music file ext question

Hi I hope I put this in the right forum spot, here goes, my family has at last count over 14 GB of music on my computer and I would really like to get it off my comp and onto a cd or dvd and archive it. What is the best file extension to get the most music on the cd or dvd also which medium is better to do this with, cd or dvd? If the explanation is too time consuming do you know of a good, easy to understand website that can explain it all to me? Thanks so much I appreciate your time sherryt

hi sherryt, thats alot of music! i assume theae are mp3 files?you could burn it to either a cd or dvd. cd's are less expensive. either would be ok. if you wanted to listen to this music how are planning to do it? not all stand alone dvd players can play mp3 files.

hi shelf life, A few of those Gigs are compilations my kids made from their various cds so I do have duplicate songs in there, also, most are Mp3 with a few wma and cda and .ra. (from before we figured out how to always save tracks in mp3). I was told mp3 takes up less room without sacrificing quality? so I was hoping to find a way to convert the other formats to mp3. Could you tell me how to convert them or even if it is possible? I then just want to archive all this music(on dvds preferably)to free up space on my computer. Also,should I burn it in DATA/DVD) mode since it will only be necessary for the computer to read it?, we now use little MP3 players so I was hoping they could then get the music directly from the archived dvd(instead of my hard drive) and put it dirctly onto their mp3 player. Is that possible? I was going to use the Copy to Dvd program to make the archived dvds. This is kind of confusing to me so Thanks in advance for any advice you may have. I really appreciate it.

hi sherryt,

i may not be much help, just about all my encoding/burning is with video (vcd.svcd etc)files, but:

i would think that any decent burning software would be able to convert .wma to mp3.
i dont think there would be a problem playing a audio dvd on your computer, but if you wanted to play them in a stand alone dvd player (that plays mp3) or small hand held cd players i would go with burning them to cdr, much better chance of playing them on different audio players

get the music directly from the archived dvd(instead of my hard drive) and put it dirctly onto their mp3 player.

not sure really, can these mp3 players connect to your computer?i suppose files may be transfered to a player but in either case the dvd/cd disc that has the music would have to be in the computer dvd/cd drive for the transfer.

there are tons of free mp3 burning software out there, two that i know of are Nero (which i use to burn only), has a free trial version plenty of documentaion/FAQ on there web site also, but comes with other features you may not want/use. another is roxio, which i never used. do some experiments, pop a dvd in and drag/drop a bunch of mp3/wma music files to it, see what happens.at the most you may waste a blank dvd.