R/E/P Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs  (Read 9539 times)

craig boychuk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 409
650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« on: May 26, 2004, 10:07:58 AM »

As I understand, you can only burn red-book audio onto a 650MB cdr, and that the 700MB ones can only give you an orange-book cdr. I was talking to a friend of mine that works at a duplication facility, and she was saying that they get tons of masters on 700MB cdrs, and that the pressing plant rarely sends them back.

Does this mean that these facilities have just relaxed their requirements because of the overabundance of consumer grade crap that gets sent their way, or has there been some sort of technological advancement in cdrs that allows you to burn red-book audio on a 700MB cdr? Or, do plants just no longer require red-book audio?

Any facts you folks might have would be appreciated. Set me straight, please...!
Logged
Capture the pasture rapture.
www.cbaudio.com

TotalSonic

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3728
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #1 on: May 28, 2004, 10:59:28 AM »

Your friend has been providing you with incorrect information.  If you burn on a 700 meg CD-R and don't exceed the 650megabyte mark the remainder is just unused capacity.  The real difference between Red Book & Orange Book is in the way the subcodes are written.  From my understanding Orange Book CD-R's are generally produced if you use a hardware burner where the pq track id's are inserted on the fly instead of burned in the TOC in the lead in, which is Red Book Standard.   Many many softwares can burn Red Book Standard spec on CD-R's, such as Sonic Solutions, CD Architect, SADIE, Samplitude, Wavelab, etc.  Original strict Red Book standard states that the maximum length should not exceed 74:00 - i.e the 650 megabyte mark - and originally most glass mastering plants could not exceed this length.  This standard has been relaxed recently and the majority of plants - including the plant that I work at will accept lengths up to 79:59:00 - but usually will not guarantee the pressed CD's against defects at this length because the outer edge is both more prone to metallizing problems - and because a few of the older players can not play CD's over 74:00.  For the most part creating a CD that exceeds 74:00 is not a problem at all these days.  I've done numerous masters burnt on 700 meg CD-R's and have yet to have a plant reject any of them.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

Bob Olhsson

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3968
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #2 on: May 29, 2004, 11:07:37 AM »

If memory serves me right, only the 63 minute CD-Rs were fully Red Book compliant.

CD-Rs were a hack to begin with so I wouldn't take anything about them too seriously. They get the job done but they'll never be a bullet-proof technology.

craig boychuk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 409
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #3 on: May 31, 2004, 10:10:26 AM »

Thanks for the info guys. Much appreciated!  On a somewhat related note....

What do you mastering folks send to the plant as masters? Do you tend to use other formats instead of CDRs?
Logged
Capture the pasture rapture.
www.cbaudio.com

jfrigo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1029
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #4 on: May 31, 2004, 02:51:41 PM »

mid-fi wrote on Mon, 31 May 2004 07:10

Thanks for the info guys. Much appreciated!  On a somewhat related note....

What do you mastering folks send to the plant as masters? Do you tend to use other formats instead of CDRs?


The tape based formats are pretty much dead, including PCM-1630 on 3/4" video tape and DDP on 8mm exabyte tape. However, DDP is definitely still alive and well and sent on yellow book data CD-R, DVD-R, or electronically (ftp etc.). Plain old audio CDs are still quite common as well. Once plants got the equipment to extract PQ info from a CD-R, the formats that included a seperate PQ burst or PQ file, including the true PMCD, were no longer strictly necessary and the use of plain audio CD-R masters became widespread. That or DDP (but not on tape) is fine.
Logged

Ronny

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2739
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #5 on: May 31, 2004, 11:19:56 PM »




