So I'm new (I know I've been under a rock) to buring mp3 CD's for the ancient CD player I just put in my van today.

My first 3-4 attempts failed completely, CD player played 'dead air' but acted like it recognized the tracks.

Next I simply put 4 mp3's on a single CD and named them 1.mp3, 2.mp3, 3.mp3, and 4.mp3. Worked great.

I finally decided that it must be the file names and/or lengths, and renamed about 50 mp3's just to mess with and it also played those 50 on a CD just fine.

I don't want to rename all 3,000 of my mp3's.

I'm using Windows Media Player to burn. Is there a better piece of software out there that I should play with?

Thanks,
Caveman 350350

 

Does your CD player in your van play mp3 files? if so you just have to copy the mp3 files to the CD and be done with it. No renaming needed.

If you really want to make "backups" of you cd's or music, the best one to use would be Nero Burning ROM. It lets you make all the different types of cd's and dvd's if you have a dvd burner. Windows XP and Windows Vista both have native support for burning cd's and such, however I never liked it much as it was unreliable.

To burn an actual CD from files the burning software actually takes the files and converts them to a "wav" format. or the like. that is why you can only get 10-14 songs per cd. The mp3 wat you can get nearly 150 or so songs on the disc depending on the songs and such. But you should not have to rename any of the songs to get it to work.
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Yeah it's a Kenwood CD player that is designed for mp3's.

After I couldn't get the first CD or 2 to play, I read the instructions (always a last resort) and it said a whole bunch of crap I didn't understand about the details of making mp3 CD's, and the thing that stood out most was the details of filenames. I can scan that page and post it if anyone is interested enough to decipher it for me.

So anyway that's when I thought I should try renaming the files. Some of them are very long, including album/artist/song name etc.

But some of them also have characters like apostrophies and commas and spaces, so I didn't know if any of that would affect the reader.

The CD player is about 5 years old fwiw.

 

I have an old pioneer player with mp3 support. got it in 2004. never have had any problem with just copying over mp3 files to a disc and sticking it in and playing. You can scan it in and I can take a look at it. Maybe it has a maximum filename length or something. should take me less than 5 minutes to find out why the renamed ones work

 

Thanks Man! (Er, Chickie? Angelis is either a mafia name or a girl right?)

Either way thanks! On 2 counts: I had trouble scanning this in, have had problems with my printer/scanner for months. This finally motivated me to reinstall the software and HP has all sorts of new gadgets/stuffs for my printer/scanner! Plus: It actually scans now!!!

OK here's the page.

 

The big things that stand out are the bitrate and media formats. According to your scanned page, make sure your MP3s aren't recorded above a 192kbps bitrate.

Are you recording the files onto the disc in different folders, or doing a mass dump with all files in one folder? It looks like the maximum files it can handle in one folder is 255. So if you have more than 255 songs on a disc you will want to seperate them into folders, but not more than a total of 50 folders per disc.

If all else fails, goto the settings of your burning software and set it for ISO 9660 Level 2. It may strip down some of the file names, but it could work as a last resort.

Good luck and report back with your findings.

 

Looks like you have to burn it with specific setups. Mine handles whatever i throw at it as far as I know. Never had an issue.

Looks like you may need to set folders and set the burn process to "long file name" if your software supports it. that should sop you from having to rename anything.

And yea. I am a guy lol

 

You try any other software? The head unit in my Mazda does not like MP3 cd's burnt with certain programs. I assume different programs save the files using different folder structures. I had to play around with a few...

Itunes ended up working for me.

 

I have only tried Windows Media Player, and dumping mp3's directly to a CD as raw files.

Will I regret installing itunes??? I tend to look at Apple products like aol... Once installed, no way to get rid of them like any other virus!!! I installed Safari about a year ago for reasons I can't recall, it didn't do what I needed it to and I am still unable to find the auto-reinstaller that keeps asking me if I want to install other mac products ever day or so.

But itunes was recommended elsewhere so if it works I'll be glad to try it out. I'm finding that I really like the mp3 CD concept... Makes me look at a CD as more of a 'playlist' than a comprehensive collection of all my music like my mp3 player or computer are. I don't have to shuffle/mess with the player if I use CD's etc.

Yet all good suggestions. Will keep you all posted as I have time to play with them all!

 

best software out there for burning is really Nero. Pick up a copy at your nearest store or try out the demo of it first. it will allow you to burn MP3 cd's and an assortment of other cds/dvds

 

if you have a cdplayer that plays mp3's then all you need to do is go to your cd burning program and burn the music you want as data. NOT AUDIO. once its done pop it in and enjoy i do it all the time, i burn with NERO 5 its a old version but its simple, free, and fast.

 

Now I remember where I've heard of Nero!!!

This machine came with it bundled into Vista.

And I had to *uninstall* it because it was constantly crashing the entire OS!!!

So I have at least a license of it somewhere. Probably the install CD I would guess. Maybe it 'plays nice' with Vista now???

 

I have not heard of many issues with nero with vista unless it was conflicting with another burning program. I do know that the burning engine in Itunes can cause issues with other burning software in vista. I know it is not common, but it does happen. a re installation of the software would probably help it anyhow though. since big box places are notorious for having extremely horrid O/S installations.

(IE you get a bix box computer and it takes 4 times to boot out of the box than a fresh install of vista. (35 seconds fresh install of the o/s vs 2+ minutes out of box)

 

Oh man did you hit the nail on the head!!!

This computer out-of-the-box from Dell would *not run*... Very first powerup and it had 100 errors with bundled software. Nero was just one of many that I had to uninstall to even use the machine.

Since then I completely reinstalled the OS and like you said it's a million times faster/better. But it was also a year after I bought the machine and Vista SP1 was out by then.

Haven't tried to reinstall any of the stuff that didn't work before that so maybe it's 'fixed' now.

It took 6 months to be able to print from my 'new' computer. Rock on. I heard the government bish-slapped Dell recently. Happy to hear it.