Types of CD/DVDs

• A DVD/CD-RW player (disc-rewritable)  will play DVD & CD's and burn (copy or make new) DVD-R, CD-R, CD-RW  
•   A CD-RW player will play CD's and burn (copy or make new)  CD-R, CD-RW  
•   A CD-R player (disc-recordable) will play CD's and burn (copy or make new)  CD-R
•   40x means it will process data at 40 time the speed of the normal CD playback speed

Using CDs

• Insert an audio CD or a data CD that contains music files into your CD-ROM drive.
• You can use the Player to copy ( or "rip") and create (burn) CDs.
• If you copy your audio CDs to the computer, you can play all the music that you have collected in the Media Library without having to change the CD.. 
• You can create CDs by using any combination of tracks on your computer and or your Media Library.

Playing music from CDs

When you insert an audio or data CD into the CD-ROM drive, playback of the CD begins automatically if

1. The Player is not already in use.
2. The Player is the default player for CDs.
3. The Player is the default player for music CDs.

The Now Playing feature is displayed when the Player starts. Now Playing displays the name of the artist and the title of the track, the playlist if available, and a visualization or the Info Center View pane.

Notes

1. To set the Player as the default player for CDs, in the Options dialog box, on the File Types tab, select Music CD Playback.
2. You can use the Player to play your High Definition Compatible Digital (HDCD) CDs which have a fuller, richer, more enhanced audio quality.

Copying music from CDs

• Copying (ripping) tracks from CDs to Media Library is easy, you do this while you listen to your CD as you copy it.
• Variables such as the type of CD you are trying to copy and the speed of your CD-ROM drive can affect the quality of the copy.
• Although you are copying digital information from a CD, you may not get an exact copy. If you notice some minor flaws in the playback, such as faint scratches or pops in the audio this is normal and is caused by the method your CD-ROM drive uses to read information from the CD.
• If you want to listen to a CD while you are copying its tracks, you must configure the Player to use digital copying. Depending on how your CD player is configured, there is still a chance you will not be able to listen to your CD while you are copying tracks, especially if you have analog speakers.
• The Player adds volume leveling values to tracks when you copy them.
• Your hardware (CD-ROM drive and speakers) determines whether you can copy and listen to tracks by using digital or analog audio.

Viewing information about a CD

• You can view information about your CD in the Now Playing, Copy from CD, or Media Library
• Note that the Player must be configured to retrieve information about CDs automatically.
• If information about the CD is not available (you have a rare CD, for example) Windows Media Player displays the track number as the title.
• You can manually edit the media information in Now Playing, Copy from CD, and Media Library.

Creating your own CDs

With Windows Media Player, you can create (burn) your own audio CDs or data CDs (also known as media CDs) from the tracks stored on your computer or in Media Library. Live streams, such as radio stations, cannot be copied to CDs.

You can use the player to create the following types of CDs:

• Audio CD. Create music CDs similar to those you buy. The Player converts tracks into .cda files to copy them to the compact disc. Audio CDs can play in most computers and in home and car CD players that play CD-R and CD-RW discs.
• Data CD. Create CDs that contain playlists and files that are not converted and that are in the order they are listed in the Items to Copy pane. Depending on the bit rate used to copy the files and the file types, a data CD may contain more than eight hours of music. Only certain CD players and computers can play data CDs.
• HighMAT CD  Create another type of data CD that plays in CD players that play Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. Files are converted into WMA files, which are smaller than .mp3 files. Only certain portable CD players can play Windows Media Audio files.

To create a CD, you must have a CD recorder (burner) attached to your computer and a blank CD to which you can copy tracks.

File types that can be copied to CD

You can copy the following file types from the Player to a recordable CD:

• Windows Media Audio (WMA) files with a .wma extension
• .mp3 files
• .wav files
• During the CD creation process for audio CDs, the Player automatically converts the files to .cda files before copying them to the CD.

Audio quality and compression

The compression quality that you use to copy CD tracks to your computer affects the sound quality of the track, but does not affect the length of the track when copying from your computer to a CD. The better the sound quality you use to copy a track to your computer, the better the sound quality when you copy it from your computer to a CD. If you use the best quality sound to copy a track to your computer, more disk space is used on your computer. Other variables such as the speed of your CD-ROM drive can also affect the quality of the copy.