Online Bookstore

Table of Contents

Introduction

What's Really Required About This Book Conventions Used in This Book Stuff you type Menu commands Display messages In case you're curious about computers How This Book Is Organized Part I: Shake Hands with Your Recorder! Part II: It's All in the Preparation Part III: Hang On -- Here We Go! Part IV: So You're Ready to Tackle Tougher Stuff? Part V: The Part of Tens Part VI: Appendixes Icons Used in This Book Where to Go from Here

Part I: Shake Hands with Your Recorder!

Chapter 1: Optical Storage: It's All in the Pits Always Begin with a Definition How Is Data Recorded on CDs and DVDs? It's All in the Dye Behind the Curtain: Inside CD-RW and DVD Drives The motor The laser stuff The tray The controls The emergency hole Love Those Discs: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, and DVD- RAM "Hey, can't I buy just one drive?" First on the block: CD-R Online Bookstore Reusable and loving it: CD-RW Ready for stardom: DVD-R The rewritable warehouse: DVD-RAM Clouds on the horizon: DVD-RW and DVD+RW What's Wrong with Tape, Disks, and Removable Media? More reliable Higher capacity Cheaper Faster and more convenient Compatibility "What Do I Need in Order to Record?" What you need for Windows What you need for the Macintosh "What Kind of Discs Can I Record?" Briefcase backup Computer files and data of all sorts Digital audio Digital video Network storage Photo discs Caring for Your Optical Pets You gotta grip 'em by the rim! The deadly enemies The Disc Hotel Sometimes you've just gotta wipe

Chapter 2: Buying Your CD Recording Beast Internal or External: Thinking Outside the Box Stay inside with internal Breathe the open air with external "Edna, He Says We Need an Interface" EIDE SCSI USB FireWire Parallel The X Factor Explained Features on Parade Make use of every pit: Overburning Three words: Buffer, buffer, buffer The ultimate safety net: Burnproof recording DAO: Funny acronym, important feature Sorry, but We Have to Talk CD-ROM Formats Packet writing Video CD CD Extra Online Bookstore Multisession/CD-ROM XA Software You Just Gotta Have A sharp-dressed disc Slick recording add-ons Tools to organize and play your stuff Scavenging a Fossilized CD-R Drive Buying Your Drive at the Maze o' Wires Mall Buying Your Drive on that Web Thing

Chapter 3: DVD Is Not a Bad Word "Do I Need DVD-R or DVD-RAM?" "Hey -- I Can't Copy 'Curse of the Mollusk People'!" Weird, Wild DVD Format Stuff DVD-V DVD-A Additional Toys You Just May Need The MPEG card: Aye, Matey, 'tis indeed a tiny file The FireWire port: The real information superhighway The digital camcorder: Your digital muse The A-D converter: A bridge to the past Video-editing software

Chapter 4: Poof! You're a Computer Technician Preparation Is the Key Read the instructions Collect what you need Ask for help Choose a spot to be external Installing an EIDE Drive What you need The EIDE dance, step-by-step Plugging and Playing with a USB Drive Running the SCSI Gauntlet IDs 'R' Us Coming to grips with termination What you need Your step-by-step guide to internal SCSI happiness External SCSI stuff Installing a FireWire Drive "Um, It's Just Sitting There" EIDE troubleshooting SCSI troubleshooting USB and FireWire troubleshooting

Part II: It's All in the Preparation Online Bookstore

Chapter 5: Letting Loose the Software Elves The Windows Tool of Choice: The Roxio Easy CD Creator 5 Platinum Formats and disc types out the wazoo Wolfgang woulda loved this Extra stuff they give you (without even asking) Burning Up Your Macintosh with Roxio Toast Packet Writing Made Easy with DirectCD Introducing the Editors: iMovie 2, iDVD, and Premiere

Chapter 6: Fine-Tuning Can Be Fun Creating Elbowroom 'Course, you could just buy a bigger hard drive Locate unnecessary stuff Let the wizard do it! Call in the professionals Checking Under the Rug Fixing your drive the Windows way Fixing things with Mac OS 9.1 Avoiding Fragments Avoiding the Unexpected Scheduled events and scripts Network access Power-saving mode and screen savers Terrific Tips and Tweaks Avoid disk-intensive, memory-hungry behemoths Give your recording software some elbowroom Speed up your hard drive Beware the flagged-out laptop

Chapter 7: Getting Ready for the Ball Picking a Jazzy Format Data, lovely data Sweet audio for the ears Straddle the line with mixed mode Throw caution utterly to the wind with packet writing "Disc at Once? Track at Once? Why Not All at Once?" Meet you at the track Do it all at once Multipurpose multisession Long Filenames Are Your Friends The Right Way to Organize Files "Thumbnails? You're Kidding, Right?" Converting Files for Fun and Profit Online Bookstore

Part III: Hang On -- Here We Go!

