Helpful Terminology for CD Burning
| AIFF | An uncompressed Macintosh audio file. AIFF files occupy an large amount of disk space, thus the need for compressed formats, such as MP3s. |
| Buffer | An area of computer memory that is shared by two different processes, which run at different speeds to sync up with each other. With CD burning, a buffer is used to assure audio data is available to the CD burning process without interruption until its completion. |
| Buffer Underrun | This is an error which occurs when your CD burner outstrips your hard drive's ability to deliver data for recording. When this happens, the disk is corrupted and won't be usable. |
| Burn | The process of writing data to a CD-R or CD-RW disc. Called burning because a laser is used to create marks on the photosensitive dye layer of the disc. |
| Burner | The CD-Rom or DVD-Rom drive in your computer is also called a burner. |
| Burn speed | How fast data is written to the disc by the drive. You'll see this depicted as "4X," "16X," and so forth. |
| CD-R Disc | Compact Disc-Recordable .A compact disc that can be recorded only once, using a CD-R or CD-RW drive in a desktop computer. |
| CD-RW | Compact Disc-Re-Writable. A compact disc that can be recorded over many times, using a CD-RW drive in a desktop computer. |
| CD-RW drive | A drive capable of writing to either CD-R or CD-RW discs in multiple sessions. Unlike a CD-R drive, a CD-RW drive can spin CD-RW discs and overwrite data that has already been recorded. |
| CD Text | Music players with CD Text display will show disc, track, and artist names for all CD Text-encoded discs. This information is typically displayed on the player's front panel, although some models also display it on an LCD remote or on your television screen. A CD-R/RW deck with CD Text entry lets you encode titles and artist names onto any CD-R you record, prior to disc finalization. |
| Coaster | A CD disc that turns out to be unreadable because of a recording error. This can happen if because of a "buffer underrun" (see above), or you use your computer to do other things while burning a CD. The latest generation of CD-RW drives incorporates technology to help prevent burning coasters. Great for coffee cups! |
| Codec | A codec is an algorithm for compressing and decompressing audio and video files without losing a significant amount of information. Once a file has been compressed by a codec like MP3 or RealAudio, it is smaller and easier to transmit across the Web, and still sounds fairly true to the original. |
| Disc Image | A complete copy of the data as it will appear on the CD, but in a separate file on your hard drive. Creating an image helps prevent burning coasters and saves time when burning multiple copies. But in general, creating an image will add extra steps to the burning process. It may not always be necessary on newer drives. |
| MP3 | MP3 is an audio file format commonly found in music downloaded from the Internet. This feature converts audio MP3 file formats to audio WAV files to be played in a music CD player. A sound file that has been compressed through MP3 encoding, making the files smaller and easier to send across the Internet. |
| PCM | (Pulse Code Modulation) A signal sampling and transmission standard which is used by numerous digital audio formats. Standard CDs employ PCM at a sampling rate of 44.1KHz, encoded at 16-bit resolution. |
| Stereo | Two channels of audio. When you listen to something in stereo, different sounds come out of the left and right speakers or headphones. Since stereo tracks contain twice the information of an equivalent monoaural file, they are twice the size. |
| WMA | WMA - The Windows Media Player native format, a compressed format which comes standard on all Windows PCs. |
| WAV | An uncompressed Windows audio file. This is the standard audio format for Windows PCs |
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