iLife '04: The Missing Manual

Burning a CD or DVD

If want to record a certain playlist on a CD for posterity—or for the Mr. Shower CD player in the bathroom—iTunes gives you the power to burn. In fact, it can burn any of three kinds of discs:

• Standard audio CDs. This is the best part. If your computer has a CD burner, it can serve as your own private record label. (Apple has a list of external CD recorders that work with iTunes at http://www.apple.com/support/itunes.) iTunes can record selected sets of songs, no matter what the original sources, onto a blank CD. When it’s all over, you can play the burned CD on any standard CD player, just like the ones from Tower Records—but this time, you hear only the songs you like, in the order you like, with all of the annoying ones eliminated.

  Tip

  Use CD-R discs. CD-RW discs are not only more expensive, but may not work in standard CD players. (Not all players recognize CD-R discs either, but the odds are better.)

• MP3 CDs. A standard audio compact disc contains high-quality, enormous song files in the AIFF format. An MP3 compact disc, however, is a data CD that contains music files in the MP3 format.

  Because MP3 songs are much smaller than the AIFF files, many more of them fit in the standard 650 or 700 MB of space on a recordable CD. Instead of 74 or 80 minutes of music, a CD-R full of MP3 files can store 10 to 12 hours of tunes.

  Just about any computer can play an MP3 CD. But if you want to take the disc on the road or even out to the living room, you’ll need a CD player ...