Competing DVD Formats; Loading MP3s to a Player
There's no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.
Here are a few questions about computers I've received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about competing DVD recording formats, loading songs onto an MP3 player and choosing blank CDs.
If you have a question, send it to me at
mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg's Mailbox.
Q: I'm trying to buy a DVD recording drive for my PC. So my question is what's the difference between the two different DVD recording formats and how do I know which one I need so that it works in home DVD players or other computer DVD drives?
A: There are some technical differences between the competing, and incompatible, standards called DVD-RW and DVD+RW. For average, nontechie users, however, they both work pretty much the same. The real distinction is that some companies make money on one standard, while others make money on the other, and thus they have inflicted confusion and incompatibility on computer users.
You can check the owner's manual for any PC or set-top DVD player to determine which of the two formats they can play. And, based on that information, you could choose a DVD-RW or a DVD+RW recording drive. However, if you plan to send your homemade DVDs to friends and relatives, you'd risk producing DVDs that are incompatible with their equipment. It's a mess.
The good news, however, is that Sony has introduced a DVD recording drive that can produce homemade DVDs in both formats. That way, you can choose the format that works in your DVD player, or any other player you care about. Iomega recently announced a similar product, and other companies are scrambling to do so.
Q: What is the procedure for transferring MP3 song files from my computer to a portable MP3 player? Does my computer have to have any requirements to transfer the songs to the player?
A: It differs a bit among the various portable players, but in general, you have to install special software that builds a list of the MP3 files on your PC hard disk and then sends the files you want to transfer to the portable player, using a cable. This software either comes with the portable player, or is downloaded as a special "plug-in" for a more general music-management program like MusicMatch Jukebox.
The most important requirement for your PC is that it should have the correct kind of port for plugging in the MP3 player. Some small-capacity players can use a standard, older USB port. But these ports are way too slow to handle the thousands of songs that can be stored by hard-disk based players like Apple's hugely popular iPod.
The iPod uses either FireWire, also known as 1394, or the new USB 2.0 ports, if you buy an optional cable. Both types of ports are much, much faster than the old USB ports, but older PCs usually lack them. You can use an older USB with the new iPods and the optional cable, but the file transfers could take hours instead of minutes.
Q: Is there any difference, other than cost, between blank CDs labeled "music" and those labeled "data"?
A: The ones labeled "music" are meant for stand-alone home audio CD recorders, which require blanks that contain special copy-protection features. Computers, whether Windows or Macintosh versions, don't require these special discs. In computer terms, the word "data" covers all kinds of material -- music, video, photos, spreadsheets, text -- whatever. To a computer, they are all just files, just data. So, on a computer, any blank CD can hold any type of file.
两种不同的DVD刻录格式有何区别
