How to burn a cd :: essays research papers

This is copied off of howstuffworks.comi just needed something to get into an account.. sorry.In 2000, one of the biggest tidings stories was the rise of Napster and similar file-sharing programs. With these programs, you could get an MP3 version of just about any song you want without shelling out a dime. The record companies were fairly revolutionise over this turn of events, and understandably so They werent making any money off the distribution of their product to millions of people. An external writable CD drive, also called a CD burner With this type of drive, you layabout take music or data files from your computer and make your own CDs.But there was money to be made on the "Napster revolution," as electronics manufacturers and retailers soon discovered. In 1999, 2000 and early 2001, sales of CD burners and blank CD-Recordable discs skyrocketed. Suddenly it was feasible for the average person to gather songs and make their own CDs, and music-mix makers everywhere wanted to get their hands on the means of production. Today, writable CD drives (CD burners) are standard equipment in new PCs, and more and more audio enthusiasts are adding fall apart CD burners to their stereo systems. In less than five years, CDs have eclipsed cassette tapes as the mix medium of choice. In this edition of HowStuffWorks, youll find out how CD burners encode songs and other information onto blank discs. Well also look at CD re-writable technology, see how the data files are put together and find out how you can make your own music mixes with a CD burner. CD BasicsA CD has a long, spiraled data track. If you were to unwind this track, it would extend out 3.5 miles (5 km).If youve bring How CDs Work, you understand the basic idea of CD technology. CDs store music and other files in digital form -- that is, the information on the disc is represented by a series of 1s and 0s (see How Analog and Digital Recording Works for more information). In conventional CDs, thes e 1s and 0s are represented by millions of tiny bumps and flat areas on the discs reflective surface. The bumps and flats are arranged in a continuous track that measures about 0.5 microns (millionths of a meter) across and 3.5 miles (5 km) long. To read this information, the CD player passes a optical maser beam over the track.