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In need of CD education

 
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AmysVoice
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PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2005 12:55 pm    Post subject: In need of CD education Reply with quote
I record the audio books for my Australian author as 44,100 Hz, 16 bit, stereo .wav. Playing an odd hunch the other day (in an effort to hopefully reduce production costs), I decided to see if I could copy a 44,100 Hz, 16 bit, stereo file, open a new 44,100 Hz, 16 bit, *mono* file, and paste the stereo file into it. It worked like a charm and the file size was reduced by half! (I've thought about recording them in mono to begin with, but there are times when I play with the effects on one channel and not the other - there's a robot in one of the books, ghosts in a couple of others....)



Seriously psyched by this discovery, I got to thinking, "Ok, if I can reduce these files by half, I'll only need half as many disks!". So, I went ahead and did the same copy/patse with an entire audio book. When I set up the new CD layout to burn the new mono files to disk, however, I found that because the file *length* hadn't changed - only the file *size*, I would still need the same number of disks...



So - my question is - do CD's only recognize file *length*??? If, for instance, I were to add music, SFX, etc... and *double* the file size, would the disk space requirement still be the same???



Thanks for any assistance!
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Deirdre
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Joined: 10 Nov 2004
Posts: 13020
Location: Camp Cooper
PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2005 1:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Audio CDs are only interested in measuring length of sound files.

What you're burning is the total mix---an orchestral piece that's 5 minutes take the same 5 minutes as sfx of a cricket chirping.



Data CDs are interested in file size. The more files, the more disc space needed for storage.
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AmysVoice
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PostPosted: Mon May 02, 2005 1:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
10-4. Thanks for the info! >^_^<
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Art
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PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2005 12:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Amy:



Audio CDs have to be 44.1k 16 bit stereo.



Some software won't make the CD unless it is.



Most software will take MP3s and decode them, or convert mono files to stereo, and make it seem invisible, when you make an Audio CD.



CD files are ten megs a minute. If you make the same file as mono, it's five megs a minute. So when you're saving the audio files on a Data CD, you can fit twice as many.



If you save to an Audio CD, they'll upconvert to stereo. But at least you'll have the master saved on your hard drive in half the space.



You have to be careful if you're sending people 128k MP3 files (they're one meg a minute). If your audio is stereo, default encode will be stereo, and you don't want to send out 128k stereo MP3s for any quality work. 128k is great for mono, not good enough for stereo.



Mostly, stereo just wastes drive space and takes longer to move files across the internet.
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AmysVoice
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PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2005 3:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
I appreciate your help, Art - thanks!
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Charlie Channel
Club 300


Joined: 08 Feb 2005
Posts: 356
Location: East Palo Alto, CA
PostPosted: Tue May 03, 2005 3:55 pm    Post subject: Re: In need of CD education Reply with quote
AmysVoice wrote:


So - my question is - do CD's only recognize file *length*??? If, for instance, I were to add music, SFX, etc... and *double* the file size, would the disk space requirement still be the same???



Thanks for any assistance!




The answer to your question is found on the player side of the equasion, not the CD side. CD's can record more data than many player can play.



The original standard for CDA file formatted compact disks was published in a document called the REDBOOK. I believe Phillips and Sony developed the standard and published that standard. The early CD players -- sold by Sony and Phillips -- were Redbook compliant. The standard specifies that thou shalt burn not more than 78 minutes of content on a CD. Period. However, the CD's themselves can hold more than 78 minutes worth of data. For the puropose of audio, it doesn't matter if it's mono or stereo.



A common mistake made by we (oh yea, I did it) who were unfamiliar with the Redbook standard was to burn CD's with the maximum amount of audio content. You can almost get around 90 minutes worth of content. Unfortunately, when you put a stuffed CD in most players, the index can't be read as it will exceed the Redbook 78 minute mark.



Home-made music collections might play on CD R-W drives in a computer. But, when you try to play one in a car CD player or say a boom box player, it won't work. That's because many car CD players are designed to only work only to the REDBOOK standard, especially the "older" ones. I say older because some new players will play CDA and MP3 formatted content.



The danger you'll face is the person to whom you're sending the CD may have a "standard" CD player and if you have more than 78 minutes of content, the CD will not be read.



I read one horror story of a band that decided to give the buyers of their new CD an extra treat by putting more music on than the competitive bands. Unfortunately, they only discovered their pressed and packaged CD's wouldn't play after they were delivered. The good news is that they weren't distributed yet. But, it was quite an expensive lesson to learn.



I don't know if this answers your question, but if your thought was to record Mono and have more room for more content on the CD, be careful and in any event just remember: don't put more than 78 minutes of CDA file formatted content on each CD to be safe.



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AmysVoice
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PostPosted: Wed May 04, 2005 12:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Interesting stuff - thank you, Charlie.
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Dennis O'Neill
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PostPosted: Wed May 11, 2005 5:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
And if you REALLY care....



When Sony / Phillips invinted the CD, apparently the head of one of them (Phillips?) was asked "how long do you want these to be able to record?"

The boss said "I want to be able to hear Beethoven's 9th Symphony (in D minor), in it's entirety". (It's 67.01 minutes long.)
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AmysVoice
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PostPosted: Thu May 12, 2005 3:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Well, heck yeah! I'm hoping to be a contestant on Jeopardy some day, and this is just the kind of info that could very well come in mighty handy! I'll share my millions with you if it does! >^_^<
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