NERO BURNING-ROM 6 ULTRA, RELOADED AND ENTERPRISE EDITIONS
FROM THE KEYBOARD
(Also Covers Nero INCD Version 4)
By
John Wilson
Copyright 2006
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
[To find a particular section or heading, use your word-
processor's or editor's search facility, e.g. type ">section 4"
to find that section. Putting a > sign (capitalised full stop)
before the word section will ensure that you do not stop on an
earlier cross-reference to that section. Type the string
"Installing INCD" to find that subheading or just type "7.2." to
find it via its paragraph number. Additionally, all main sections
are separated by a centred row of eight asterisks.]
Foreword and Restrictions
Available Tutorial Formats
Target Group
Conventions
Suggested Approaches for Effective Learning with this Tutorial
Section 1: Introduction
Section 2: Types of CD Drives, DVD Drives and Disks
2.1. Types of Recordable CD Disks
2.1.1. Write-Only Compact Disks
2.1.2. Rewritable Compact Disks
2.2. Compact Disk and DDCD Capacities
2.3. Types of CD Drives
2.3.1. CD-ROM
2.3.2. CD-R
2.3.3. CD-RW
2.4. CD Labels and Duel Case Inserts
2.5. Types of Recordable Digital Versatile disks (DVD)
2.5.1. Write-Only DVDs
2.5.2. Rewritable DVDs
2.6. DVD Capacities
2.7. Types of DVD Drives
2.7.1. DVD-ROM
2.7.2. DVD-RW
2.8. Combined CD and DVD Drives
2.9. CD and DVD Cleaning
Section 3: Installing an Internal CD Drive
3.1. Hardware Components
3.2. CD Drive Description
3.3. Installation Procedure
Section 4: Basic Compact Disk Music Playing Directly from the CD
Drive
4.1. Features of the Front Panel of a CD Drive
4.2. Enabling the AutoPlay feature of Windows
4.3. Windows Music CD AutoPlay
4.4. Changing C D Playback Volume and Quality
Section 5: Sound Cards and Windows Volume Control
5.1. Sound Cards and Their Capabilities
5.1.1. Types of Sound Cards
5.1.2. What Does Such as 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound Mean?
5.2. Putting Your Screenreader to Sleep
5.3. Enabling a Multi-Channel Sound Card
5.4. The Windows Volume Control
5.5. Example of Changing a Sound Property--The Microphone
settings
Section 6: Nero Burning-ROM Version 6
6.1. Installing Nero and System Requirements
6.1.1. System Requirements
6.1.2. Installing Nero 6
6.2. Launching Nero
6.2.1. Launching Nero Burning-ROM via the Program Files Path
6.2.2. Creating a Desktop Icon from which to Launch Nero Burning-
ROM
6.3. The Nero Compilation/Browser Window and Customisation
6.3.1. The Default Look of Nero
6.3.2. Customising Nero for Visually Impaired Users
6.4. Burning Data or Audio Tracks to CD or DVD with the Standard
Nero Burning-ROM Interface
6.5. Creating a Data CD from Files on Your Hard Disk Drive with
Nero StartSmart
6.6. Saving Compilations or Log Files
6.6.1. Saving Your Compilation Settings for Use in a Later
Burning Session
6.6.2. Saving Nero's Finished Burning Compilation Messages for
Later Viewing
6.7. Opening a Saved Compilation Template
6.8. Extracting Audio Tracks to WAV Format Before Creating an
Audio CD
6.9. Creating Audio CDs and DVDs
6.9.1. Creating an Audio Music Disk from Your CD-ROM Drive or
Hard Disk with Nero StartSmart
6.9.2. Editing Audio Track Titles and Rearranging Track Positions
Prior to Burning
6.9.2.1. Rearranging Tracks' Burning Order
6.9.2.2. Changing the Titles of Tracks before Burning Them
6.9.3. Creating an Audio CD by Selecting Tracks Prior to
Launching Nero
6.10. Viewing Tracks Information on a CD, DVD or Compilation
Information on an existing Compilation Template
6.10.1. Tracks'/Files' Information on a CD or DVD and Playing
Tracks
6.10.2. Viewing and Changing Existing Compilations
6.11. Creating an Audio or Data CD/DVD When You Only Have One CD
or DVD Drive
6.11.1. Turning the Image Recorder On
6.11.2. Copying the Image of the Tracks or Files to the Hard Disk
6.11.3. Burning the Image of the Files or Tracks from the Hard
Disk to a CD-R/DVD-R or CD-RW/DVD-RW Disk
6.12. Copying/Cloning a Whole Audio, Video, Data or Mixed Mode
CD or DVD with Nero Burning-ROM
6.13. Creating a Folder on CD or DVD to Burn Data Files Into
6.14. Converting and Burning MP3 Files to HI-FI Audio Files
6.15. Audio Track Filtering and Property Details
6.16. How to Add More Data to a Partly Used Data CD or DVD
6.17. Burning/Cloning Disks
6.17.1. Burning/Cloning Cds and DVDs on the Fly
6.17.2. Burning/Cloning Cds Via the Hard Disk
6.18. Basics of Burning Video Files with Nero
6.19. Erasing the Contents of a Rewritable CD or DVD
6.20. Making Whole Hard Disk or Partition Back-Ups with Nero When
You Only Have One Hard Disk
6.21. Restoring Hard Disk Back-Ups From CD or DVD
6.22. Backing UP and Restoring with Nero Backitup
6.22.1. Backing up Folders to CD, DVD or to Other drives with
Nero Backitup
6.22.2. Backing Up Hard Disks to other Hard Disks or Partitions
to other Partitions with Nero Backitup
6.22.3. Restoring Nero Backitup back-UPs
6.23. Viewing and Entering Album and Tracks Details from Your
Local Hard Disk Database (CDDB)
