Overburning CD's

Today there is only one Red Book standard CD, and it can hold either 74 minutes of music or 650 MB of data. Anything more than that is either oversized or overburned.

Overburning is not easy, and is not highly successful - especially with anything over 80 to 83 minutes. You can waste a lot of time and energy, unsuccessfully trying to bit off more than your CD writer and CDR's can chew. Here is a good, sensible approach to take:

Does it Work ?? That depends. Personally, I have a very excellent Plextor CD/RW, model 40/12/40a. I am able to burn 80-minute CD's. However, I bought a pack of ten, gold 90-minute CDR's (can't recall the brand) and they failed to burn properly. I burned music onto them, even though my drive did not recognize them as 90-minute CD's. The result was crackling, popping, and complete stoppage of the music in some places. At the time of this writing, 99-minute CD's are only available from Europe, and I have not tried them, but someone has and was successful (see below). But I just don't think it's worth the risk - but hey, feel free to try !!

But it will Damage my Drive, won't it ??? - many sources, including Nero and Feurio - warn you that overburning may damage your CD Writer. This is absolute BS and has never, ever been shown to be true !!!

Type	Audio (Min)	Data (MB)
Standard	74	650
Oversize 80 *	80	700
Overburn 83	83.3	734
Overburn 90	90	800
Overburn 99	99	870
Overburn 120 **	120	1060

* 80-minute overburn CD's result in the fewest "coasters"
** 120 min overburn CD's are not in existence yet

*** also go here ( http://www.ahead.de/us/search.php ) and type in the word "overburn" as a serach string. Nero's "Ahead" website has a large amount of info on this !!

Your CD recorder must support the overburning feature and this type of media. Some recorders support 80 min media but will not support 90 min or 99 min media.

If you enable overburning in ´Expert Features´, you should use the settings below, based on the size of media you are working with:

For 80 min media set to 82:00
For 90 min media set to 89:30
For 99 min media set to 99:54:74

Important Note
Keep 99:54:74 min entered and it will always enable burning to the max.

CD capacity is set by the track pitch (how far apart the physical spirals in the track are), and the inter-pit spacing (howclose together the individual pits and lands are "burned" as the laser moves along the track). A 74-minute / 650 MB blank has a track pitch, and inter-pit spacing which fall right in the middle of the ranges specified by the Red Book standard. An 80-minute / 700 MB blank squeezes the tracks closer together, and reduces the inter-pits pacing, right to the limits of the Red Book spec.

Because a CD recorder, and a CD player automatically adjust the disc's rotation speed to match the actual configuration of the disc, you can record audio on either 75- or 80-minute blanks, and it'll play back at the correct frequency. It won't go Alvin the Chipmunk on you.

The ATIP usually defines an exact last possible address where data can be written, and therefore limits the size of the data. In the typical TAO (Track At Once) mode, the last possible address and the lead out area is pre-defined by ATIP - and this prevents overburning.

Some of the newer CDR-CDRW drives support DAO (Disk At Once) mode, where the lead-out is written by the DAO algorithm. It can customized both the size (last possible address) and the lead-out location on the CD. This allows overburning, IF THE DRIVE TAKES ADVANTAGE OF IT (many drives support DAO but not overburn).

80 minute CD's are technically illegal, but they work on most CD drives. The 80 minute CD spiral is wound tighter than on 74 minutes CD-R's. Unlike the new 90/99 minute CD's . . . you can be reasonable assured that your drive will handle an 80-min CD !!

There is, however, a reason to avoid the use of 80-minute blanks -compatibility. Because the 80-minute discs are squeezing right up against the limits of the Red Book specification, it's quite common to find that some CD players have difficulty tracking these discs. A lot of people have reported that their CD players show a tendency to skip, hiccough, or have trouble seeking forwards or backwards on CD-R's recorded on 80-minute blanks.

80 Minutes CD-R's (except the TDK SCWA-ETC80A-X) are made in these factories:

The NoName CD-R's are usually made by Ritek, Lead Data or Princo. The quality of the CD-R media made by these factories is not that high, as they need to be cheap, so keep this in mind when writing CD-R's! TDK is the only quality factory which is making the TDK SCWA-ETC80A-X 80 Minutes CD-R. For now there are no other 80 Minutes CD-R's made by better quality factories like Taiyo Yuden, Mitsui Chemicals or Kodak (this is mainly because the 80 minutes don't comply to the CD Red-Book standard and are therefore "illegal").

