Hi Danny. Firstly Is there any reason why you can't record straight onto your PC hard drive or external drive? That would be your best option if you can do that. assuming you can't then Re-writable CDs have a very limited lifespan. You are very limited in how many times you can erase and record any single disc. I know from experience that they are very unreliable and bearing in mind they are kinda expensive they are not very economical in the long run. I'm trying to recall something I read about them many years ago but I can't fully remember. All I can recall was the problem lays with the dye's ability to react to the laser and over time it's response becomes ineffective and the disc becomes a piece of junk. I do have a few sealed audio re-writables but only use them if I have no other choice but since they have been in their sealed packs for a few years, I haven't been forced to use them. I found the worst combination was to record something on my Hi-Fi CD recorder, then take it to my PC and rip the contents and then erase it in the PC. A couple of times of that and the disc died. I found the best way to prolong the life of the disc as much as possible was if I recorded the disc in the audio CD recorder it was wise to erase it in there and if I burned the disc in the PC then, erase it there also. My preferred means of doing the sort of recordings you speak of is to record onto mini disc. They can be written on and erased a million times without deterioration of the audio quality. If you can get hold of a MD recorder with long play facility then you can get up to 5 hours 20 minute recording time from a single disc. Of course, the quality is slightly lowered compared to the stereo setting, probably similar to a PC file at 128kbs, but for the spoken word it is perfectly fine. Some portable Mini disc recorders can be connected to your PC via USB and you can transfer files freely. Also, Mini Disc has a reasonable, if only basic editing feature. Sadly, they are becoming quite hard to find though. The other option is one of the Olympic digital recorders but I have no experience of these and will have to leave it to others to explain whether such a device would suit your purposes. Finally, as for examining the disc it's self? That is something you would have to get a sighted person to do for you as there isn't a way of telling how badly scratched a disc is. In any case, not all scratches will adversely effect the playing of the disc. I have found some discs have had large, even deep scratches and played fine but a disc with extremely fine, almost impossible to see scratches just threw the player into a panic. It really depends where the scratch, or scratches are and how severely it interferes with the discs reflective capability. As a last resort, you might think about using unbranded write once discs, they are not very expensive. Walter.
-----Original Message----- From: pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org [mailto:pc-audio-boun...@pc-audio.org]on Behalf Of Danny Miles Sent: 18 May 2010 23:35 To: PC Audio Discussion List; blindos-inn Subject: CD Recording and Maintenance Hi everyone. Sorry if this is rather random, but I hope that someone can help. I'm currently recording audio from the radio and old cassettes using a stand alone CD recorder. I'm using re-recordable discs so that I don't have to keep buying new ones, but they seem to pick up dust and scratches very easily, and the instructions for the recorder are accurate in warning that any discs used will only function properly if such issues are not present. Does anybody know how I can check whether a CD is scratched (bearing in mind that I'm totally blind, that scratches can rarely be felt on the surface of a CD and that touching the surface would most likely damage the disc anyway)? Also, does anyone know of a way in which I can safely ensure that any dust is removed from a disc without running the risk of scratching it? Finally, does anyone know whether re-recordable discs are naturally more temperamental than recordable ones, or is anyone able to name types/makes of re-recordable discs which aren't temperamental? At the moment I'm losing recordings because the machine stops recording and deletes what it's accumulated part of the way through a session, and this is getting both awkward and irritating. Apologies for all of the questions - any help will be appreciated. Danny To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org