Hi Donna, • Choosing "Burn Playlist to Disc" from a playlist menu or from the burn button in iTunes
There are a number of ways to start burning a disc (either CD or DVD) from iTunes. Since you need to create a playlist to specify the items you want to burn to disc, when you select a playlist that you have made in the iTunes sources table, the context menu (VO-Shift-M) will have a "Burn Playlist to Disc" menu option. (This option will not be present for the context menus of the "playlists" for the various iTunes "Music", "Podcasts", "Audiobooks", etc. libraries.) There's also a "Burn Disc" button that shows up once you've selected a playlist, and that you can reach in a couple of ways: typically after reviewing the tracks for that playlist in your songs table you'll want to know how many items are there and how much space they take up in order to decide the format you'd like to to burn to (e.g. whether you want to burn as an mp3 CD or an audio CD, or if you're burning this as data, whether you'd like to store this on a CD (about 700 MB or 70 minutes for an audio CD) or DVD (about 4.7 GB for single-layer; double that for dual-layer)). So one way to navigate to the burn button is to VO-Down arrow from the songs table to find the summary information for the playlist items and then VO-Right arrow to the "Burn Disc" button which you can press (VO-Space). Another quick way to get to the "Burn Disc" button from anywhere in iTunes is to start from the search text field (Command-Option-F shortcut to go there if you're somewhere else) and VO-Down arrow to get to the "Burn Disc" button. • Summary playlist information on number of items, total playing time, and associated disc space If you want to review the amount of space occupied by your various libraries, this status information can be viewed by selecting a playlist or library in your sources table, then navigating to the corresponding songs table listing (with tab, VO-Right arrow, or VO-J), and navigating to the summary status with VO-Down arrow. You might hear something like "1200 items, 8.6 days, 7.05 GB". Because you might want to hear a more precise time (in days, hours, minutes, and seconds) for items that you want to burn to an audio CD, iTunes lets you change the way that total time is reported by clicking (VO-Shift- Space) on the summary. Then VoiceOver announces "1190 items, 8:15:32:46 total time, 7.05 GB". (Note there is a bug in the way this is said, since with the colon delimiters this should be 8 days,15 hours, 32 minutes, and 46 seconds if you read the numbers character by character, but VoiceOver will announce this as hours, minutes, seconds because normally you wouldn't have "days" of music play time.) The detailed mode is useful when you are burning an audio or mp3 CD, where you might hear "25 songs,1:07:13 total time, 63.9 MB". Clicking (VO- Shift-Space) changes the announcement to "25 songs, 1.1 hours, 63.9 MB", which is a more useful format when you are burning backup data discs on DVDs. • Burn format options When you are burning music to disc in iTunes and press the "Burn Disc" button or select the option to burn to disc from the context menu for a playlist, the dialog window will offer you 3 options: audio CD, mp3 CD, or data disc (CD or DVD). The Audio CD format will allow you to play your music on a regular CD player. If it is stored in your iTunes Library in a compressed format (mp3, aac, Audible, iTunes purchased tracks, etc.) then it will be converted so that each CD holds a maximum of 70 minutes of play time. (This kind of automatic format conversion is not an option if your burn disks from Finder). In all cases, iTunes will warn you beforehand if it estimates that you will need more than one disc. You do not, of course, gain back the quality of the original lossless music before you ripped it to a compressed (lossy) format. If your playlist consists of mp3 tracks, then you can choose to burn these to an MP3 CD that can be played in an MP3 CD player. Here, the size information (less than 700 MB) is more relevant than the total play time in estimating how many discs you may need, although again, iTunes will tell you if you are likely to need more than one disc. Finally, you can burn your playlist tracks as a data disc onto either CD or DVD. This format matches the file format of the tracks stored in your iTunes library, and can be used to backup TV shows, movies, and videopodcasts as well as music tracks and any media format supported by the iTunes library. For example, if you have PDF files of bonus booklets for albums you have purchased, or if you added PDF files to your iTunes library (yes, you