Music cd or data cd?

I was referring to their popularity being short-lived rather than the stand alone recorder itself (I've still got one actually although it's no longer set up). Still got mini-disc too - that is running!

I believe if I remember right (Shawn may be able to correct me) the difference between the discs made for the CD recorders and those used in PCs was to do with copyright and the music discs were encoded so only they would work in the recorders. Then the 'Music' discs were sold with a premium added which was supposedly paid to record companies. (A win-win for Sony!) Therefore PC compatible CD-R/RW was comparatively cheaper to buy (back then)...they are all 'cheap as chips' these days.  Cheers - Ric.

Hi again Jim.

I think the information you recall was probably to do with the (short-lived) popularity of audio CD recorders like the one at the Amazon link below. These 'stand-alone' cd recorders, which worked pretty much like recording to tape, had special 'Audio' (or 'Music') discs which were designed to work specifically with these machines - not with computers. Similarly the machine would not recognize a pc type (data) CD-R, so that's probably what you are recalling.

Regards - Ric. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TEAC-CD-RW890-Play-Record-Recorder/dp/B00499BQA6/ref=pd_sim_sbs_23_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1G3E4A0CB9T8ZA1QZ97D

This replaces a link I posted earlier - this is better because if you scroll down you'll see the offer of 'Music Discs for Stand-Alone recorders'...exactly what I think you were remembering.

Quote from Windows 7 Inside Out by Ed Bott el al., published by Microsoft Press in 2010 (page 456):

"If you have a CD or DVD burner, Windows Media Player can use it to burn a custom selection of songs to a recordable disc.

With a compatible drive, Windows Media Player can burn any of the following three types of discs:

• Audio CD This type of disc plays back in any CD player, including the one in your car....
• Data CD Typically, these discs consist of MP3 and WMA files. You can play back a data CD on another computer or on a player that recognizes MP3 and WMA tracks (as most recent-vintage car players do.)
• Data DVD This type of disc is similar to a data CD, with the major advantage that it holds significantly more data."

I no longer have the Windows XP Inside Out book, but I clearly remember that the authors recommended ("for best quality") the use of an audio or "music" CD. The implication was that while a data CD would work, a music CD was preferable.

Note that even in the Windows 7 book, they distinguish between audio and data CDs!

You may be right about the "short-lived" [?] stand alone recorders, though I'm quite sure that Bott was referring to burning playable CDs using Windows Media Player. This is clearly the case with the Windows 7 book, as quoted above. (BTW, my wife uses a stand-alone SONY CD recorder to make "music minus one" accompaniments for her voice students--and uses "audio" CDs only.)

It would appear that the Bott quote--and not the "short-lived" but still availableCD recorders--may explain why the manufacturers still offer--and retailers still stock--the two CD types.

More significantly, does it not indicate that if a differently manufactured CD was (or is) required for the stand-alone recorders, then there must be an important difference between the two types of CDs?

This gets "curiouser and curiouser."

Regards

Hi again Jim.

I think the information you recall was probably to do with the (short-lived) popularity of audio CD recorders like the one at the Amazon link below. These 'stand-alone' cd recorders , which worked pretty much like recording to tape, had special 'Audio' (or 'Music') discs which were designed to work specifically with these machines - not with computers. Similarly the machine would not recognize a pc type (data) CD-R, so that's probably what you are recalling.

Regards - Ric. 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/TEAC-CD-RW890-Play-Record-Recorder/dp/B00499BQA6/ref=pd_sim_sbs_23_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=1G3E4A0CB9T8ZA1QZ97D

This replaces a link I posted earlier - this is better because if you scroll down you'll see the offer of 'Music Discs for Stand-Alone recorders'...exactly what I think you were remembering.

You can use a CD-R to create either kind of disc. The difference isn't in the disc itself, but how you format it. Similar to a hard drive, you can format with different underlying file systems like NTFS and FAT32. For most practical typical uses, the user doesn't need to know or care what it is--they just store files there and open them. You only need to care when you're going to use the drive with another system. For example you might need to consider the file system if you are taking a flash drive between two computers with different operating systems like Mac and Windows.

The same is true for those CDs, but it's not in the disc. The clerk was right, but to clarify it matters what you choose still. If you burn music to a CD-R using the audio format, it will play in any old CD player like a car, a Walkman from the 1990's, or any stereo. But if you used the data disc option, it burns the actual files to the drive as they are, and only computers and more modern stereo equipment can read that format and see the files. A typical car stereo or basic CD player wouldn't recognize the disc. So in the same way as the other drives, it really only matters if you plan to take that disc to another device/system.

I appreciate the explanation and have always understood the difference between using the CD just as storage or to transfer files and creating a CD that would play music on a CD player. Still I know that, as I said, in the Windows XP book I referenced I was advised to use a CD designated for the purpose of creating playable recordings. And I still wonder why on the store shelves I see some CDs identified as for "music" and others with either no such ID or explicitly labeled as "data" CDs. Could it be that it mattered with the Windows XP capabilities and doesn't matter with Windows 7 and later?