On Tue, 29 Jul 2003 16:11:18 +0000 (UTC), Jim H
wrote:

(I almost made the subject line CDR?! WTF!?)

Someone in my house has been bugging me for a while to copy some of her
DVDs onto CD (DivX) so she can watch them on her DVD-less computer. I
finally gave in and told her to get me some blank CDs.

The ones she gave me are 'audio' discs. It betrays every thread of my
rational mind to think that these are different from standard (data or
audio) cds, but then I know the music industry well enough to think that
they might be deliberately limited/protected/corrupt.

Exactly: 'audio' discs have a (digtial) marker pressed in to the
lead-in area of the disc, which is looked for by consumer standalone
CD recorders. The additional cost (much less, BTW, than it used to
be) is somehow channeled into the record industry as "compensation"
for all the copyright infringing duplicates made w/ these devices :-(

I've burned music onto bog standard CD-Rs a thousand times! Is some
perverse plot abound to exploit the naïeve into buying more expensive
media?

In terms of performance "audio" CD-Rs are equivalent to "computer"
ones. The only possible difference is that since standalone copiers
rarely operate at more than x2 the "audio" discs *may* not work as
well on higher speed computer burners. I certainly wouldn't attempt
to burn them at x24!

HTH
Julian

--
Julian Fowler
julian (at) bellevue-barn (dot) org (dot) uk