Does Nero automatically change mp3's to CDA?

[Wayne Carver]

When you mix mp3's off your hard drive with song selections off cd's in the nero window to burn, Does Nero automatically change the mp3's to the .CDA format? I understand you could change them all to mp3's but I think you have to make that selection yourself.

[Wiz Feinberg]

Nero will convert MP3's into Audio CD format if you clicked on the option to Create Audio CD. It actually converts them into .wav files, but hides them from the CD index. Instead of accessing your wavs directly you are given a T.O.C. with a .cda extension for each track. The .cda is a shortcut to the hidden track, which plays as a full wave file.

It is because of this that an Audio CD can only hold about 25 average size songs, even though your MP3s are a couple of megabytes each. By contrast, you might get several hundred music files burned onto a Data CD that can play them in any CD player that recognizes MP3 format.

Wiz

[Jack Stoner]

Problem with MP3's is that there are not that many Audio CD players that will play MP3. Car (factory) in-dash CD players are just now starting to add MP3 capability to some.

One issue with MP3's. MP3 is a compressed format and something less than full fidelity (how much less depends on the original music format and what compression rate). When you convert it to wav you do not restore the full fidelity - the fidelity is the same as the MP3.

If you "record" songs to your hard drive, for later CD burning, it is best to "record" them as wav files so you have the full fidelity. There are many programs that will convert wav to MP3 if you need that format.

[Wayne Carver]

Wiz, thanks for the info, I wondered why they appeared as .cda instead of .wav

Jack, you just confirmed my question that converting mp3's to waves before burning would not improve their sound quality. I guess no recording is going to sound any better that the original file type.