Creating Custom CDs

With the RealOne Player and a CD-R or CD-RW drive, you can create custom CDs containing audio tracks that can be played on standard CD players, or custom Data CDs with copies of media files from your music library.

What you'll need before you begin:

Overview:

When you create a custom CD, you are transferring audio media to a CD-R disk. Keep in mind that you can only transfer (burn) media files that are local to your computer (regardless of Mode; Audio or Digital). You can transfer files you have downloaded from the Internet, but you can not transfer streaming media to a CD.

Audio Mode: This creates a Standard Audio CD that can be played on any CD player. Clips are added as audio tracks on the CD, up to a maximum of 80 minutes of CD quality audio.

Note:

While the digital quality of a custom Audio CD will be Standard CD quality, the audio quality will be only as good as the source media file. Low bit-rate source files have less audio data than CD quality source files. When creating the CD, the software will have to interpolate to approximate the missing audio data.

Digital Mode: Audio files are saved in a digital format (either RealAudio or MP3) on a CD-R disk. This disk can be read by standard computer CD-ROM drives and by audio CD players that are equipped to read Data CDs. (Check to see if the CD player you intend to use supports either MP3 or RealAudio data types.)

Note:

Digital Media files are copied to the custom Digital CD in the same format and quality as they exist on your local drive. They can also be save in a single format (RealAudio or MP3); RealOne Player automatically converting the files as needed to the selected format. (See CD-R Recording Configuration for details.)

Step-by-Step: Create Custom CD

Set-up

  1. Click Burn CD on the Navigation bar (My Library or CD page), or from Devices, select a CD Creator Plug-in. This will open the CD Creator page and display the following controls:

  2. Insert a blank CD-R disk into your CD-R or CD-RW drive and select Mode (Audio or Data CD).

Note:

The Burn CD function can only be used with CD-R disks. CD-RW disks can not be used because they are not universally readable by standard CD players and CD-ROM drives.

 Select Clips

  1. Click on Add Clips. The Add Clips dialog appears, listing the clips you have saved in My Library. (Clips are displayed in the same was as they are with the Clip Organizer.)

  2. Browse and select the clips you want to add to the CD. (Click on the plus [+] sign, or double-click a group title to open a clip group). To select multiple tracks, use the CTRL or SHIFT keys as you would with Windows Explorer.

Note:

Only clips that point to media files that contain audio content and that are located on your computer or LAN can be added to a CD. Clips that link to media located on the Internet will generate an error message and will not be recorded.

  1. Click Add Clips on the Add Clips dialog. As you add clips, they are displayed in the track list with a Ready to Burn status. The Status indicator shows the total minutes still available on the CD, and the number of minutes you have queued so far. (Clips labeled "Will Not Fit" will not be transferred.) When you have finished selecting clips for your CD, click Close to close the Add Clips window.

  2. The clips you have added are now the tracks that will be recorded (burned) on your CD. You can rearrange the tracks by Dragging and Dropping them in the list, or with the Move Up and Move Down commands available from the right-click menu. To delete a track, select the track and press the Delete key, or use the Delete command in the right click menu.

Note:

 At this point, your tracks have not yet been written to the CD. If you wish, you can repeat steps 5 & 6 as often as necessary to add, move or delete clips. Custom CDs cannot be modified once they are written and finalized.

Burn CD

  1. Click Burn CD. The transfer status of media will change to Pending and the RealOne Player will begin writing tracks to your CD. Once a track has been written, the transfer status will change to On CD.

  2. When all tracks are recorded, the CD Information dialog box will appear. Enter the Artist, Album Title and Genre information and click OK.

Note:

The RealOne Player saves the information you enter here, storing it in it's own database on your computer. It uses this information to identify the custom CD in the future and displays it when you playback the CD. None of this information is saved on the CD except for track numbers and the length of each track.

  1. The CD Creator will now Finalize your disc. When the CD is finalized and ready to play, it will automatically eject.

  2. Insert your new CD into a CD player and enjoy!

Additional Procedures:

Create a Custom CD Jewel Case
Leave Custom CD ‘Open.’ and Add Clips Later