How can I exceed the stated disc capacity (“overburning”)?
The capacity of a CD-R is calculated to allow enough space to hold at least 74 minutes of Red Book audio data and 90 seconds of digital silence. The silent area is called the “lead-out”, and is included so that a CD player will realize that it has reached the end of the disc, especially when fast-forwarding. When a recording program tells you the exact capacity of the disc, it’s not including the area reserved for the lead-out. There’s nothing magic about this reserved area though. With the right kind of setup — and a willingness to accept write failures as a matter of course — you can put data into the reserved area, and possibly into a few blocks past the end of it. This is often referred to as “overburning” a disc. How much more you can fit depends almost entirely on the media. Some brands will hold as much as 78 minutes, but it varies from batch to batch. You can use Feurio! (section (6-1-42)) to compute the maximum size of a specific disc without actually writing anything on it.
(1999/10/10) The capacity of a CD-R is calculated to allow enough space to hold at least 74 minutes of Red Book audio data and 90 seconds of digital silence. The silent area is called the “lead-out”, and is included so that a CD player will realize that it has reached the end of the disc, especially when fast-forwarding. When a recording program tells you the exact capacity of the disc, it’s not including the area reserved for the lead-out. There’s nothing magic about this reserved area though. With the right kind of setup — and a willingness to accept write failures as a matter of course — you can put data into the reserved area, and possibly into a few blocks past the end of it. This is often referred to as “overburning” a disc. How much more you can fit depends almost entirely on the media. Some brands will hold as much as 78 minutes, but it varies from batch to batch. You can use Feurio! (section (6-1-42)) to compute the maximum size of a specific disc without actually writing an
