Stitchy

Important - I don't know much about computers.

I want to upgrade my home PC so that I can burn CDs and mainly so that I can store MP3 files to disk for use in the MP3 car stereo I am planning to get.

Obviously, I need to get a CD-R fitted to my PC (at the moment only have a CD - ROM/DVD drive.

What else do I need?

Can I get the software I need (if any) free from the internet?

How much should I be paying?

mj

Important - neither do I

you should be able to pick a decent drive up for under £45, I just got 2 LG drives for work, for about 35+vat each .

as for software it will come with the drive. like I say, neither do I, but as I see it there are 2 main applications - nero or roxio/adaptec. personally i prefer roxio as it is easy to extract CD audio to Mp3, and generally more idiot friendly ( no offence, from one idiot to another!), but to be fair I never tried extracting MP3's with nero.

some of the guys here will no doubt pick you out some decent deals on drives. also, with regard to software, its all available for download from the mfr's sites as trial/resricted versions, but if want the full blown programmes they are easy enough to to get from kazaa etc.

some drives here: http://www.aria.co.uk/DisplayProduct...rch&Category=6

hope this helps,

mike.

snowcrash

you'll proberbly want to buy a larger hard disk as well to store all those mp3's

cost = £90 for an 80GB disk (guesstimate)

i use winoncd by cdquadrat to burn my cd-r's very easy software to use

ChrisB

Get a CD-RW drive as a retail kit, as they usually come bundled with everything you need.

For instance, the Asus CD-RW drives come with cables, screws, a copy of Nero and a couple of blank discs. Look to pay around £35 to £40+VAT for the retail kit with software. Compare that to a copy of Nero on it's own is around £30.

I prefer Nero over Roxio for burning CDs, although I rip my music CDs to MPs first using Easy CD-DA.

Chris@Excal

FYI, PC World are selling copies of Nero 5 for £19.99. But new CD writer about £40 inc software, so no brainer really!
Got a 60GB HDD Maxtor 7200 for £74.00 inc Vat and delivery from www.scan.co.uk

Stitchy

OK - Thanks for the advice.

So I need to buy a packaged drive that comes with the necessary software (and get someone to fit it - I wouldn't trust myself with that one).

Two questions:

1) What is ripping?
2) Will the Nero software I get with the drive allow me to put audio CDs into MP3 format?

I really am a novice. I am assuming that somehow, the software allows you to store the songs from an audio CD on the hard drive. You then copy the data on the hard drive to to the CD - R. Or do you play the audio CD in one drive and simultaneously record it to a Cd-R?

At what point can you transfer it to MP3 format?

That's a few more than two questions isn't it? Maybe I should stick to taping CDs from my Hi-Fi!

One last question - I have seen Drives for £30 - £50 but then some that cost a lot more, what are you paying for if you spend in excess of £100?

Regards

Stitchy

Or

Chris@Excal

Ripping is copying.
Nero to MP3's no idea but 2 posts up there is a link to a piece of software which I guess does the job.
Difference in cost is mainly to do with the burn speed, ie the quicker the burn speed, the less time it takes to write a CD. Also some branded are more expensive as is always the case.
I've been given a burner that writes at 4x, slow compared to 48x which you can easily get at the moment, but it does the job!
Just started writing CD's and using Nero, seems pretty good and easy to me!
Good luck,
Chris

chiark

"Ripping" is extracting the digital audio information from the CD. This is done by reading the zeros and ones, rather than converting to analogue then converting back to digital, so your source is an exact digital representation of the music.

"Encoding" is taking that ripped data and encoding it into another format, such as MP3, WMV or Ogg Vorbis. All of those formats use lossy compression, so you'll reduce the size of the file to around 10% of the original size but hopefully not lose too much quality due to the clever compression algorithms, which only throw away what you're not able to hear. or that's the theory

MattW

Other good software

CD Writing - Goldenhawk

MP3 encoding - Real One Jukebox (Expensive though)

Ducati 996

Get Nero, very straight forward wizard, or even better you can download winamp from winamp.com, and within the settings you can tell it to convert the CD's to mp3's and dump them onto your HD, rather than listening to them

ChrisB

Okay...

First off the drive.

http://www.dabs.com/products/prod-se...d=asc&stab=ref

Go for the Asus 40x48x16 drive for £38+VAT. That includes everything you need - Nero software etc. We've used several of these now and quality is good IMO. I think the Asus is now on the PC Pro 'A' list as the best CD Writer at present.

There are two stages to getting the CDs with MP3s on ready for your car (this is something I'm doing as my new car will have play MP3 CDs).

First off, you need to "rip" the CDs into MP3 format (as Chris & Chiark have mentioned). This is fairly CPU intensive, so a fast machine pays off. If you use something like Easy CD DA that I linked too above, the tracks will be automatically named for you (via the FreeDB system on the 'Net). Depending on the quality you choose (I stick to Near CD VBR on Easy CD-DA), a CD stored on your PC will take up around 50 to 75MB of disk space.

Once you've built up a collection of CDs into MP3 format on the hard drive of your PC, you would then use Nero to burn them as a Data CD (*not* an Audio CD). I can get around 5 double albums onto one CD when stored as MP3s.

HTH!