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CD Burning: What Route Should I Go?

I have no experience with CD burning and don't have a burner. I've gathered that some people feel you get best results from a dedicated outboard CD burner than from doing it on your computer. Pardon my computer illiteracy, but I have a Mac from 1998 with only CD-ROM. What would be the easiest route with the best sonic results for me to invest in a burner to make copies?

Are the sonics better from a direct burn than from storing the data on hard drive first?

My other concern would be the durability of the burner. A friend had excellent sonic results with a Philips burner, but the Philips didn't seem very durable, becoming sensitive to which blanks were used, and it finally died out after 3 years. Thanks for all opinions.
kevziek

Showing 2 responses by gunbei

gunbei
2,327 posts
 
Kevziek,

You should be able to burn CDs with your computer, but I think you'll need to buy an external burner, a firewire PCI card and Toast in order to do it. What OS are you running?

I've had sketchy experiences with the compatibility of some add on PCI firewire, USB, video, SCSI cards in different models of Macs over the past seven years. Compatibilty can be hit or miss, and it'll be tougher with an older machine.

For burning CDs and DVDs I have had success with Macs of varying vintages.

I have a 1996 Powermac 8500 with processor and video accelerator cards, an internal Firewire/USB PCI card, and an external burner and Toast and it runs fine. I use a Dual 1.25GHz with a built-in SuperDrive at work which runs great. And I do all my iMovie and iDVD projects on a suped-up Apple Cube with an external LaCie SuperDrive which allows me to burn my Tivo content onto custom made DVDs.

It can be done with an older machine, but I think your idea of getting a $799 eMac is a much better solution. It comes with a built-in combo drive that will allow you to burn CD-Rs and view DVDs, so the only thing you might have to buy is a copy of Toast. Another thing you may have to worry about is getting used to using the new OS 10.3 Panther operating system.

Have fun!
gunbei
2,327 posts
 
I don't feel severly limited with what I can do on a Mac, but then again you just don't see PCs in my profession, so I really wouldn't know what I'm missing out on.

The defensive PCs guys posting here are right about the virus issue though. Those "evildoers" want the biggest hit possible so it makes no sense writing them for Macs. And Macs aren't immune to them by any stretch. I can remember that pesky "restart virus" from seven or eight years ago.

Burning CDs or DVDs can be accomplished with either platform, just choose the one you're more comfortable using. The only reason I recommend Macs is that these days they come with iMovie, iDVD, iPhoto and iTunes, all the software needed to rip and burn music, and edit movies and photos.

Kevziek, if you'd like to stay with the Mac OS a new machine might be the best choice. It's difficult and sometimes downright impossible to get support or repairs for older equipment. Yeah, us dedicated Mac guys have plenty of gripes about Apple and some of the third party developers especially in the world of graphic design.

In the summer of 2001 when the Apple Cubes were discontinued, I bought one on Ebay and have been having a great time editing video from my Tivo and burning DVDs of the movies I Frankenstein together.

I dumped a 1.2GHz card into it and bought a slightly larger custom enclosure for it which allows it to run faster and cooler. Hey, I can even run Maya Complete on the little square guy!

Stay Mac and remain cool!
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