I'm going to have to second the VideoHelp.com site. DVD's are just like CD's. Only they hold a lot more data. Both can be used as data storage disks. Both can be used as video disks. CD's can be used as music disks. There may be a DVD music disk but since I don't listen to music I wouldn't know about it. Disks that will be used in a DVD player need to be compatable with the DVD player. Some players support more formats than others. At the very least you will need some kind of authoring software. This is the software that will create the menues and chapters And some software will do it automatically. It all depends on how complicated or easy you want to make it. There is way to much info for me to go into here. But you can find all of it at videohelp.com Pooh Bear Here is a link that might be useful: Video Help dot com

I took a quick look at a review for the InstantMusic box and it is just the kind of thing I'm talking about. I actually have a stereo system (receiver, turntable, cassette deck, CD player) hooked up to an Onkyo audio hub (no longer made) which then feeds my Macintosh. Works great. Mine just converts to bits, and the software I use has to convert into the various music formats; this goes one step further. For $40 or so, it looks like just the ticket. The various music formats. There are a bunch of them. AAC, MP3, and WMA are the most popular. AAC is the format used on iPods and Apple's iTunes by default. Apple claims that AAC results in better-sounding files that are the same size as MP3 files. I don't know anyone who has a particular opinion on that, though I'm sure this is discussed to death elsewhere on the Internet. Music you buy from the Apple iTunes Music Store also is AAC-encoded. One disadvantage is that music from the iTunes Music Store has additional coding that makes it difficult to move those files to a non-Apple player (the main exception being iTunes for Windows). MP3 is the more generic format. iPods can play MP3s as can digital audio players from whoever is left in the business (Apple owns about 80% of the legal digital music business). WMA is a Windows Audio format. I don't know a lot about WMA other than Microsoft would prefer you use it. :-) I have not heard that it sounds significantly better or worse than any other format (including ones I haven't mentioned here); the big issue with WMA is that if you're not using a Windows-based system for playback, it will be harder for you to find a player for WMA-encoded files. Not impossible; just harder. It's not as popular a format as AAC or MP3. The general things to remember about digital audio formats are 1) that the smaller the file, the less good it sounds. That may not be a big deal if you're listening through iPod earbuds or a portable speaker or your cell phone -- it may sound just fine through those devices. It might be a bigger deal if you pipe your music to a quality home stereo. But it costs you pretty much nothing to try it for yourself; and 2) unless you have access to an "uncompressed" digital file of the music (or the original record/tape/CD), once you "rip" it into one of these formats, converting it to another format often causes some audible damage to the file. Then there's the labor that entails. So you might want to think just a bit about the format in which you want your music. It would be a pain to have to convert hundreds of files if you decide to move to another player that can't handle your chosen format.

First, is your CD player able to play MP3s? If not, you need to be sure you are burning audio CDs rather than data CDs full of MP3 files. And in that case, I prefer ripping my vinyl to WAV files to avoid the loss of data the compression in MP3s does. Plus, I've been copying vinyl to CDs since I did it on an old Win98 machine that had trouble converting MP3s at all, much less on the fly. Second, I would avoid multisession burning and rip all the tracks you want for your compilation before starting to burn your CD. I am not clear if you are using Nero to burn the CDs. If so, when you are starting, select "Audio CD" as your project type. Add all the tracks you want to the layout, then burn in one session, letting Nero close the CD at the end. See if that works and if the CD plays in regular players. Anne

How are you burning the tracks to CD? Are they still in MP3 format (i.e. a data disk that your car is supposed to read) or do you create a real audio CD? I suspect it is the former based on your description. If it is the former, you may need to do more research into the capabilities of your car player and the precise format of the files you are trying to play. For example, some car players can play MP3s of specific bit rates only (i.e. 128kps or less). If you try playing a higher bit rate, the player just chokes.