The Add-On will then be started with the contents of the playlist. Just follow the instructions displayed - essentially you will just need to click on the BurnIt! button in the add-on to record the CD. If you don't have any Ashampoo BurnIt! Add-On yet you will be prompted to download and install it. If Ashampoo BurnIt! AudioCD is already installed, you will be asked, which one you would like to execute.
What exactly is a "data media CD"?
Data media CDs are basically ordinary data CDs, just like the CDs containing your application programs, texts, image files and other data. The only difference is that they contain media files and an Ashampoo Media Player+ playlist referring to those files. They shouldn't be confused with audio CDs, even if they contain audio files! You can't play them on normal audio CD players, for example, even though you can play the MP3 tracks they contain on many DVD players and the new dedicated MP3 CD players.
Using Ashampoo BurnIt! DataCD you can also create "data MP3 CDs", which are data media CDs that only contain MP3 tracks. You would normally create this type of CD for playing on a compatible DVD player or MP3 CD player. All you need to do is include only MP3 files in your playlist when you burn it to the CD.
The big advantage of the MP3 format for CDs is that you can put many more tracks on a single CD than you can with the traditional audio CD format. A data MP3 CD can hold around ten hours of music in near CD quality, compared to just one hour for an audio CD!
MP3 CD players and data media CDs:
"True" data MP3 CDs only contain MP3 audio files. Ashampoo BurnIt! DataCD records all the media files in your playlist to the CD, including all audio and video file types. On a computer you will be able to play and display all the files on the CD, including all audio formats, video files and image files (the ImageView Add-On is required for image files). DVD players with MP3 support and dedicated MP3 CD players will only be able to "see" and play the MP3 files. All other file types will simply be ignored.
Advantages of data MP3 CDs for audio:
In addition to having a much greater capacity than audio CDs data MP3 CDs can also store much more than the memory cards of solid state MP3 players that use Flash memory and other chip-based systems. And recordable and rewritable CDs (CD-Rs and CD-RWs) are much cheaper than memory cards - just a few cents each!
