Disc burner

[Steven]

i've started looking at creating a disc burner in MB. What i have been able to acheive so far is:
- erase disc
- data disc burning
- audio-cd burning with 2 sec gap between tracks

what i am still looking at but cant get working:
- audio cd burning with no gap

what wont be supported:
- cd text writing (isnt supported by the Microsoft API i am using)

My question to people interested is do you think audio-cd burning with no gap is important or nice to have? (I guess its mainly relevant if you were burning a continous live album mix where the tracks run into each other)

Although it is supported by the Microsoft API, the documentation is sparse and the only example i found with it in use doesnt work either, so it may well be the case i wont be able to solve this one.

[ma_t14]

I would definitely be interested about no-gap audio cd  burning. It is not only about live album mixes I'm afraid. Many metal bands/artists  (Ayreon, Devin Townsend, Agalloch, Kalisia, Avantasia etc) have albums that try to tell a story and the tracks are a continuation of each other. In addition it is a common practice to have tracks that are linked together in a huge number of albums so I would be genuinely interested to have this feature. But only if it is possible, if not it's not the end of the world, but it would be nice to be able to do everything from within MusicBee

[phred]

I agree with ma_t14.  It's a useful feature, but if it doesn't exist, there are other burners out there that can do this. 

@Steven - why not introduce disc burning in MB without the 'no gap' option and as time permits see if you can get it working?  I'd certainly be willing to test it behind the scenes for you if that would help.

[Anti]

Do most standalone CD players actually play the music back as gapless though? From my limited experience, they still tend to pause whilst caching the song, so you end up with a gap (or at least a stutter) anyway.

[ma_t14]

Do most standalone CD players actually play the music back as gapless though? From my limited experience, they still tend to pause whilst caching the song, so you end up with a gap (or at least a stutter) anyway.

I thought Audio CDs are and alway were all about gapless playback, are you sure?

[cartman005]

I thought Audio CDs are and alway were all about gapless playback, are you sure?

I have some CD players that always have a gap. I think it is a more "advanced" feature. Personally, all I would be burning would be mix CD's for in the car, so gapless isn't important.

[butty]

Steven,
Have you read this? - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa364889%28v=VS.85%29.aspx

[Steven]

thanks butty - yes i have seen that, but i think it applies to data discs.
There are another 2 different interfaces for Audio CDs. Its really annoying because i can get it to (appear to) write with no errors returning but the image is not finalised on the CD

[butty]

Okay. I'd try to search other info.

[butty]

Would these pages help you?
- http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/moosestafa/gapless-audio-cd-recording-with-vb-or-c-sharp/
- http://www.codeproject.com/KB/audio-video/audio_cd.aspx

[Steven]

good news with this - i finally managed to get it working with gapless audio cd's at the small negative that the cd has to be ejected for windows to recognise the burnt tracks (thats not required for other modes)
i still have to do the error handling, UI and various things so its still a few days off.

[butty]

GJ!

[Maleko12]

Great job Steven! I don't think anyone will mind the disc ejecting after it's finished burning the tracks. With some programs (ImgBurn, for example) it does that anyway after a disc is finished burning.

[Steven]

does anyone anticipate creating data discs and if so what sort of usage scenario do you see it for
eg. just as a library backup, or something more
the reason i ask is i was looking at what mediamonkey offers and it has all sorts of options for artwork handling, creating playlists based on artists, albums, specifying how files should be organised etc.
I dont plan to offer such extensive functionality (or at least not in the initial stages) but it would be helpful to know if people see any purpose to it.

In my mind most people would be burning audio cd's or maybe mp3 cd's

[boroda]

I dont need to burn CDs at all, but if I will burn them in future then only for backup purposes.