Slooowww audio CD burning

[sandersk]

Something seems to have gone whack somehow.

It takes 3 times more (and sometimes more than that) time to burn an audio CD when -- IMPORTANT -- using MP3 files than it does for me to burn an "equivalent" size data disc. Does not occur if burning from wave files.

For instance, using two burners to create and verify 700MB of data at 48x took 7:12. A slightly less equivalent 66:42 audio disc (586MB) took 21:35 to create and verify.

This problem has been going on for several months now. Before when burning audio or data this time disparity did not happen. The same 3x differential occurs when only using one burner as well (almost 8 minutes for audio v less than 3 for data).

Symptom?: the percentage level of the used read buffer seems to fluctuate a lot while burning. So does the buffer level.

Also, another symptom of trouble is that my system virtually locks up when burning the audio disc -- does not for data. And doing the same on an identical burner at my office, that is burning from MP3 files, does not result in slow burning.

Is Nero having a problem? Any clues? Surely would be most grateful.

My computer: AMD Barton running at 2 GHZ, 400MHz FSB, 1 GB of PC3200 DDR, primary HD is a RAID 0 153 GB 7200 RPM, Benq 822A, LiteOn 52327S, Samsung SM348B. Right now using Nero 6.6.0.0, but the issue, as I said before, has been going on for quite some time. In my office I use NeroExpress but the same -- slow burning -- is true for NeroExpress at home.

[Justin42]

You're burning an audio CD from MP3 files? It has to decode the MP3s into WAV before it starts the burn process. Which is probably taking 100% CPU time which is why your system is unresponsive.

If it doesn't happen during WAV, it seems like Nero is just being a bit of a resource hog (not to mention going slower than expected) decoding MP3s.

[sandersk]

Has this been your experience? That seems plausible, but it doesn't explain why the same doesn't happen on a different computer. (However, the two computers aren't exactly the same.) And, of course, the slower burning phenomenon did not occur all the time -- only for the last several months by my observation.

I'm currently using 32 or 48-bit MP3s. Maybe I'll try the same with 64, 192 or 320-bit encoded files and see what happens.

Thanks for the thought.

[burninfool]

I would convert the MP3's to WAV first with Foobar.

[PhotoJim]

I can burn audio CDs from MP3 files that are located on my file server, and not have any trouble with the amount of time or with buffer underruns slowing down the process - and the computer I last did this on was a lowly Pentium II-400 with 384 MB of RAM (granted I was only burning at 32x).

Have you tried slowing down the speed? See if the buffer stays full and your speeds might actually increase.

Where are your MP3s stored? On a local hard disk?

[Ian]

Sounds like DMA is no longer enabled on your source drive (the one you're reading the audio CD from). Go into device manager and make sure DMA is enabled for all of your IDE devices.

[sandersk]

First thanks for the suggestions! I've been "on holiday" for a while hence my just now replying.

To Mr. Eye Patch (Ian!): DMA is enabled on all drives, but this is not really the issue. I am not extracting audio from CDs. I'm burning audio CDs from MP3 files that are on a local hard drive (7200 RPM).

To PhotoJim: I have noticed that both buffers do fluctuate quite a bit during the burning. I suppose this could happen during conversion of MP3s to wave files for audio CD burning. Once again, this problem did not always occur -- and on the same burner on a different computer this slow down does not occur. I've burned at 24x and gotten similar results.

To burninfool: That's a thought except I don't think it would really save me any time. Or is Foobar a really fast MP3 to WAV converter?

Could it possibly have anything to do with the encoder used to create the MP3 files? I'm grasping for straws here.

[currykrew]

i have this same exact issue
checked pio dma setting have it set correctly
being as i can burn every other type of media
fine and i used to be able to burn audio compilations in about 2 min
one day it just quite working
i have only 256 ram but being as my ram was the same before
this function quite working i have no idea what has gone wrong
also this has occured with numerous types of media
also i have tried installing it on its own ide cable didnt change
tried it as a slave to a secondary hd didnt change
now running as a slave to boot hd

os windows xp
ram 256 mb
533mhz processor
burner-LG GCE-8525b 52x32x52x

[Darth Laser]

I've also had problems burning audio CDs directly from MP3 files, although the problem was slightly different (I would hear glitches in the CD audio, although not in the MP3 files) and the software was different (Roxio).

The explanation I found (somewhere) was that Roxio's MP3 converter wasn't very good at handling poorly encoded or outright corrupt MP3 files, while my MP3 playback software (Winamp) was very good at that. So MP3 files with small errors (which turn out to be pretty common) sound fine when played with Winamp, but skip and pop when burned to audio CD through Roxio's MP3 converter. I should mention that this was a very old copy of Roxio; it's probably better now.

It's possible that you're experiencing something similar; maybe Nero can fix up corrupt MP3 files, but it's slow.

I think burninfool's suggestion is a good one. Try converting MP3 to WAV with a purpose-made tool. I've never used Foobar, but I get good results using Winamp for this job. It only takes a minute or two to convert a whole CD's worth of MP3s on my old sub-gigahertz system; yours should be much faster.