How are WAV/AIFF files converted into Red Book CD audio?
(1999/05/06) There is absolutely nothing special about the audio data encoded on a CD. The only difference between a “raw” 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo WAV file and CD audio is the byte ordering. It isn’t necessary to convert a WAV or AIFF file to a special format to write to a CD, unless you’re using some proprietary coding (like MP3 compression) that doesn’t have a system-recognized codec. Similarly, you don’t have to do anything special to audio extracted from a CD. It’s already in a format that just about anything can understand. Just put your audio into the correct format — 44.1KHz, 16-bit, stereo, uncompressed (a/k/a PCM) — and the software you use to write CDs will do the rest. All of the fancy error correction and track indexing stuff happens at a lower level. Some people get confused by programs (such as Win95 Explorer) that show “.CDA” files. This is just a convenient way to refer to the audio tracks. It’s not a file format unto itself. You can’t drag-and-drop CD audio tracks unle
There is absolutely nothing special about the audio data encoded on a CD. The only difference between a “raw” 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo WAV file and CD audio is the byte ordering. It isn’t necessary to convert a WAV or AIFF file to a special format to write to a CD, unless you’re using a format that your recording software doesn’t recognize. For example, some software won’t record from MP3 files, or from WAV files that aren’t at the correct sampling rate. Similarly, you don’t have to do anything special to audio extracted from a CD. It’s already in a format that just about anything can understand. Just put your audio into the correct format — uncompressed 44.1KHz, 16-bit, stereo, PCM — and the software you use to write CDs will do the rest. All of the fancy error correction and track indexing stuff happens at a lower level. Don’t get confused by programs (such as Win95 Explorer) that show “.CDA” files. This is just a convenient way to display the audio tracks, not a file format unto itse
(2002/05/26) A disc that you can add data to is “open”. All data is written into the current session. When you have finished writing, you close the session. If you want to make a multisession disc, you open a new session at the same time. If you don’t open a new session then, you can’t open one later, which means that it’s impossible to add more data to the CD-R. The entire disc is considered “closed”. The process of changing a session from “open” to “closed” is called “finalizing”, “fixating”, or just plain “closing” the session. When you close the last session, you have finalized, fixated, or closed the disc. A single-session disc has three basic regions: the lead-in, which has the Table of Contents (or TOC); the program area, with the data and/or audio tracks; and the lead-out, which is filled with zeroes and provides padding at the end of the disc. An “open” single-session disc doesn’t yet have the lead-in or lead-out written. If you write data to a disc and leave the session open,
(2001/01/25) There is absolutely nothing special about the audio data encoded on a CD. The only difference between a “raw” 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo WAV file and CD audio is the byte ordering. It isn’t necessary to convert a WAV or AIFF file to a special format to write to a CD, unless you’re using a format that your recording software doesn’t recognize. For example, some software won’t record from MP3 files, or from WAV files that aren’t at the correct sampling rate. Similarly, you don’t have to do anything special to audio extracted from a CD. It’s already in a format that just about anything can understand. Just put your audio into the correct format — uncompressed 44.1KHz, 16-bit, stereo, PCM — and the software you use to write CDs will do the rest. All of the fancy error correction and track indexing stuff happens at a lower level. Don’t get confused by programs (such as Win95 Explorer) that show “.CDA” files. This is just a convenient way to display the audio tracks, not a file for
There is absolutely nothing special about the audio data encoded on a CD. The only difference between a “raw” 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo WAV file and CD audio is the byte ordering. It isn’t necessary to convert a WAV or AIFF file to a special format to write to a CD, unless you’re using some proprietary coding (like MP3 compression) that doesn’t have a system-recognized codec. Similarly, you don’t have to do anything special to audio extracted from a CD. It’s already in a format that just about anything can understand. Just put your audio into the correct format — 44.1KHz, 16-bit, stereo, uncompressed (a/k/a PCM) — and the software you use to write CDs will do the rest. All of the fancy error correction and track indexing stuff happens at a lower level. Some people get confused by programs (such as Win95 Explorer) that show “.CDA” files. This is just a convenient way to refer to the audio tracks. It’s not a file format unto itself. You can’t drag-and-drop CD audio tracks unless you’re usi