Sorry guys, no cigars here.
CD-R is Orange book. Orange book supports redbook which is audio, yellow book which contains cd-rom data, such as video, jpegs, .mov's, aiffs etc., blue book which is enhanced cd, cd+G and cd extra. Green book which is CD-I or cd interactive, games, driving direction progs etc. fall under green book or white book which is original video book standard. Redbook is the "audio" spec and orange book, just means that it's cd recordable one time and can contain all of the above book standards. If you send a cd-r with 16/44.1 audio to a rep plant, it's red book specs on a cd recordable orange book cd. If you send a 24/44.1 audio file to a rep plant, than you are sending a yellow book file on a cd recordable orange book cd. They would have to WLR it to 16/44.1 which is the bit depth and sample rate spec for redbook audio cd's, before it would fall under redbook specs. Don't be confused into thinking that you must send a rep plant a redbook cd, it's up to them to adopt to the redbook standard, not you. For example if you are going to get the mastering engineer at Discmakers to master your material and their plant replicate them, you may want to send 24 bit files. They would master the files at the higher res and WLR to meet redbook specs after processing.
I don't remember there being an audio limit on the length, but most rep plants won't guarantee going over 74 to 76 minutes and some make you sign a waiver, holding them unaccountable for any failure's on over 76 minute cd's.
Logged
------Ronny Morris - Digitak Mastering------
---------http://digitakmastering.com---------
----------Powered By Experience-------------
-------------Driven To Perfection---------------

craig boychuk

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 409
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #6 on: June 01, 2004, 01:35:10 AM »

Hmmm...interesting. So red-book is just the standard of how data is organized on an audio CD-R. I never thought of it that way...
I guess that means that comparing red-book to orange-book is an apples to oranges kind of thing...?


To expand on the original question, is there a difference in the stability / volatility of the data on a 700MB CD-R compared to a 650MB one?  I thought that when you try to cram more data onto the same amount of space you would end up with more errors and/or a more easily damaged medium due to how much more compact the physical representation of the data must be.

Is this not true? I've been only using 650MB CD-Rs under the assumption that this will give me a "better quality" master. I realize that the burner itself is a factor in quality also, but given that the characteristics of the burner are constant, will there be a difference in the quality of a 700MB CD-R compared to that of a 650MB CD-R with the same amount of data burned on each that falls under the recommended 74 minutes / 650MB?
Logged
Capture the pasture rapture.
www.cbaudio.com

jfrigo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1029
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #7 on: June 01, 2004, 03:11:08 AM »

Ronny wrote on Mon, 31 May 2004 20:19


If you send a cd-r with 16/44.1 audio to a rep plant, it's red book specs on a cd recordable orange book cd.



This is why I said audio CD-R instead of red book CD-R, but in practice, once you "fix-up" or "finalize" the orange book CD-R (writing the TOC to "close" the session), it is, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from a red book CD. If you don't write the TOC, you can still put additional sessions on the disc at a later time, but you can't play it in a standard CD-Audio player yet.

Quote:


If you send a 24/44.1 audio file to a rep plant, than you are sending a yellow book file on a cd recordable orange book cd. They would have to WLR it to 16/44.1 which is the bit depth and sample rate spec for redbook audio cd's, before it would fall under redbook specs. Don't be confused into thinking that you must send a rep plant a redbook cd, it's up to them to adopt to the redbook standard, not you.



Yikes! That's not any mastering house I want to use that would send an unmastered collection of files to the plant. What's the point of going to a mastering house if they don't do mastering? If somebody is under the mistaken impression that mastering is just EQ and a limiter, they should think again. If you are sending a master on yellow book, it will be a DDP image with the accompanying PQ file. BTW, it's the same deal with yellow book terminology: once it's done, even though it's a data CD-R, you can pretty much call it yellow book and nobody will be confused.

To send several 24/44.1 files on a data disc is to send source materials, not a master. They'll have to do the PQ coding and reduce the wordlegth (we hope without simple truncatiion) and this will rightly incur an additional mastering charge and introduce variables. You won't know what you're going to get back. At that point you've skipped essentially every reason for mastering, or more accurately, pre-mastering (if you want to pick nits).

If a mastering house sends 24 bit files to the CD plant, they're not sending a master and you're using the wrong mastering house.
Logged

TotalSonic

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 3728
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #8 on: June 01, 2004, 10:22:46 AM »

jfrigo wrote on Mon, 31 May 2004 19:51


The tape based formats are pretty much dead, including PCM-1630 on 3/4" video tape and DDP on 8mm exabyte tape. However, DDP is definitely still alive and well and sent on yellow book data CD-R, DVD-R, or electronically (ftp etc.). Plain old audio CDs are still quite common as well. Once plants got the equipment to extract PQ info from a CD-R, the formats that included a seperate PQ burst or PQ file, including the true PMCD, were no longer strictly necessary and the use of plain audio CD-R masters became widespread. That or DDP (but not on tape) is fine.


