216
votes
Accepted
Can I write (200 MB - 150 min) music to a (700 MB - 80 min) CD?
You can write 200MB to the 700MB disk if the disk remains a data disk.
If you want the CD to play in home audio systems/stereos then the MP3 files will be decoded to raw PCM (like a WAV file) during ...
145
votes
Why do CDs and DVDs fill up from the centre outwards?
This is intended to allow for discs of different sizes.
The standard optical disc today is 12 cm in diameter. However, optical media have historically been produced in a wide variety of sizes. The ...
106
votes
Accepted
Why do CDs and DVDs fill up from the centre outwards?
Why do CDs and DVDs fill up their data from the middle outwards?
Note the above assumption made in the question is incorrect.
Summary:
For historical reasons writing (and reading) from the inside ...
71
votes
Why can't we write over a CD/DVD after it's been burned/finalized?
I understand that read-only mode prevents further writes, but can't
a burner just ignore that and burn over the original data anyway?
Yes, if you modify the firmware on the burner then you could do ...
56
votes
Do most music CDs contain the needed info about their tracks?
The specifications for storing music on CDs is called Red Book.
There is an extension for Red Book called CD-Text. It allows for storage of additional information (text as album name, song name, and ...
53
votes
Accepted
Do most music CDs contain the needed info about their tracks?
Shouldn't such info already be available on the music CD itself?
I think most of us, as consumers, would say yes.
And is it there?
Almost never in my experience. Certainly the software I have ...
42
votes
Can I write (200 MB - 150 min) music to a (700 MB - 80 min) CD?
700 MB is calculated to 80 minute in CDDA (Compact Disc Digital Audio) format. What you asked is a little bit ambiguous so, here's a break down of what you may have asked:
You can burn 80 minutes of ...
38
votes
Why can't we write over a CD/DVD after it's been burned/finalized?
This actually exists and is called smart erase. It is Lite-On proprietary and I have never seen anyone use this.
With SmartErase users can erase the data on DVD±R (DL) and CD-R discs that contain ...
29
votes
Can I write (200 MB - 150 min) music to a (700 MB - 80 min) CD?
The "700 MB / 80 Min" label is describing two very different way of burning a CD.
A CD can be burned as a "Data" disc or as an "Audio" disc.
700 MB is for data version. 80 Min is for audio version.
...
21
votes
Why can't we write over a CD/DVD after it's been burned/finalized?
If your intent is to destructively erase data, then yes this is possible. But there are easier and faster ways. shredding, burning, melting, solvents.
There simply has not been the demand to allow it, ...
17
votes
What is the name for the plastic piece on the end of a 5.25" optical drive tray?
It is indeed a faceplate. Bezel is used too but that usually refers to the surrounding frame into which the faceplate sits flush when the tray is closed.
Your best bet is to take one from a scrap ...
17
votes
Accepted
"Windows Disc Image Burner" missing from both windows 10 and windows 11
This option has disappeared from the context-menu for ISO files, although
the burner program is still there in Windows.
A workaround that doesn't involve any registry hacks is:
Right-click on the ...
16
votes
Why do CDs and DVDs fill up from the centre outwards?
With vinyl it was easier to put the needle onto the outside than on the inside of the spinning record.
CDs can have different sizes and shapes. The disc can have any size beginning from the inside.
...
15
votes
Accepted
CD-ROM subchannel is different when dumping the same disc?
The various CD formats are a bit involved, and the official specifications ("red book" for audio CD, "yellow book" for data CD) are not freely available. But you can find some details in available ...
13
votes
Can I write (200 MB - 150 min) music to a (700 MB - 80 min) CD?
Yes, it can be done. But it's not likely something you would want to do.
A CD carries 80 minutes of stereo sound. But stereo means there are two channels. If you wanted to get creative, you could ...
12
votes
Accepted
Why you can't just "dd" CD Audio like an ordinary data CD?
Audio CDs (also called CD-DA, specified in the proprietary Red Book) are the oldest format of the CD. The format is inspired by the audio record, so you have a spiral track with continuous data, and ...
11
votes
How to detect whether there is a CD-ROM in the drive?
setcd -i (in the setcd package, at least on Debian) can tell you the state of the drive. Unlike some of the other approaches (mount at least, probably blkid too), this will not attempt to close the ...
11
votes
How to avoid unwritable CDs and DVDs?
I'm hoping people more familiar with the "material science" can address the data layer materials and the window of writability. But I can share some information on the identifiability aspect. Here ...
8
votes
Why can't we write over a CD/DVD after it's been burned/finalized?
It would probably not be overly difficult to have firmware overwrite a portion of the disk so that it could no longer be read via ordinary means (if one wanted to destroy an entire disk, physical ...
8
votes
CD-ROM subchannel is different when dumping the same disc?
According to this Wikipedia article
A frame comprises 33 bytes, of which 24 bytes are audio or user data, eight bytes are error correction (CIRC-generated), and one byte is for subcode.
This ...
6
votes
How to detect whether there is a CD-ROM in the drive?
You can do the following with Python3 and the standard library:
import fcntl
import os
CDROM_DRIVE = '/dev/sr0'
def detect_tray(CDROM_DRIVE):
"""detect_tray reads status of the CDROM_DRIVE.
...
6
votes
Rip CD/DVD with ffmpeg
For DVDs, the key part is installing the DVD decryption library (e.g. libdvdcss).
Reading the DVD directly with ffmpeg caused a lot of broken frames for me.
What worked like a charm, was dumping the ...
6
votes
What is the name for the plastic piece on the end of a 5.25" optical drive tray?
That part is usually called a bezel or faceplate. I would recommend searching for “optical drive bezel” or “optical drive faceplate” and see what pops up. I would also recommend eBay searches for “...
5
votes
Do most music CDs contain the needed info about their tracks?
Not intended as an answer, but it doesn't quite fit in a comment. Actually, even the oldest CD Audio standard made it possible for a wealth of meta-data as a very slow bit-rate on the side of the ...
5
votes
How to rescue a multi-session CD?
I'm afraid you have mentioned the unfortunate answer in your comment: ddrescue does not know how to address individual session. I suspect this is a deliberate choice of the Linux kernel CD-ROM ...
5
votes
Can I write (200 MB - 150 min) music to a (700 MB - 80 min) CD?
Depends of the way you want to burn it.
There are 2 ways to do it:
If you want to write it as an classic Audio CD, with a single
session, that you can play in ALL the stereos with a CD driver, you
...
4
votes
How to detect whether there is a CD-ROM in the drive?
You can try with lsblk command:
lsblk -fp
If under FSTYPE for line /dev/sr0 there is nothing -> media not loaded into cdrom drive.
If there is something under FSTYPE, probably iso9660 -> media is ...
4
votes
Accepted
Is there any way at all to bypass sector-level CRC when reading damaged CDs?
I thought I should go back and answer this myself, now that I'm experienced in this subject. Two of the ideas I thought of in my original question do, in fact, work!
Issue some low-level ATA ...
4
votes
Where is the serial number of the DVD/CD writer stored on the CD?
This number is stored in the Q subchannel of the CD-R or CD-RW during the burning process, or in the main channel while the burning process starts (writing the PMA, which is the TOC for non-closed ...
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