Summary: Audio CDs are different from data CDs. Typically your burning software needs to know how to create audio CDs, and you need to explicitly tell it to do so.
When I download music and then burn it to a CD it comes out just fine. However I can not play the CD in my car CD player. The music is most always MP3. Is there a way I can convert the MP3 to play in my car? And what format are store bought CD's done in?
CDs you use on your computer, and CDs that you use in a standard CD player such as the one in your car are formatted quite differently. And while you can play those store-bought audio CDs in your computer, your computer's CDs are most likely not going to work in your car stereo or other audio CD player.
In a nutshell, the problem can be over-simplified this way: most car stereo players are not computers.
So what do you do?
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Let's look at the two different formats first.
Audio CDs are designed for one purpose, and one purpose only: audio. They contain raw, uncompressed data, in a very fixed format: 44,000 samples per second, with each sample consisting of a 16 bit (2 byte) number for each of the right and left channels.
If you do the math, that's 176,000 bytes per second, or 633,600,000 bytes for an entire hour of audio.
If you've ever seen blank CDs labeled as "70 minute" CDs, it's because they hold, roughly, 740 megabytes of data - enough for about 70 minutes of audio in that audio CD format.
Data CDs, on the other hand, hold anything. They're just another media on which you can store files from your computer. The format of a data CD is similar to the format of a computer hard disk - it has a file system, directories, folders and files.
And therein lies one difference: your car stereo knows nothing about file systems, files, folders and the like. All it knows is how to stream that raw audio data off of an audio format CD. Your computer, being a general purpose device, can do that too, of course, in addition to understanding the format of a data CD.
But there's a second difference.
Note that I said that an audio CD is "uncompressed". Every second takes up 176,000 bytes regardless of whether that's a second of symphony, a second of someone speaking, or a second of silence. MP3 is a compressed format - as is almost every other common audio format for internet downloads and computer use. It uses compression technology to make the file much smaller. A second of silence, for example, is going to require less data than a second of complex sounds. When you play an MP3 file, the software you use decompresses it as it's played.
Your car stereo probably doesn't have a clue about compression, or decompression, or MP3 or whatever else your computer's MP3 player just knows how to deal with.
So what do you do?
If you want to create an audio CD that will work in "plain" CD players, you'll need to use burning software that knows how to create one. I happen to use Roxio's Easy CD Creator, and it will, when burning, automatically decompress my MP3 files to the correct format as required by audio CDs. The trick is simply to select Roxio's "Music Disc Creator" program, and select "Audio CD" as the type of CD you want to create. Other CD burning software will have similar options or approaches.
The "catch", if you want to call it that, is that as I said, the audio CD is uncompressed. That means that while you might have been able to put 7 or 8 hours of MP3s onto a single data CD, you're out of luck: an audio CD will contain only about 70 minutes or so. It may take several audio CDs to hold what you might currently have on a single data CD.
The good news is that CD players are catching up. The ability to play MP3 files from data CDs is slowly appearing in car and home stereo CD players. In other words, like a computer, they'll be able to play both audio and data CDs. But unless that functionality is built in, it's not something that can be added later.
Personally, what I want is a "Line In" port on my car stereo so I can hook up my portable media player - any portable media player, not just the iPod - and listen to my music without ever having to have burned a CD at all. But that appears to be slow in coming.
Related:
Article C2761 - August 19, 2006
Very clear and easy to follow explanation. Am now burning an "audio cd" on my WMP safe in the knowledge it will work this time. Have bookmarked your page. Thanks a lot :)
Posted by: Nathalie at April 24, 2009 8:10 PMOn your advise I downloaded Roxio's CD creator, to try and convert mp3/WAV music formats into an Audio disc. Unfortunately only my car and Bose CD player recognise the resultant CD, and my ordinary players (over 5 years old) do not 'see' anything on the CD.Any ideas what may be wrong?
Posted by: Graham Dainty at April 26, 2009 12:59 PMReply to: "And yes, you do have to use CD-R."
Not neccesarily. My 2004 Nissan Maxima with a Bose system plays CDA audio flawlessly from a CD-RW. I listen to mostly podcasts and couldn't justify spending money on CD-Rs for a one-time use. I use the cheap Staples brand CD-RW discs and burn them using Nero 9's Audio CD option with default settings. Don't assume you can't use a CD-RW, give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised.
Explaining how CDA files work is somewhat complicated. The URL below gives a good explanation on how they work.
www.techsupportalert.com/how_to_work_with_audio_cd_cda_files.htm
Posted by: Gungistoker at May 10, 2009 4:36 PMI am so bummed. It looks like from what I am reading that I am unable to burn CD's for use in my car or CD player that are over80 m,inutes.
I need to listen to teleconferec nes I havem issed and cannot sit at the Pc all the time to listen.
I cannot find any CDR or CDRW that are over 80 minutes so I wouldn't be able to do that.
I have kinlde and tried to dwonload onto that but I cannot transfer over 16mb and they are 35mb and up.
Please ehlp? what do you suggest. There has got to be a better way.
Thanks for any support you can give me.
Lorraine in NJ
21-Jul-2009
I was really hoping the guys original question as to car audio CD format was going to be answered with a file type that we are expected to select from a drop down menu in most recorders.
Like AIFF, AAC, FLAC, and so forth.
The results of choosing doesn't give you, THIS is best for Standard CD Car Audio setting.
24-Aug-2009
Posted by: PHIL at August 23, 2009 2:30 PM
I should of added recorder is TOAST9
Posted by: PHIL at August 23, 2009 2:32 PMFirst I would like to thank you on this guide. I was able to make a cd for my Audi, however I am encountering one problem. Some songs that play have an odd electronic noise to them that isn't supposed to be there, while some others don't. I used Roxio Easy CD creator 5 to burn the disk. I also recorded songs with recording software. I noticed that some songs (no matter the bit rate) will still make that electronic sound. Any ideas on what could be wrong?
Posted by: Ryan at August 29, 2009 4:28 PMhi leo, its nice to find someone with this kinda knowledge, my question is...y when i buy an audio CD, even if its not original, it has up to 27 tracks, and when i burn an audio CD, it gives me max 16 0r 17....does it depend on the original file size?do i have to decode the files b4 i burn them? what can give me more tracks..changing mp3s to audio?or changing wma to audio? do cars cd players read wma? why cant we burn with cda format?or the output of burning is cda?also original audio cds have many different formats...can u explain?...thx for listening
Posted by: Mamdouh Masoud Hanna at September 6, 2009 3:23 PMI have a CD about 10 years old that originally played fine. Now we don't seem to be able to get it to play on any cd player, my PC, etc.. Can't figure out what I need to do to get it to work. CD condition is good. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!!
Frank
Posted by: Frank at October 24, 2009 9:32 PMI found when I burned a cd for a car audio(5 years old and older)that I had to make sure that songs were wav files format before I burned them. And make sure you finalized the disc -- and it has to be a CD -R.
Posted by: Lea-Ann at November 10, 2009 2:53 PM