80 minute CD-R's can also be OverSized upto 83:30 minutes DATA (= 734 Mb DATA & 842 Mb AUDIO)!

These are made by just a few U.S. manufacturers, and is the max that you can hope for !! 99 Min CDR's are not available in the U.S. Do not go out and buy a 100-spindle of 90's !!!!! They may not work in your drive. You should buy a few (the lowest amount I could find was a 10-pack) and test them first.

In the following link - Tom was able to do it with LG Electronics' (LiteOn) current batch of CD drives (GCE-4120B, GCE-8160B and GCE-8240B). He starts out by saying he will use the Asus CRW-3212A, but then never uses it for this purpose and later says to NOT use it !!! Even though he claims 100% success, there are no 99-min CDR's available in the U.S. today.

Nero comes with a CD Speed test utility BUT IT IS NOT VERY RELIABLE and will not even run on some drives. For download of the latest version, see http://www.cdspeed2000.com/ It tests speed, but to also test capacity, once in program, select Extra and overburn test. In there set maximum time to 99 min and go - it will tell you where it reached the very end of CDR.

Here I tested a Ritek 74-min CDR on my Pioneer DVR-A05 DVD/CD burner. I set it to 89 minutes, knowing that it would crap out before that. It went until 81.28.40 was reached - so that is the limit of that Drive/Disk combination. This tells me I can burn 81 mins on these disks !!! At least with that burner and that disk.

I then tried a 90-min disk and it had almost the same results 81.29.29. Sp apparently that drive will not burn 90-minute CDR's other than to burn 81 minutes on them !!

I tried using my Plextor CDR/RW 40/12/40 and the test Start button was grayed out - it won't run the test on these drives !!

NOTE: you may want to also try "Feurio" - it overburns without configuring anything and also has an overburn test.

First off - many CD-ROM/DVD-ROM/Writers can't recognize or read 90/99min discs !!! But most of the modern, decent ones do !! Do your research on http://club.cdfreaks.com first, or look in this CDR drive capacity table:

BRAND	MODEL	CAPACITY
AOPEN	CRW-1232	89:59
	CRW-1232A	89:59
	CRW-1232 PRO	89:59
	CRW-161032	99:05
	CRW-201040	99:05
	CRW-2440	98:39(°°°)
	CRW-9624	89:59
	CRW-5224	94:43
	EHW-4048U	89:59(ΩΩΩ)
ARTEC	52x writer	99:05(°Ω)
	WRR-4048	98:00(°**)
CREATIVE	CD-RW 4224E	89:59
	CD-RW 4424E	89:59
	CD-RW 8432E	89:59
EVERSPRING	40/12/48	96:55 (°*)
FREECOM	4/4/20	89:59
LG	8080B	99:05
	8083B	99:05
	8084	89:59
	8120B*	99:13
	8320	99:13
	8160	99:55
	8400b 40x12x40	99.55(°°°°)
	8480B	99.55(°†)
LITE-ON	12101B	89:59
	16102B	90.05
	24102B	99.05
	32102B	99.05
	32123S	90.04†††
	LTR 40125s	98.59(§)
	LTR 48246s	98.49(§†)
MEMOREX	CD RW 8432	89:59
	CD RW 4420s	89:59
MITSUMI	4804	99:05
	4805	99:05
	4808	99:05
	4809TE	99:05
	480ATE	99:05
PHILIPS	CDRW1208	96:00 (§§)
	CDRWDVD3210	95:00
	PCRW2412A	99:00 (§§§)
PIONEER	A03	97:59(ΩΩ)
	A04	97:59(ΩΩ)
PLEXTOR	W124T	89:59
	W8432T	89:59
	PX-820T	89:59
	PX-4220T	89:59
	1210	89:59
	PX-W121032A	89:59
	PX-W121032S	89:59
	PX-8220T	89:59
	PX-W161040A	89:59
	PX-W241040	94:57††
	4012TA	94:57
	PX-W8432T	89:59
RICOH	MP 6200	89:59
	7040S	89:59
	7060S	89:59
	7063A	89:59
	7080A	89:59
	7120A	89:59
	7125A	99:05
	7163	97.31°
	7200A	96.59
	8040A	89:59
	9060A	89:59
	9120	89:59
MATSHITA	CDRRW01	89:59
MEMOREX	CDRW8432	89:59
	CDRW2216	99:00**
	CDRW4420	89:59
SAMSUNG	208B	89:59
	212B	89:59†
	216B	99:59†
	304	89:59
	308	89:59
	408	89:59
SANYO	CRD-RW2	89:59
	CRD-BP2	89:59
	CRD-BP4	89:59
	CRD-BP5	89:59
	CRD-BP1500	89:59
TEAC	CD-R55S	92.59
	CD-W54E	98:54(Ω)
	CD-W58E	97:00
	CD-W512	89:59
	CD-W516	89:59
TDK	VeloCD 12x	89:59
	Cyclone 16x10x40	92:09***
	Cyclone 24x10x40	92:09
TRAXDATA	CDR 4120 PRO	92:59
WAITEC	T-Rex	93:59
YAMAHA	CRW-F1	99:59(ΩΩ)
	2100e	89:59
	2100s	90:52°°
	2200e	91:59
	3200e	93:52
	6416s	87:59
	8424e/s	87:59
	8824e/s	87:59