A clarification to this:
DDP on 8mm Exabyte tape remains the single most common format that DDP is received at the plant I work at - I haven't seen this change at all.  PCM1630 has proved to be an unreliable archive format - I've seen a ton of 10-15 year old masters have drop outs in them in my direct experience and I recommend backing up any old PCM1630 masters to another format.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

jfrigo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1029
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #9 on: June 01, 2004, 04:39:31 PM »

TotalSonic wrote on Tue, 01 June 2004 07:22


A clarification to this:
DDP on 8mm Exabyte tape remains the single most common format that DDP is received at the plant I work at


With the large number of exabytes in the field, I'm not surprised that they're still in use, but with the end of availability and support of the machines, this can't last for too long. It's hardly the format somebody should try to get into at this point if they don't already have it. If you do have it, it certainly won't hurt to use it a while longer, but you should be considering what comes next. DDP on yellow book is a good option to consider, but it should be clearly labeled so that a careless plant won't replicate CD-ROMs by mistake.
Logged

Ronny

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2739
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #10 on: June 04, 2004, 05:27:19 AM »

mid-fi wrote on Tue, 01 June 2004 01:35

Hmmm...interesting. So red-book is just the standard of how data is organized on an audio CD-R. I never thought of it that way...
I guess that means that comparing red-book to orange-book is an apples to oranges kind of thing...?


To expand on the original question, is there a difference in the stability / volatility of the data on a 700MB CD-R compared to a 650MB one?  I thought that when you try to cram more data onto the same amount of space you would end up with more errors and/or a more easily damaged medium due to how much more compact the physical representation of the data must be.

Is this not true? I've been only using 650MB CD-Rs under the assumption that this will give me a "better quality" master. I realize that the burner itself is a factor in quality also, but given that the characteristics of the burner are constant, will there be a difference in the quality of a 700MB CD-R compared to that of a 650MB CD-R with the same amount of data burned on each that falls under the recommended 74 minutes / 650MB?


Yes and no. The way it works with high speed CLV burners is, the speed of the disk increases as the burn progresses. Naturally, the more data that you have on any disk, the more chance of errors. As far as 700MB's being as reliable as 650's, that depends entirely on the system. Some old players have problems with the data when it's over 650 megs. I don't know the reason for this, perhaps they were designed without the future of larger cd-r's being in mind and set up to operate with the 650's.
Logged
------Ronny Morris - Digitak Mastering------
---------http://digitakmastering.com---------
----------Powered By Experience-------------
-------------Driven To Perfection---------------

Ronny

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2739
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #11 on: June 04, 2004, 05:44:25 AM »

jfrigo wrote on Tue, 01 June 2004 03:11

Ronny wrote on Mon, 31 May 2004 20:19


If you send a cd-r with 16/44.1 audio to a rep plant, it's red book specs on a cd recordable orange book cd.



This is why I said audio CD-R instead of red book CD-R, but in practice, once you "fix-up" or "finalize" the orange book CD-R (writing the TOC to "close" the session), it is, for all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from a red book CD. If you don't write the TOC, you can still put additional sessions on the disc at a later time, but you can't play it in a standard CD-Audio player yet.

Quote:


If you send a 24/44.1 audio file to a rep plant, than you are sending a yellow book file on a cd recordable orange book cd. They would have to WLR it to 16/44.1 which is the bit depth and sample rate spec for redbook audio cd's, before it would fall under redbook specs. Don't be confused into thinking that you must send a rep plant a redbook cd, it's up to them to adopt to the redbook standard, not you.



Yikes! That's not any mastering house I want to use that would send an unmastered collection of files to the plant. What's the point of going to a mastering house if they don't do mastering? If somebody is under the mistaken impression that mastering is just EQ and a limiter, they should think again. If you are sending a master on yellow book, it will be a DDP image with the accompanying PQ file. BTW, it's the same deal with yellow book terminology: once it's done, even though it's a data CD-R, you can pretty much call it yellow book and nobody will be confused.

To send several 24/44.1 files on a data disc is to send source materials, not a master. They'll have to do the PQ coding and reduce the wordlegth (we hope without simple truncatiion) and this will rightly incur an additional mastering charge and introduce variables. You won't know what you're going to get back. At that point you've skipped essentially every reason for mastering, or more accurately, pre-mastering (if you want to pick nits).

