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Burning CDs - The Missing megabytes

G

grobelaar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 9, 2004
16
0
OK, so I just noticed that my Mac OS X can only burn 660megs onto a CD. What is this? I take everyone is going to say you need Toast. Is this so? Then let me know.

In the meantime I'll just say cheers Apple, what a waste of time - 40megabytes!!! what is that all about...

Any hints and tips, gratefully rec'd
 
grobelaar said:
OK, so I just noticed that my Mac OS X can only burn 660megs onto a CD. What is this? I take everyone is going to say you need Toast. Is this so? Then let me know.

In the meantime I'll just say cheers Apple, what a waste of time - 40megabytes!!! what is that all about...

Any hints and tips, gratefully rec'd
Click to expand...
Nope, nothing's missing - 667.57 MB is the true capacity of a "700 MB" CD. Likewise, a "650 MB" CD can only hold about 619.89 MB. The discrepancy is related to the way disk makers report capacity. In manufacturing terms, 1 megabyte = 1000 kilobytes, not 1024 (which is the true figure). Here's how I got the capacity figures:
700 * 1000^2 / 1024^2 = 667.572021484...
650 * 1000^2 / 1024^2 = 619.888305664...
 
Even Apple uses this marketing misnomer which is really the fault of hard disk makers...

The iPod line just doesn't sound as appetizing in sizes of 19.03 and 38.15 GB :p
 
ChrisFromCanada said:
This is the same reason an 80 Gig HD is only 74.52 Gigs. I occurs on all platforms as explained in the above post
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm sorry but this doesn't hold. I can get 700mb on a Hybrid format on my OS 9.x desktop, and I mean 700 real mb, on my 700mb CDR...

If I take the same files and same CD and burn them on the PC burner in the office then they also fit...

So what gives?
 
grobelaar said:
Yeah, I'm sorry but this doesn't hold. I can get 700mb on a Hybrid format on my OS 9.x desktop, and I mean 700 real mb, on my 700mb CDR...

If I take the same files and same CD and burn them on the PC burner in the office then they also fit...

So what gives?
Click to expand...
I have absolutely no idea! I'm completely stumped.
 
Well from what I can ascertain Apple simply doesn't seem to what to risk us, little Apple users from buring 700mb CDR. I believe a 700mb CDR is pretty much a 650mb CDR but with slightly more area to burn... (a few years ago some people even ventured to make a 90minute CDR...

Apple in its infinite wisdom in making the worlds most advanced OS, believe that 650mb is enough. This inspite of the rest of the world sat safely assume CD = 700mb, leaving me with a load of CDs that I can copy on my new computer, leaving me sat looking rather more affectionately at my aging G3, OS9 mac, which I was seriously considering get rid of...

What an utter crock, I've submitted a bug report to Apple, this is just complete rubbish...
 
Oh and maybe they feel they need to give Roxio a little bit of revenue by only giving us half-arsed CD burning capability. I'm soo annoyed, I don't know how much I paid for this machine - the extras cost just keep mounting...
 
yellow said:
Wow.. such Anti-Apple animosity over 40MB. Switch to decaf. Seriously.
Click to expand...

I'm not here to butter up Steve Jobs et al. i think my investment in Apple technology, not to mention philosophy over the last 15 years entitles me to offer criticism - 650mb CDR is not acceptable in my book. All my work is backed up onto double 700mb archive CDs, if one fails, how am I to simply duplicate a new one?

As it goes, I found some help from my favourite music forum, away from the fawning fandom...

http://www.projectomega.org/subcat.php?lg=en&php=products_firestarter
 
Buttered or not buttered, I care not. But it seemed like you were about to go and shake a baby over this. Like Apple purposefully limited size disk burning in thier free, built-in burning software, just to kick YOU in the pants. Glad you found yourself a solution. In the future, http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/ is your friend.
 
Disk Utilities can burn the full 700 (but only 700, not the 700-705 available on most CD-R's). It's the Finder, and only the Finder, which can't burn the whole thing. I think this is actually due to a "converted twice" bug, but it could be a cripple... dunno.
 
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