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Main > Electronics > Gadgets

How CD Burners Work
by Tom Harris

Shop for CD Burners

Table of Contents

 
 
The advent of CD burners marked a huge cultural shift. The technology made it feasible for the average person to gather songs and make their own CDs. Suddenly, music-mix makers everywhere had their hands on the means of production.


An external writable CD drive, also called a CD burner: With this type of drive, you can take music or data files from your computer and make your own CDs.

Today, writable CD drives (CD burners) are standard equipment in new PCs, and more and more audio enthusiasts are adding separate CD burners to their stereo systems. In less than five years, CDs have eclipsed cassette tapes as the mix medium of choice.

In this article, you'll find out how CD burners encode songs and other information onto blank discs. We'll also look at CD re-writable technology, see how the data files are put together and find out how you can make your own music mixes with a CD burner.

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Table of Contents:
  Introduction to How CD Burners Work
  CD Basics: The Bumps
  CD Basics: The Path
  Reading CDs
  Writing CDs
  Burning CDs: Laser Assembly
  Burning CDs: Write Laser
  Erasing CDs
  Phase-change Compounds
  The Erase Laser
  CD Formats
  Encoding Data
  Creating Your Own CDs: Software
  Creating Your Own CDs: Music
  Creating Your Own CDs: Burning
  Lots More Information
  Compare Prices for CD Burners


 

 


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