If a mastering house sends 24 bit files to the CD plant, they're not sending a master and you're using the wrong mastering house.



I understand your confusion, Jay, but you know me better than that. I was using this as an example of the book codes and yes, if you send 24 bit files to a rep plant they aren't mastered. Many rep plants provide their own mastering services, Discmakers and Oasis, two of the larger ones do. I personally don't recommend anyone, to send 24 bit files to a rep plant unmastered, "unless" the plant is doing the mastering and than it's beneficial to keep the material at the highest resolution that it was mixed at. In that case an orange book cd-r with yellow book 24 bit audio data is not redbook, "yet". There are also other formats that are not redbook. I used DAT for 7 or 8 years before I used cd-r's. The plant still has to provide the redbook spec's for the pressed cd, regardless of the format. DAT's are not redbook, I've sent many a DAT that was mastered at 48k from 48k recordings and mixed to DAT at 48k. That's what I meant by the plant having the responsibility to meet redbook specs. They must meet them to comply with Sony's requirements for Sony compact disks and the Sony logo must be visible on the package, even if you provide final masters on tape or 24 bit audio files on cd-rom for them to master.
Logged
------Ronny Morris - Digitak Mastering------
---------http://digitakmastering.com---------
----------Powered By Experience-------------
-------------Driven To Perfection---------------

jfrigo

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1029
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #12 on: June 04, 2004, 03:38:39 PM »

Ronny wrote on Fri, 04 June 2004 02:44

Quote:


If a mastering house sends 24 bit files to the CD plant, they're not sending a master and you're using the wrong mastering house.


I understand your confusion, Jay, but you know me better than that. I was using this as an example of the book codes and yes, if you send 24 bit files to a rep plant they aren't mastered.
(SNIP)
I've sent many a DAT that was mastered at 48k from 48k recordings and mixed to DAT at 48k. That's what I meant by the plant having the responsibility to meet redbook specs.



While I may assume that you know, I wouldn't want somebody here trying to learn from the forum to misunderstand. Sending DAT as a master, especially 48k, or 24 bit files on yellow book is a bad idea. It opens up too many opportunities for your product to get screwed up in a multitude of ways. One of the most important parts of mastering is making an actual master that the plant doesn't have to muck around with that will create replicated CDs that are identical to your reference CD.

Most of us reading the board already know this, but for the lurkers and learners, there it is.

Logged

Ronny

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2739
Re: 650mb vs 700mb cdrs
« Reply #13 on: June 05, 2004, 04:04:42 AM »

jfrigo wrote on Fri, 04 June 2004 15:38

Ronny wrote on Fri, 04 June 2004 02:44

Quote:


If a mastering house sends 24 bit files to the CD plant, they're not sending a master and you're using the wrong mastering house.


I understand your confusion, Jay, but you know me better than that. I was using this as an example of the book codes and yes, if you send 24 bit files to a rep plant they aren't mastered.
(SNIP)
I've sent many a DAT that was mastered at 48k from 48k recordings and mixed to DAT at 48k. That's what I meant by the plant having the responsibility to meet redbook specs.



While I may assume that you know, I wouldn't want somebody here trying to learn from the forum to misunderstand. Sending DAT as a master, especially 48k, or 24 bit files on yellow book is a bad idea. It opens up too many opportunities for your product to get screwed up in a multitude of ways. One of the most important parts of mastering is making an actual master that the plant doesn't have to muck around with that will create replicated CDs that are identical to your reference CD.

Most of us reading the board already know this, but for the lurkers and learners, there it is.




Understood. I tell them to run cd-r masters as is, these days and have no problem with the cd's being identical to the master and I haven't used DAT for mastering in about 6 years. The orange book cd-r's that I use for the audio, comply to the redbook specs that I implement. However, when DAT was king, I had many people tracking on ADAT's at 48k that requested 48k DAT masters. Obviously their rep plants SRC'd and yes, it's much better to set subcodes yourself. The 48k DAT's still had the P-Q's, but most plants that I had contact with back than, went from the cue sheet, anyway.
Logged
------Ronny Morris - Digitak Mastering------
---------http://digitakmastering.com---------
----------Powered By Experience-------------
-------------Driven To Perfection---------------

Pages: [1]   Go Up
 

Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.069 seconds with 19 queries.