Chapter 8: Taking Easy CD Creator for a Spin Recording Data: Putting Files on a Disc Recording Your Music Copying a Disc Using a Disc Image Using Multisession Discs Erasing a CD-RW Disc Project: Developing MP3 Fever Project: Archiving Digital Photographs Project: Backing Up Important Files Using Take Two

Chapter 9: A Step-By-Step Guide to . . . Toast? Putting Files on a Disc Recording an Audio CD Ooh! It's a Hybrid! Project: Creating a Temporary Partition Project: Recording a Basic DVD-ROM

Chapter 10: Using DirectCD: Avoid the Hassle! "Whaddya Mean, I Have to Format?" Just Add Files and Stir "Wait -- I Didn't Mean to Trash That!" Eject, Buckaroo, Eject! Adding Files to an Existing Disc Erasing a DirectCD Disc "Whoops, I Can't Read This Disc" Project: Creating a New Employee Disc

Part IV: So You're Ready to Tackle Tougher Stuff?

Chapter 11: Heavy-Duty Recording It's Data, It's Audio, It's Mixed! Putting data before your audio The extra behind CD Extra Doing Vinyl with SoundStream Adding Effects in SoundStream Giving Your Disc the Boot Creating an Optical Photo Album Recording that MTV Video Project: Recording an Album to CD Project: Recording a Bootable CD-ROM Project: Recording a Mixed-Mode Disc Online Bookstore Project: Recording a CD Extra Disc Project: Recording a Photo Disc Project: Recording a Video Disc

Chapter 12: BAM! Add Menus to Your Discs! Everything Uses Menus These Days Discs chock-full of images, video, and sounds Discs burned to distribute to others Discs with Internet links Discs with text files galore Discs that include a Web site Discs with dozens and dozens of folders Designing Menus (But Not for Food) Using HTML for Your Menus Mentioning Animation Project: Creating a Disc Menu with HTML Project: Converting a Text Document to HTML

Chapter 13: Storing Megastuff with DVD What's Involved in Recording a DVD-R? The Heavy Stuff: Introducing DVD Authoring Welcome to the World of iDVD Letting Loose with DVD Studio Pro Project: Recording a DVD-RAM disc with VOB InstantWrite Project: Recording a DVD-R with iDVD

Chapter 14: Adding That Spiffy Touch How Not to Label Your CDs Hey, You Can Tell a CD By Its Cover "Hmmm, Can I Label with Duct Tape?" Project: Creating Jewel Box Inserts Project: Creating a CD Label

Part V: The Part of Tens

Chapter 15: Ten Hardware Troubleshooting Tips "Why, of Course the Jumper Is Set Correctly!" It Does Make a Difference How You Turn Things On Where Did That Click Come From? Your Recorder Wants to Play Too Driving Miss Data Keep Your Firmware on the Cutting Edge Speed Does Make a Difference Leave This Cartridge, DVD-RAM, and Seek Your Online Bookstore Fortune Take That Cleaning Disc Far, Far Away When Your Disc Cries "I'm Stuck!"

Chapter 16: Ten Software Troubleshooting Tips Device Manager: Checking Under the Windows Hood Your Image Can Be Everything "Hey, Your Session's Open!" "Captain's Log, Stardate, Uh -- Hey, Spock, What Day Is It?" Don't Use Dated Software Validation Is a Good Thing In Case of a Disc Loading, Please Notify Windows Immediately Slow It Down, Speed Racer When All Else Fails, Reinstall! Overdoing Overburning

Chapter 17: Ten Things to Avoid Like the Plague Antique Parallel Port Drives "Holy Aqueous Tragedy, Batman!" (Avoiding Liquids) A Bad Labeling Job Is Worse than No Label Copy Protection Works Don't Settle for a Tiny Buffer "We Interrupt This Network Recording. . . ." How Slow Is Too Slow? Give Those Discs a Home! Putting the Worthless in High-Tech Cleaning Keep 'Em Cool

Chapter 18: Ten Nifty Programs You Want CDRWIN GraphicConverter PowerDVD Final Cut Pro MusicMatch Jukebox Plus Retrospect Express Backup Acrobat CloneCD FireBurner QuickTime

Part VI: Appendixes

Appendix A: Recorder Hardware and Software Online Bookstore Manufacturers

Recorder Manufacturers Recording Software Developers

Appendix B: Glossary

Index