Do you prefer CD-R or CD-RW for music?
Do you prefer CD-R or CD-RW for music?
For those who use CDs for music, which writable CD type do you use, and why?
Main differences:
- CD-R can only be written once
- CD-RW is more expensive
CD-R has a much wider range of compatibility than CD-RW, so if you're looking to play music you'll probably want to go with CD-R.
And as for data, I wouldn't use a CD at all. Optical Media is absolute shit for data preservation and those early claims of lasting thousands of years are highly exaggerated, the backing on the CDs (and DVDs) lasts for a few decades at most.
If you insist on optical data backups you'll want archival grade discs that are made of glass instead of plastic and don't use glue on foil for the backing but even those are projected to last hundreds of years at most, and they're not cheap.CD-R is written in an organic-dye, which deteriorates ( I've read the AZO chemistry is more enduring )
CD-RW is written in the crystallization of a metal layer.
CD-RW is permanent record, unless you heat them, or blank them, or overwrite/rewrite them: chemical-deterioration isn't a problem.
I learned this with backups, many many years ago.
I've no idea if DVD-RW discs also are recorded in a eutectic metal layer, but they've multiple record-layers ( 2? ), and I'm don't know how you can make a eutectic-metal layer that is transparent-enough to get through/past it to write the next layer,
so I've no idea how permanent DVD-RW's are.
I've lost data on the -R technology.
I've never lost data on the CD-RW technology.
CD-RW is superior. It's more expensive but you could use it as many times as you need. So if you were for example a 13 year old who loved to distro hop Linux distributions.. it's very useful to be able to rewrite whatever you were doing.
The price difference is quickly made up for with the re-usability factor.
Although I don't understand why anyone would burn a CD anymore. You can buy flash drives with a ton of storage for really cheap these days. You have all sorts of cloud options. You can even rent your own VPS for less than $5 a month.
In the thick of the cd era I tried to use RW and there wasn’t much rewritable about them. Any attempt to change the data, even to just add a new track, turned the disk into a coaster. Better to stick to CD-R and just burn a whole new disk each update.
How old is this post?
I used CD-RW and re-wrote them a bit 25 years ago when the price of a CD-R was high, and a CD-RW cost like 2-3x of a CD-R, when the prices dropped it stopped making sense.
Last time I burned a CD/DVD was 10-15 years ago.
Burning CDs back in the day was a sort of art. You had to choose a write speed slow enough that your single-CPU computer could keep the buffer fed, but fast enough that you could get through the whole thing without dying of boredom or needing to use the bathroom, because walking across the room was enough to make the head skip and corrupt the data.
A failed burn with a CD-R turned a disc into a coaster. A CD-RW gave you several chances to get a good burn.
Permanently Deleted
I haven't used a cd in 15 years lol
Whats up with the 2000s tech being so hot on Lemmy right now?
I like CD-R, not for regular use but it occured to me that it's one of the only consumer accessable media formats that are actually write once. It's kind of neat to make a custom disk that is forever unchanged, pop it on years later and go through what was your sound X years back without having to worry about whatever service having pulled licences or modified lists.
just curious why anyone would bother using a CD—its a digital medium so playing a CD vs just playing a .wav file off your computer or phone is literally the exact same audio quality (unless the cd is damaged and you get skipping which is not optimal…). You can connect speakers to a computer. it is literally the exact same thing. I understand people liking ANALOG media (vinyl or [for some unknown reason] tape cassette) but what is the point of using an out dated, flimsy and easily destructible DIGITAL storage?
CD-RW, of course. But only if the player supports it. I can update the music, that's why.
CD-R since it’s better for compatibility and I actually had issues with RW in the past where I could only burn a CD once and not be able to rewrite on it. I was burning them as audio CDs for car use at the time.
Nowadays? Rip ‘em and slap them onto an external drive (maybe even onto the cloud if you wanna go that far), then toss out or donate the CD so you don’t have to lug that shit around. I’d rather buy the vinyl if it’s an album I really like.
I have gotten whole cases of CD-R's at yard sales and thrift stores. I do not own a single CD-RW. Even when I purchase them, the CD-R's are so cheap that if I mess up I can just toss the error and still come out ahead. If I needed to overwrite it frequently I would probably just use a different media if available (like a USB drive).
Eh, overall R for the same reason most peeps have said, it was pretty much guaranteed compatibility.
But truth is, RW worked in anything I ever tried it in, and it was nice for having a couple of car discs full of mp3s that I could shift around some. Since I have a small case of those in the car that still work, I ain't mad at RW at all. It's been eight years for some of those, and over a decade for two.
I should probably order some and make a few new ones lol.
CD-RW isn’t compatible on many basic CD players like CD-Rs are so unless you have a player that you know supports RW, it’s usually best to go with R.
Back when I actually used CDs for music, I had a CD MP3 player made by Rio. I also had a copy of Roxio that could basically use a CD-RW almost like a thumb drive, you didn't have to worry about writing sessions or whatever, you could just add and remove files, so that's how I managed my MP3 player. I think I only used that one CD-RW.
For regular redbook audio discs I would just use CD-Rs.
I had to do a double take to see how old is this post.
I'll be honest. When I upgraded my PC I finally moved to one without any bays. So my rewriter that I've not used for probably 10+ years came out of my setup.
Funny story, I did some work on my old setup some 5 years or so ago. I must have unplugged the rewriter to get at some cabling and never re-connected it. I never noticed in those 5 years, until I was taking the parts out I was moving to my new system and saw it was just not connected.
Now, when I DID make CDs around 10+ years ago or more, I used CD-Rs.
I prefer Ogg/Vorbis for music.
The only time it has ever seemed to matter is for live cds i.e linux. Anecdotally I had more issues with the rewritables than the write once and "if anything goes wrong get another disc" discs.
CD-R.
I think I bought some CD-RW a looong time ago and never, ever re-wrote with them. Hard to think of a scenario where I would do that.
Also, I just bought some Taiyo Yuden again recently. They're still available (scamazon).
CD-R, all the way.
I'm not gonna waste time constantly rebuilding playlists on the same CDs. I get my ideal track list built, burn it, then that's my one CD for that playthrough. If I come up with another one, I'll burn another CD. Music sets an emotional tone for situations; I have a lot of good memories that I can relive just by playing the CDs I listened to on repeat around that time.
If being thrifty is your game, then the CD-RW is a better choice. Yeah, it's more expensive, but you only need one. You just rebuild your playlist anytime you want something different. Unlike CD-Rs, which require a new disc for every single playlist. That cost adds up over time.
But that's all inconsequential, as burning CDs was only efficient 20 years ago. There are much better ways to transfer and listen to music nowadays. Heck, MP3 players pretty much replaced CDs as a better way to listen to music on the go, and those are outdated now too.
Nowadays, If I want music on the go, I either copy a few albums to my smartphone, or connect to Plex and stream them from my home computer.
CD-R for compatibility
checks calendar
If you already have a digital audio file... just play that on a computer?