dolphinboy

I received a mini-stereo system with cd recorder for christmas. One of the biggest reasons for this is that I'm very bad at operating a computer, which was the other place that I could record cds.

So, I think getting this stereo will make it easier. Nope. I'm tearing out my hair already.

I started my making a CDRW of some mixes...about 80 minutes long. Now I'm trying to copy that CDRW onto a CD-R.

Well, it says in my manual that you MUST finalize the CDRW for it to play. BUT, then it says if you are going to be recording from that CDRW again that it must be UNFINALIZED. HUH?

How can that be if the CDRW is supposed to not play if not finalized?

Well, I unfinalized it and then began recording. Now as it gets going, before each song it tells me it has to record in analog. The manual says this is how the original CDS keep from being copied.

But how come it never said I was recording in analog when I was recording from the original CDs? Is my CDRW digital and you can't make a copy of a CDRW digital or was the whole CDRW analog all along?

If I recorded from the original CDs to the CDR (instead of first the CDRW) would it record in digital format? I can't figure this out at all. Why would they sell a CD stereo recorder if the CDs are protected against being copied anyway? I don't want analog and pretty much everything is going to be protected these days.

Now about my computer CD recorder. Is that going to give me digital sound? If I take that original CDRW and put it into my music files and burn it to a CDR, will it be digital? Or if I just had put the original CDs in the CD tray and put each song into music files and THEN copied those to a CDR, would it be digital?

How would you even know? The stereo recorder tells me it's recording in analog, the computer program doesn't. Of course, unless it has always been digitally recording.

I'm going crazy here...on Christmas too! It sucks.

Please help me understand this.

TheBang

I believe that all consumer digital audio recording equipment has copy protection built-in (this was first introduced when the first DAT drives hit the market).

Basically, you can make a digital copy of music, but it gets flagged as a copy. Any consumer digital recording equipment is supposed to respect that flag and not allow another digital copy to be made of that copy. That's why you can make digital copies to the CD-RW, but you can't then make another digital copy of the CD-RW onto a CD-R.

If you go directly from the original CDs to the CD-R, you should be able to make digital copies just fine.

Also, I believe you don't run into these restrictions when using computer drives, so it might be easier if you try it all through that.

einTier

Yes, a computer CD-R is much, much more versitile.

First, with your home stereo recorder, I think you're going to have to use Audio CD-Rs, which are considerably more expensive than the plan jane data CD-Rs. There's no real difference, you can certainly record audio on a data CD, but your recorder will only take the audio ones. RIAA and DMCA and AHRA and SSSCA and all that (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you should do a search on google).

Second, each copy you make is flagged as a copy, and you can only make one digital copy. A computer CD-R doesn't have this problem. That's why when you tried to copy the CD-RW you made, it made you copy it in analog -- if you put that in a computer you can copy it with no problem. Your first copy to the CD-RW was digital, but was flagged as a copy. Any copy from that CD-RW made by your home stereo will have to be done in analog.

Third, your home stereo CD Recorder will only make audio CDs. With a computer CD-ROM you can copy (backup) anything that's on a CD, software, data, music, it doesn't matter. You can also backup your data on it, or make VCDs to play in your DVD player or make backups of Dreamcast games -- it's a very versitile thing.

To answer your question about the finalization process: All audio CDs must be finalized before they can be played. Once you finalize a CD nothing can be burned to it after that point. I believe if you finalize a CD-RW you can erase it, but not add to it. It was probably a misprint in your manual, and it meant to say "if you are going to be recording to that CDRW again that it must be UNFINALIZED."

Don't forget that copy protection is being implimented on some new cds, undoubtedly more in the future, and you will be unable to copy these or single tracks from them to make your mix CD-Rs. You won't be able to make mp3s from the tracks or put the songs on your X-Box to play during games -- though all of this is fair use. I don't want to turn this into a discussion on fair use, but you really should look at the AHRA (American Home Recording Act), the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), the upcoming SSSCA (I don't remember what this one stands for) and the recent actions of the RIAA and MPAA. They are trying to make sure that you will never again be able to make a copy of a copyrighted piece of information (say goodbye to Xerox machines, VCRs, Tivo, CD-Recorders, DVD-Recorders, etc) or space shift it for any purpose (making a copy on mp3 so you can listen to it at work without hauling valuable CDs in) or even playing the material in an unathorized playback machine (see DeCSS and playing DVDs on Linux). They are doing it now, when people don't realize what's going on. Later, you start trying to make a mix CD, which it seems you should be able to do -- you own the music, right? -- and you're suddenly told that it's illegal and that all the major court battles have been fought.

Every year we have elections and I hear about medicare and social security -- but I've never heard a peep about copyright.