Just wondering how to take advantage of DVD-R storage space. I'd like to quit making CD-R's and make DVD-R's of my music instead. I have absolutely ZERO interest in lossy compression (MP3, etc..)
I see absolutely no reason whatsoever that I could not burn a wav file to a DVD-R blank and simply play it from my home or car DVD player... So can someone tell me how to do this?
Health Nut,
Apologies in advance if you already know any of what I am about to say.
There are a few things you should take into account: (1) when you rip "cda" files from a music CD to your HDD, the files ripped to your HDD are called "wav" files. According to your post, you have converted all of your "wav" files to "Ape" lossless. When you want to burn a blank CD-R, Media Center converts the APE file to WAV and then burns the WAV to the CD-R as a "CDA" music file. WAV and CDA are identical except for the filename extensions.
This is why the music CD you bought in the store and the CD-R mixes you create on a blank CD-R both wind up with the identical ".cda" format files. That's why DVD/CD players can play music CD-R's as if they were the original CD.
HOWEVER, (there's always a "however")
since you want to burn your music to DVD-R and play it as such, there is a problem. To my knowledge, DVD's don't use or understand the CD music format (CDA) to store music files. As far as I know, MC isn't designed to burn music to DVD-R in the correct DVD-R music format.
When you insert a burned DVD-R disc in you dvd player (home or car) it expects to read music or video data as either "DVD Video" (VOB files) or "DVD Audio" (AOB files = MPEG-2, LPCM, AC3, DTS, DVD-A {(24/96 hi-rez audio}). These dvd formats are not compatible with CD audio. While your home/car dvd player, will no doubt, play CD-R's with music, I don't think it can play DVD-R's with "cda" type files.
This in no way prevents you from burning your WAV/APE files to DVD-R for safekeeping using Nero 5.5 or 6 and burning the DVD-R as a data disc.
I'm sure, that if I am wrong about this, now that I have posted it, someone with more knowledge will correct me.