can do this with the same "add to library" command that you use for music; a neat idea is to use a "PDF Adder" AppleScript from the AppleScripts for iTunes site, and automatically add in a notes file tagged the same way as a recorded audio file you created -- these could be of a class session -- then find both your recording and your notes with the same iTunes searches) -- all these files can be saved as data disc files. So how does a data disc written in iTunes differ from an MP3 CD (if all the files being written are MP3 tracks) or a disc that you burn with Finder from a burn folder? Data discs can include any file type supported in an iTunes library (not just mp3 files), but they also include (at the very end) a database file named ContentsDB.xml that iTunes can read with metadata information (comments, ratings, information on when the files were created and written, etc.). One consequence is that you can "play" the contents of data discs (whether CD or DVD) when these are inserted into a CD or DVD drive in any version of iTunes (another Mac, or a Windows computer). If you add these tracks to another iTunes library, they will be added with the iTunes information. For example, if these are podcasts you subscribed to through iTunes, they will appear organized in folders under the podcast section of your library. They may or may not be playable in your mp3 CD player. (I've found they work in mine). The reason is that they will organize your music into folders by album (which some older mp3 CD players do not support), rather than containing a straight, unstructured list of mp3 tracks. If I have mixed contents on my data disc CDs, my mp3 CD player will play everything up to the first non-mp3 format file. It's worth noting that iTunes offers a special version of the burned data disc in the "Backup to disc" option under the File menu "Library" submenu list. This will offer you the option to backup all purchased music, new purchases since you last ran this backup, or backup your whole iTunes library onto CD/DVD (this last option is rather challenging for most of us). You can also "restore" from these backup discs. • Using iTunes vs. using the Burn Folder in Finder or Disk Utility I always burn media content using iTunes rather than a general burn folder. It has the advantages that these discs can automatically "play" and transfer files to other iTunes library (whether on a Mac or in Windows), and keeps extra iTunes data base information in the file. In addition, although I haven't tested this lately, I've found that content burns faster in iTunes. On my older PowerBook in Tiger, if I burned instructional movies to disc, if they were a format supported by iTunes (even if I never played them in iTunes) I would add the files to iTunes just to burn them to DVD, because the burn would be nearly two times faster than using a burn folder in Finder. I'd guess that is because of the complete information in the iTunes data base and optimization for this task. YMMV. Just a tip, but if you ever use rewritable CDs or DVDs, open up Disk Utility (Command- Shift-U in Finder to go to the Utilities folder and then press "d i" to find "Disk Utility") and use the erase disk option to clear these. HTH Cheers, Esther Donna Goodin wrote: > > Just curious, how do you burn from Itunes? I didn't see it in the > menu options. > Donna > On Oct 14, 2009, at 11:03 AM, Thomas McMahan wrote: > >> >> There are advantages each way depending on what you want to do. Back >> a year or two ago using the finder to burn was a lot easier, I-Tunes >> has caught up though some, but still use finder sometimes depends on >> where the files are that you are wanting to put in a folder to burn I >> guess. >> >> On Oct 14, 2009, at 9:52 AM, Donna Goodin wrote: >> >>> >>> Thank you, Thomas, that's handy. I had looked through the menus in >>> Itunes, but it hadn't occured to me to look in Finder. >>> Best, >>> Donna >>> On Oct 14, 2009, at 10:14 AM, Thomas McMahan wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> Yes you can, but you can also set up a folder and burn through the >>>> finder as well. Or where ever your constructed folder may be if >>>> it's >>>> a (burn folder.) >>>> >>>> On Oct 14, 2009, at 8:13 AM, Donna Goodin wrote: >>>> >>>>> >>>>> Hi all, >>>>> >>>>> Did I read on this list that you can do this? If not, what are >>>>> people >>>>> using? >>>>> >>>>> Thanks, and sorry for the repeat thread, I know this has come up >>>>> on >>>>> this list before. >>>>> Donna >>>>> >>>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>>> >> >> >>> >> > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
