[William Collins]

Hi everyone,

I have a new Sony DCJ01 CD/MP3 player and rip/burn using my Mac iBook and iTunes3. My first foray into CD/MP3 burning went without a hitch. The Sony pcdp played them perfectly with 192 VBR. Now I've burned my second CD/MP3 but the Sony will only recognize 1 folder and 25 songs, despite 92 songs being burned on the CD. I've tried several discs, and reburned them several times, all to no avail. The MP3's are still all 192 VBR. What gives?

Thanks in advance,
Bill

 

[andrzejpw]

Hmm, did you change the media(the brand of cdr).

Have you changed anything about the way you record the disc? Extra folders, etc. . .

Can you still play that first disc you made?

If you just throw a lot of mp3s on the disc: no folders, etc, does it play?

 

[William Collins]

I haven't changed the brand of CD-RW ( it's a Sony brand). The ripping/encoding/burning process was the same. I'm really not sure how to do "folders" on iTunes. The first CD I burned was just 100 songs burned, but there were several songs from about 20 artists. The pcdp acknowledged lots of folders and songs on the first successful CD I burned, but this new one only 1 folder and 25 songs were recognized.

I can still play the first disc I burned.

Maybe the problem is with iTunes and the "folder" issue?

Bill

 

[andrzejpw]

hmmmmmmmmm.

A question: is there anyway that you can just burn data files onto a cd? No itunes, etc?

 

[shafu]

Does it take a lot longer for the player to load the disc up?

I had some problems too with the sony at first. The problem seemed to be that I needed to finalize the disc before the sony could read it properly.

Hope that helps - never used iTunes...

 

[Magicthyse]

a) Did you burn the media faster than it's rated?
b) did you close / finalize the disc?

 

[William Collins]

I have also wondered about "finalizing" a disc. I saw it written in the owners manual, but I'm not sure how to "finalize" a disc. I'm not sure how to burn data onto a CD, I've only tried music, but I'll try tonight.

I don't think I've burned faster than the media. My first try was around 200 VBR and it works well. It's just this last CD that I can't figure out.

Let me know about "finalizing". Maybe that will do it.

Bill

 

[Magicthyse]

What I meant by burning to the rated speed of the media is, for example, don't burn a 10x rated CD-RW @ 12x.

 

[William Collins]

Oh, OK! I guess I'm really a newbie at this. My iTunes program has a preference for burning "as fast as possible", so I guess this is OK, but I'll manually set this lower than the CD-RW and see if it helps.

What about that "finalize" issue? What does this mean and how do I do it?

Thanks again

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally posted by William Collins Oh, OK! I guess I'm really a newbie at this. My iTunes program has a preference for burning "as fast as possible", so I guess this is OK, but I'll manually set this lower than the CD-RW and see if it helps. What about that "finalize" issue? What does this mean and how do I do it? Thanks again

Finalize means to close the disc and no more info can be stored onto it until you unfinalize the disc (if its a cdrw that is).

I'm not familiar with iTunes so i'm not sure, but there should be a finalize check box somewhere within the options. Look around and see if you can find it, if possible, try using a different burning program, like nero which offers to finalize a disc straight up.

The only question i have is how do you unfinalize a cdrw disc? I'm only familiar with unfinalizing cdrw's in my digicam.

 

[Magicthyse]

Quote:

Originally posted by gloco Finalize means to close the disc and no more info can be stored onto it until you unfinalize the disc (if its a cdrw that is). I'm not familiar with iTunes so i'm not sure, but there should be a finalize check box somewhere within the options. Look around and see if you can find it, if possible, try using a different burning program, like nero which offers to finalize a disc straight up. The only question i have is how do you unfinalize a cdrw disc? I'm only familiar with unfinalizing cdrw's in my digicam.

Erase.

 

[jona]

quote-

I have also wondered about "finalizing" a disc. I saw it written in the owners manual, but I'm not sure how to "finalize" a disc. I'm not sure how to burn data onto a CD, I've only tried music, but I'll try tonight.
_____________

William-

iTunes is pretty fool-proof. It closes ("finalizes") the CD for you & chooses the appropriate (data) format for you. The only way you can screw-up this process is by pressing the 'cancel' button while a CD is burning. If you do that, the session is stopped and not 'closed'-(turning your audio CD-R into a coaster). If you are using a CD-RW, just erase the disc & burn your iTunes session again.
Regarding the max CD burn rate, check iTunes preferences (keyboard apple-Y, or scroll down the Edit menu). Recheck the Burn Speed and (of course) that the Disc Format mp3 is selected. Max rate is the default Burn Speed, but this may not be best if your CD media is not rated up to the max speed of your recorder. Since all these burn rates seem to be optimistic, I usually choose a speed a bit LOWER than the rating of either the media or the player for best reliability of the burn.
BTW- The other possibilities are that your Sony doesn't like CD/RW media &/or does not like 200 VBR. I've heard that the DCJ01 can be a bit picky with media and 'non-standard' mp3's (e.g. 200VBR). (e.g. I've played some mp3 CD's in my TDK Mojo which would not work properly in a DCJ01)
Try the mp3 CD's you've burned in another player-- If it works in another player, it's the DCJ01 rather than the disc.

Hope this helps.

Jon

 

[Joe Bloggs]

For me 'Close Session' has been enough to get my CDs working, although it does take the most part of a minute for the player to load the disc--but that's fine with me, I don't want to finalize

 

[William Collins]

Thanks so much for everyone's help. It's all been very helpful.

After everyone's advice and lot's of experimentation, I was finally able to successfully burn a CD/MP3. It turned out to be a quirk with iTunes and folder structure. I opened a new playlist, then rummaged around in my hard drive until I found the folder of iTunes MP3's, then dragged and dropped the actual folders onto the playlist window, then turned off the songs I didn't want to burn. I left everything else the same. It worked!! I know it's cumbersome and should be easier, but whatever is cool! When I get my ipod, I know it'll be a lot easier.

Thanks again for everyone's advice....

bill