iPOD & ITUNES for Dummies Portable Edition

Chapter 8

Feeling the iTunes Burn

In This Chapter

• Creating a burn playlist
• Choosing the right format for burning a CD
• Setting the burn preferences
• Burning a CD
• Troubleshooting tips

Once upon a time, when vinyl records were popular, rock radio disk jockeys (who didn't like disco) held disco-meltdown parties. People were encouraged to throw their disco records onto a pile to be burned or steamrolled into a vinyl glob. I admit that I shamelessly participated in one such meltdown. However, this section isn't about that. Rather, burning a disc is the process in which the CD drive recorder's laser heats up points on an interior layer of the disc to record information.

Using Recordable CDs and DVDs

If you have a CD-R, CD-RW, or DVD-R drive (such as the Apple SuperDrive for a Mac) and a blank CD-R (R stands for recordable), you can burn music, audio books, and audio podcast episodes on audio CDs that play in most CD players. You can fit up to 74 minutes of music on a high-quality audio-format CD-R; most can go as high as 80 minutes.

Blank audio CD-Rs (I'm talking discs now and not drives) are available in stores that carry consumer electronics. You can also get them online from the Apple Store (not the music store — the store that sells computers and accessories). Choose iTunesShop for iTunes Products (Mac) or HelpShop for iTunes Products (Windows) to reach the Apple Store online.