CD-R74 and CD-R80 formats are based on the CD RedBook standard, which was established some time ago. The latest formats, CD-R90 and CD-R99 discs are now available, and have been around for about two years, and they make use of the outer limits of the standard (they stretch RedBook).

NOTE: the 90/99min Discs will still be identified by your system as 80min, this is due to limitations in the CD Standards.

CDR99: only available overseas and in Canada - so I will not post links for them.

You have to overburn up to the actual size to get the right amount of data.

In Nero: File-->Preferences-->Expert Features

Set the max overburn time to 120 min and 59 sec (according to Tom's Hardware guide article - however, some say set it exactly to your desired burn - to 90 or 99).

And before writing: Click the burn tab after having added all the data-->Under multisession tab, make sure that "No multisession" is selected, under the burn tab: "Finalize CD" and "Disc at once" should be choosed.

First try the max speed of your recorder - surprisingly this usually works. If you get errors on the CD, then burn at a slow speed (4x is usually fine).

Now click burn button, you get a dialog telling that there is not enough space on the disc but you also get a button for making an overburn CD, click it and your CD will be created.

First, read thru OC-Freak's post again carefully.

Must make sure set it to DAO (disk at once) mode and no multisession.

Double check (with softwares like CD Speed) on how much overburning your writer can handle, not sure if PlexWriter 2410A can burn upto 99min., I think it is around the 94 or 95 min ballpark.

You will always get that "not enough space" warning. Just click yes to it.

If you still do not see the option - here is an odd fix. To get the overburn option to pop up I had to save a disc image on harddrive ("Create Image" in Nero) and then burn that image to CDR. If I do it that way, Nero doesn't eject the medium, it just asks if I want to overburn. I say yes and overburn works great! The window that pops up when you click "Write CD" has a checkbox "Create Image". Select that and save the image to a harddrive -- a .NRG file will be created. When that is done, click File -> Burn Image. Select the image you just saved and burn it. You should be prompted now with the overburn option.

Make sure to test play the CD. It should be fine, but there is only one way to find out. Overburn CD's are more compatible with Stereo systems than they are with the Burners !!!

Any Problems ?? Tests have shown that the various stereo and car players have no problem playing these CD's - the only problems have been that some CD burners will not burn below 4x (use 2x or even 1x for best results). But you will probablt be OK at 4x. Most burners can make 99-minute audio CD's with no errors using a 4x burn speed (4x = 600 kBps).

According to its specifications, the CD-R99 can hold up to 99 minutes of music, or a data volume of about 870 MB - this is an increase of 34 percent from the standard CD-R74s. This feat was accomplished by drawing the tracks closer together and by utilizing portions of the lead-out area for data. Some manufacturers who have CD burners on the market today claim that they can handle oversized CDs. Such is the case with the Asus CRW-3212A, which we test in this article. Our practical test shows whether or not users actually have access to this feature.

The following requirements must be met in order to create audio CDs that hold more than 100 minutes of music, or data CDs that hold almost 900 MB of data:

Factory	CD Brands
Ritek	Arita, MMore & TraxDATA
CDA	CDA
Lead Data	Lead Data, Lenco & Rimax
Postech	That's Write!
Princo	Princo
Xcitek	BestMedia