Ok, here is my situation. I figured that seeing as I am sitting around with nothing to do, I might as well burn all my CD's onto my computer, so that way I can make copies and mp3 cd's for when I (someday) get a mp3 player in my truck. I figured I could make copies of the original, store bought (and therefore expensive) cd's that I own, and carry the copies around with me, so if they get damaged, who cares, right? But for some reason, when I burned them to my computer, they were saved as m4a format. When I try to make them into a regular cd (not mp3), they won't play in my truck. I don't know anything about computers, so I'm totally at a loss as to how to convert them to a playable format. Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

 

Sounds like the ripping software is set to save them as .m4a as a default. They should be saved as .wav files to burn on to an audio CD. Take a look through the software menus and look for an option to change what format audio tracks are saved as. Oh, and I realize this probably has nothing to do with the situation, but a lot of CD players still won't play a CD-RW, just CD-R's.

 

Thanks. But now I've got another question. I've reading about m4a's and apparently they're supposed to be better than mp3's. I just wish I could get them to burn to a regular cd now.... hmm.... Thanks again.

 

The .m4a/mp4 format may have some sort of copy protection built in since its new. Don't know and not able to do alot of research at the moment.
Also, to make copies it would be easier to just do a direct copy rather than ripping and burning, unless you want to make mixes. Just my .02 worth.
Also, if you just rename the .m4a files to .mp4, they'll play in Quicktime or iTunes on your puter.

 

If you are just copying the cd, and not ripping to mp3's you can copy the "image" of the entire cd as one file. Nero, Roxio, and CloneCD allow you to do this. I personally prefer this method when I have an entire cd I like. I just copy the whole thing to a folder. Now if you're not tooo fond of the entire cd or just want a couple of tracks you can rip the cd.

As far as the difference between Mp3 and Mp4 ... you're proly not going to be able to tell the difference. In order to really get the full effect you have to have great quality media (cds, dvds, etc), good encoder/decoder but coupled with the distortion from your stereo, and other factors hearing ability etc. You're proly not going to notice what the big deal is. The file size will supposedly decrease, but quality will remain the fairly similar due to higher file compression. After converting to .wav you're proly gonna lose any added benefit anyways.

In Windows Media Player 9 if you go to Tools --> Options --> under the copy music tab you'll see the output quality setting for music that you copy. If you set the output to the highest possible 192 kbps it should be very close to cd (enough so that the human ear proly can't tell the difference). The higher this setting the better, but the higher setting will produce slighty larger mp3 files. Rip away and Good Luck to you.

 

mp4 is a different compression level. As someone else suggested, try to adjust your Ripper software settings to rip at mp3. But, as also mentioned, if you compress it, then try to decompress it again to regular CD "wav" format, it won't sound the same. Just do a direct burn from CD to CD. I've used free Musicmatch software in the past with great success.

 

I wish I could just do direct copies of my cds, but my cd-rom drive doesn't work at all. Gonna get a new computer eventually, so I don't bother with it, but I can't just copy cds, which sucks. I may just re-rip them in mp3 format, seems to be the easiest route, methinks. Thanks for the advice guys.

 

I know in my Roxio software that you have the ability to choose the format.

Why save as a wav file if you're going to conver to mp3 later? That's just another step. Depending on what software you're using (didn't state that) you should be able to choose in a preferences option how you want to convert the files. Mp3 files have different levels of sound quality, and the better the sound quality the larger the file. If you're an audio nut (is that audiophile?) you'll want to choose a higher quality, like 256 or 384 (if I remember the values correctly). Sounds as good as the original.

And if you're connected to the internet, again depending on the software, it will automatically name the files for you based on a database online for that CD.

And remember, you can fit more than one CD's worth of tunes onto a burned CD if using mp3 files. I have a few that have 5 CDs worth of music. Loaded into my 6 disc changer, that's like having 25-30 CDs at my fingertips.

My own 2 cents.

 

Misread the original post.... Thought you were going to play them in a standard CD player, in which case .WAV would be the proper format to burn the CD..... But since you're going to use an .MP3 player, nevermind the .WAV idea..... Sorry.

 

Hey Sandrat,
Another idea, again depending on what software you're using for all of this:

In the Roxio software I have an Advanced option under CD Copier to burn the image to disc and then transfer over to the destination CD (if you have only one CD drive to use).

Possibly that's another way to get around your issue.