I would like to take my audio tapes and put them on CD's. Do any of the mainline machines do this or can I burn audio only onto a DVD then transfer to my PC and burn onto a CD?

Don't think there's a current DVDR that can burn CDs. As you said, however, you can burn your music to a DVD then do what you want with the DVD.

I did lots of tests on copying music to DVD and found that you cna gets LOTS of music on a DVD with high quality with the video cable unconnected, ie.e, just using audio L/R cables into the DVDR when copying music to it.

See this post in an Audio DVD thread I started some time ago. (http://archive2.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8885598&&#post8885598)

Any DVDR can do the same as I did on my Pio 640 since it's just a copy to HDD then dub to DVD thing... no fancy-smancy stuff involved.

You can take the DVD-to-PC route, but you will probably get compressed 2-ch Dolby stereo, which might be objectionable to some folks. It can easily be converted to wave files, but it's not a "lossless" process. If you have a PC with a CD burner, and a sound card with an analog audio input, then you're set to create lossless recordings.

Unless things have changed in the last few years, I tested several DVDR's that would also record CD's to CD. They would also record video to CD. VCD. At the time it seemed that the cheaper DVDR's could do this. I know Lite-on and Centrios both did this, but I ended up on a Panasonic which did not record to cd. I would'nt think all DVDR's would have dropped this feature, but I'm not positive.

Unless things have changed in the last few years, I tested several DVDR's that would also record CD's to CD. They would also record video to CD. VCD. At the time it seemed that the cheaper DVDR's could do this. I know Lite-on and Centrios both did this, but I ended up on a Panasonic which did not record to cd. I would'nt think all DVDR's would have dropped this feature, but I'm not positive.

My old Liteon 5005's will record to CD-R and CD-RW fine, but they're very hard to come by these days. I am not aware of any current units that will do this.

Good luck!

I think they stopped selling them a couple of years back. The last one I remember seeing was the Liteon - it was on closeout at Radio Shack, and that had to be almost two years ago.

The international model Pioneers won't record to CD, but they have a jukebox feature which will let you record CD's from it to the hard drive. Get yourself the 400GB model and you could put a ton of stuff on there.

A bit OT but just in case someone's interested, there are various ways to get Audio on DVD depending on your player and your intended use. Most recorders and players now support MP3 and WMA on DVD's, so you can get a 1,000 songs or so on a DVD easily (it's usually the limit on the number of files, not space, that you hit first). And, as Wabjxo points out, you can just record DVD compatible Audio to the DVD. In fact, there is software for PC's that will make a DVD audio disk with title lists, album covers, and so on. Or you can just feed the audio directly and record as you usually would and feed whatever video you want to watch while you listen (think slideshow) or no video at all (more room for audio).

I have several DVD's with 30 or 40 CD's of music (as mp3's or wma) on each (most have more room left and could hold more) and my DVD rec/player shows a nice browser view so I can scroll down the list of CD's and pick whichever one I want to list to, or just let them play through one after the other. Very nice.

This time of year I have some Christmas music as mp3's on CD's that I also play on my DVD player- each has a 100 or more songs on it (i.e many hours of Xmas music). Great for background listening this time of year. And, of course, I also have music videos on DVD or in DivX format (better because you can get many more on a DVD). So lots of ways to listen (and watch if you want).

A lot depends on your machines and what you want to do. There's lots of info here and various other places on it. Some searching and trial and error experimentation (using erasable rewritable media) will take you a long way.

P.S. As DivX fans will know, it's a superb codec. I have taken a lot of the very low res FLV videos (think YouTube) of really hard to find stuff (like live appearances by The Zombies, Julie Driscoll, Marianne Faithfull, Janis Ian and others you've never heard of <ha ha> and converted them to DivX and put them on DVD and they are fairly good if your expectations are realistic. The audio is fine for casual listening (many are mono, of course) and the video is pixelated, but viewable. Some look good, depends on the quality of the source.

Some people have even posted concert footage they shot, back when they still let you do that sort of thing, at live shows on various sites. Absolute gold if you like that sort of thing.

Anyway, another fun way to waste time.

I would like to take my audio tapes and put them on CD's. Do any of the mainline machines do this or can I burn audio only onto a DVD then transfer to my PC and burn onto a CD?

If your tapes are analog reel to reel, or DAT, you should consider recording them in LPCM on DVD. This will give you uncompressed recordings that are almost impossible to tell from the original, even on an audiophile system. You will only get 62m on a disc with LPCM. If you want CDs for use in the car, or a boom box, you might save the LPCM DVDs for use with your indoor system.

If you only want CDs, and do them on the PC, use -RW, or +RW to record on the DVDR, so you can reuse the discs.

Thanks!, very helpful!