Can I write (200 MB - 150 min) music to a (700 MB - 80 min) CD?

Solution 1:

You can write 200MB to the 700MB disk if the disk remains a data disk.

If you want the CD to play in home audio systems/stereos then the MP3 files will be decoded to raw PCM (like a WAV file) during the writing process and the disk will be written using a "time-based" calculation and your 150mins won't fit.

Solution 2:

700 MB is calculated to 80 minute in CDDA (Compact Disc Digital Audio) format. What you asked is a little bit ambiguous so, here's a break down of what you may have asked:

• You can burn 80 minutes of music (where MP3 is reformatted to CDDA, which you can listen to on most CD players lying around)

• You can burn 700 MB of music (where MP3 is recorded as such - as data, not as audio - and you can only play it on CD players that recognize MP3 format, remember, as data, not as audio)

But you definitely and absolutely cannot burn 700 MB and 80 minutes of MP3. The 700 MB (digital format) equals the amount of "analog" (audio) minutes.

You must remember that MP3 is an audio digital format where 320 kbps (or 128 kbps, or 256 kbps and such) is the sample for every "x" MB from the original master (mostly, CDDA format) and is used nowadays to stream.

So, you should choose which format will you use. If you have too many files to burn, use MP3 (burn as data) but you will be limited to PCs, car radios, or CD players with compatible format, but if you have a few files (totaling no more than 80 minutes of total play time), you can burn it as audio so you can have more compatibility with standard players.

Additional FYI: the fact that you may record an MP3 into a CD, doesn't mean your MP3 file "masters" by itself. You will get the same audio quality on your audio CD as was recorded in your original MP3 source (whether your library or other library).

Solution 3:

The "700 MB / 80 Min" label is describing two very different way of burning a CD.

A CD can be burned as a "Data" disc or as an "Audio" disc.

700 MB is for data version. 80 Min is for audio version.

When you burn a CD as an Audio CD, it will fit 80 minutes of music. This limitation is standardized and you cannot really mess around with the music to change this. It'll fit that much and no more, regardless of what you do with your music quality.

If you burn the disc as a Data CD, the limitation then becomes only 700 MB. Duration has no meaning. If you encode your own MP3 for talk shows or audio books, you can easily do a 1 hour/10 MB compression, giving your 700 MB disc a whopping 4200 minute (70 hours) duration.

For maximum compatibility, an Audio CD will basically work in any player that is compatible with CD-R media, which means most players built in the 21st century. MP3 playback is not necessarily present in all systems, even brand new ones.

Solution 4:

Yes, it can be done. But it's not likely something you would want to do.

A CD carries 80 minutes of stereo sound. But stereo means there are two channels. If you wanted to get creative, you could encode half of your collection as mono in one channel, and half the collection as mono in the other channel. Then, in your CD player, pan all the way left to listen to one channel, and all the way right to listen to the other channel.

This is, of course, quite complicated. I presume you will want to have each file as a separate track, so you'll need to match up similar length tracks, and likely put up with some silence one side as the song on the other channel is completing. You might be able to play around with having more than one track per song/file, if you use the "disk at once" option in your CD burner to eliminate any gap between the tracks.

There won't be any software to help you do this, either. You'll just have to use an audio editor to make the tracks mono, and then put them together in a single file per track, and then burn that file as audio to your disk.

So, while it technically can be done, it is complicated to do and produces an inferior result that has only mono sound and requires a CD-player with panning controls (or disconnecting a speaker).

Your best bet is to see if an MP3 CD (i.e. just burn the MP3s as files, rather than as audio) works on your player, or to just make two CDs.

Solution 5:

Depends of the way you want to burn it.

There are 2 ways to do it:

1. If you want to write it as an classic Audio CD, with a single session, that you can play in ALL the stereos with a CD driver, you will not be able to burn it, because this way the audio duration will be considered and 150 mins of audio doesn't fit on it.
2. If you want to write the mp3 file (the file itself) inside the disc, you will be able to do it! It will turns a CD-ROM with a 200 MB .mp3 file burned inside it. Older systems ARE NOT ABLE to play mp3 files CDs, but nowadays all the systems are able to play it.

So, if you're sure the system is a modern device, write the mp3 file in the CD. It will depend of the burning software you're using, but on Windows you can simply copy and paste the file inside the CD unit via "My Computer" and burn it.