LL, 95% of my music is in mp3 format and some are left in the reg, they all play when they are in itunes folder. You don't have to convert them I did because I put them on an IPod and because I would burn them to a cd for the car and I could get 22 songs on the CD instead of 10 or 12. I convert them to MP3 by using Roxio, but other software will do it also. I make a playlist in Itunes...under file, "new",name it, then copy and past the songs from my music folders to the playlists in ITunes. It may take some practice. I have a playlist for my favorite songs. When I hear one I really like, I copy and paste it in favorites. It will then be in my favorites and in songs. If I had it to do over I would copy and paste them straight to the playlist and they automatically goes to "songs". I had a lot of duplicates leaning how to do this. If I want to listen to one particular singer or all songs I click on the right option and I set the controls to random. You can delete any songs from the playlists. It will ask "from the computer or just the folder". I would suggest when you get this set up like you want it back the music folders so you don't have to do this all again. If you buy a new computer and need to install Itunes again it will/should install with your folders just like they were. Aren't computers wonderful? I don't travel any more and don't need an ipod so I bought a radio with an ipod dock and can listen to a thousand songs in random if I want. The radio is a Memorex and sounds as good as my Bose. Very nice. I love music, I call it therapy for the soul. My taste in music has changed over the years, I love some of all music.

Oh yeah! And there's no consistency in style. At Christmas we just sat around the TV watching family members favorite youtube vids. Daughter lives in New York so this one is a fav when I'm thinking about her and trips to New York: "Empire State of Mind" Jay-Z : Alicia Keys [OFFICIAL VIDEO] On days when I just want to smile (his song Home and Feeling Good are equally good): Michael Buble Haven't Met You Yet [OFFICIAL VIDEO] On days when I just don't want to do anything but be lazy Bruno Mars-The Lazy Song [OFFICIAL VIDEO] Beautiful song from a surprising source....wonderful OFFICIAL Somewhere over the Rainbow Israel IZ Kamakawiwoûole

DVD format can be better, if it's available, but there's not many bands etc releasing CD and DVD format albums, but the DVD should be better in theory, but CDs are still better than the online digital formats, although I believe Itunes may offer a higher quality alternative to MP3 - I'm not sure, since I've never used the itunes store. Itunes the software will store your cd music at a higher quality than mp3 if you tell it to, but it will chew through your disk space at an alarming rate, and might result in skipping if your hard drive's having trouble keeping up. MP3s (the usual format for portable or computer based music) are, as somebody said, a 'lossy' format but not bad, in most of the applications they're found in. DVD audio in some cases isn't actually any better than CD, in fact the compression used for the sound as part of MPEG-2 (which is the DVD video format) is essentially the same as MP3- so in fact, your CDs may be of a higher quality, I'll argue. However, DVDs support a number of different audio formats, from 44.1 - most likely if it's surround sound, to 96khz and as high as 192khz, so DVD may offer the edge at times. The sample rate is where it's at - the reason why analogue - reel to reel audio tape or vinyl- is arguably superior is it isn't sampled, you get the whole, continuous sound wave, rather than bits of it or 'samples' CD's sample rate is 44.1 khz or kilohertz - good Pro audio such as DAT works at 48khz- better Some DVDs and pro disk recorders can do 96khz and sometimes higher - best (although the current pro standard is mostly 96khz) Unfortunately, even the CD could have been much better had they designed the standards a little higher, it was musical and physiological ignorance that made the frequency response a little limited. However, there are now 'super cds' that use higher rates, although it's more a question of too little too late, and DVDs will seamlessly replace them. I doubt you can even easily buy a cd-only burner for your computer now, and dvd burners are now less than $50. Having said that, for most people the robustness of cds and their quite-good quality means it's a no-brainer over vinyl. Buying cds is still your best bet even if you use iTunes and ipods etc all the time, for one, if your computer craps out and you haven't backed up your music, you lose it all and would have to buy it again.... and tunes from the itunes shop can't be played in anything but an ipod, which frankly sucks and is I'd consider, a restriction of trade- but that Norweigian guy who cracked the DVD code has cracked the itune format code. I think that's a good thing and doubt it will increase piracy but will be better for end users. Itunes is so easy to use, having to 'rip' your cds is not really much of a hardship.

Sounds like maybe the darker color thing mentioned above may also play into it. My 2001 Grand Cherokee ( factory am/fm/cd/casette player) will not recognize burned CDs. i am currently using my laptop with XP and have tried windows player, I-tunes and BurnerXP but haven't noticed any different results from any of that different software. After going thru about 30 cds burning at different speeds and formats, I finally got it to occasionally recognize one I burnt at around 4X using PCM .wav (uncompressed) format but to recognize and play I usually have to fast forward it thru a couple of songs while it is doing the initial read. Once it recognizes and starts playing then will usually play the whole CD but doesn't always work for whatever reason. I may try the label thing or try to find some of the "dark" cds to see if that matters. We have a 98 KIA witn an aftermarket cd player and it will play just about anything burnt to cd no matter format or speed.