Article
CD Basics
Article by Juan Ruiz
CD stands for Compact Disk. Most of today's computers come equipped with a CD Writer. This is handy for storing digital pictures, music, or any other type of data onto a CD. Also, a CD is a Certificate of Deposit, as in a monetary deposit from a financial institution for a determined amount of time in exchange for higher interest returns. I am not going to talk about these types of CDs. Except to say this: you could cash in one of your CDs to purchase a brand new computer with a built-in CD writer.
What I am going to talk about are those shiny disks we gladly accepted in replacement of the cool quadraphonic eight-tracks. Remember those? One can buy a prerecorded CD with music or software. Or, one can buy blank CDs and store music or software on them. For this we need the CD Writer that burns CD blanks. There many types of CD blanks, but I will concentrate this article on explaining the CD-Rs and the CD-RWs.
First, the CD-R -- the R actually stands for 'recordable.' A CD-R has the capability to be recorded only once. The very first time I recorded on a CD-R, I ruined it. I recorded something trivial on it to see how it worked. The operation was successful, but the CD-R (the only one we had) was now useless because once the disk was written to, nothing else could be added. Cost: about $10 for 50 CD-Rs.
CD-RWs (Re-Writable) on the other hand, can be recorded onto multiple times. What a great invention this is! Data can be recorded to the disk, the disk can be erased, and different data can be recorded again to the same disk. Notice what I said -- the disk must be erased first before you can add more information to it. Some manufacturers claim these CD-RWs can be re-recorded thousands of times. I beg to differ, but they can be re-written enough to get your money's worth. Cost: about $20 for 50 CD-RWs.
Some helpful terms:
Burn: The process of recording something onto a CD. It is said "to burn a CD" because the surface of the disk will be burned with the heat of a laser. CD-Rs are made with a coating (shiny to our eyes) that will be pitted by the burning laser. Once burned, the disk cannot be made whole again.
CD-RWs are made of a different material that can be reconstituted many times which enables us to reuse it. You can think of the CD-R as a rock in which a message can be carved; and a CD-RW as a sandbox where one can write a message that will last until the sand is smoothed again.
Format: The process of making the CD blank again (smoothing the sand). This only works on CD-RW. Formatting a regular CD-R will record "nothing" on to it and render it useless.
Speed: CDs come in a variety of speeds. They are usually labeled 1x - 52x in multiples of 2. 1x is the speed at which music is played from a CD. 1x - If you make a recording at this speed, it will take about 74-80 minutes depending on the capacity of the CD.
2x - Up to twice as fast; it will take 80 minutes divided by 2; or up to 40 minutes. 40x - Up to forty times faster than 1x; it will take 80 minutes divided by 40; or up to 2 minutes.
All speeds are estimated and depend highly on other factors such as the speed of computer system you own, and how much hard drive space is available. Caution: Do not forget to match the speed of the CD with the speed of your CD-Writer.