6.23.1. Creating Your Own CDDB Database
6.23.2. Configuring the Program Database
6.24. Manually Entering and Viewing Text of CD Tracks and Artist
Details
6.24.1. Entering Text before Burning a Disk
6.25. Viewing Sessions and Files with the Nero Multimounter
6.26. What to do if Your CD or DVD Burning Drive is Not
Automatically Recognised by Nero
6.27. Viewing and Customising Nero Preferences
6.28. An Alternative Method of Selecting Files or Whole Folders
for Burning with Windows Explorer
6.29. Creating a CD from a .ISO File
6.30. Using Nero to Encode/Rip music Wav and CDA files to MP3 or
MP3 Pro Files
6.31. The ON-Board Nero Virus-Checker
6.31.1. Burning Disks Using the Virus-Checker
6.31.2. Updating the Virus-Checker from the Internet
6.32. The Nero Help System
6.32.1. Context Sensitive Help
6.32.2. Help topics
6.32.3. Index Help
6.32.4. Readable files on the Nero installation CD
6.33. Automatic and Manual Updating of the Nero Program via the
Nero Website
6.34. Nero Features Not Covered in this Manual
6.35. Nero Burning-ROM Shortcut Keys
Section 7: Nero INCD CD-RW and DVD-RW Disk Formatter Version 4
7.1. What Does INCD Do?
7.2. Installing INCD
7.3. System Requirements
7.4. Launching INCD
7.5. Version Information
7.6. INCD Online Help Manual
7.7. INCD Options
7.8. CD-RW, DVD-RW and CD-MRW Formatting with INCD
7.9. Uses for INCD Formatted Disks
7.10. How to Copy Data to a Formatted CD-RW or DVD-RW Disk
7.10.1. Example 1--copying via a Windows DOS Window
7.10.2. Example 2--copying via Windows Explorer
7.11. How to Eject a Disk
7.12. How to Erase Data on a Formatted CD or DVD
7.13. How to erase both data and formatting on a CD or DVD
7.14. INCD Updates and Supported CD-RW and DVD-RW Drives
Appendix 1: Ahead Support for Nero
Appendix 2: List of Nero Shortcut Keystrokes
Appendix 3: Other Tutorials Available by this Author
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FOREWORD AND RESTRICTIONS
I have written this manual and tutorial for the use of blind and
otherwise visually impaired computer users and/or their trainers.
It is free of charge and only available from its author's Website
and from no other distributer.
No individual or organisation is permitted to sell copies of this
tutorial either as a stand-alone tutorial or as an integral part
of any other literary, software or training package.
********
AVAILABLE MANUAL FORMATS
The manual is only available in ASCII text format, as a free
download from the author's Website at:
http://web.onetel.com/~fromthekeyboard
This tutorial and guide has been created with a minimum of
formatting, in plain text, so that any word-processor or text
editor can read it. In this format it should also be suitable for
any one to run it through an embosser but, with some embossing
software, you may still wish to make some line spacing and
heading format changes to suit yourself and your software. A
simple construction such as this should also make reading by
arrowing up and down in your word-processor less labour intensive
than would be the case with columns, shorter lines, and the like.
Colloquialisms, such as don't, haven't, doesn't, etc, have been
avoided in this guide in order to make it easier to follow and
understand via a speech package. Hopefully, any loss of
conversationality and warmth will be compensated for by increased
clarity.
********
TARGET GROUP
Visually impaired computer users are the target group for this
tutorial. Keyboard access methods and descriptions, using
screenreaders and no mouse or monitor, are the basis of this
work. The guide assumes that you have a basic understanding of
the Windows operating system, general Windows concepts and your
specific screenreader, although tips and reminders about all of
these things will be given from time to time in the text.
********
CONVENTIONS
In the writing of this manual, terms have the following meanings:
ALT F, A Means hold down the left ALT key and whilst still
holding it down press the letter f, then release both and press
the letter A.
CONTROL S Means hold down the control key and whilst keeping
it held down press the letter S and then release both.
SHIFT END Means hold down the SHIFT key and whilst keeping
it held down press the END key.
ALT E, C, and press ENTER Means hold down the left ALT key
and whilst keeping it held down press the letter E key, then
release both and then press the letter C key followed by the
enter key.
When a key combination such as ALT R (for CD-Recorder), S (for
Save Track) is suggested to go into the "CD-Recorder" menu and
run the "Save Track" menu option, the user may follow this
method of operation or may prefer to ARROW up and down a menu and
press ENTER. In this latter case, the keystrokes would be: press
the ALT key, right ARROW to the "CD-Recorder" menu heading, then
ARROW down (or up) until the "Save Track" line is spoken, then
press ENTER.
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Suggested Approaches for Effective Learning with this Tutorial
It is, of course, entirely up to the individual as to how they
glean information and work through this tutorial, but a few
suggestions might assist the learner who is relatively new to
computers. I would propose that you read through the whole of a
section before attempting to practise it to obtain a general
overview and impression of what is being done.
There are a number of approaches which might be taken to make
reading the tutorial as a text file and simultaneously carrying
out the instructions more fluid and easier to follow. Try one of
the below methods.
Ideally, if you have two computers, you can load the tutorial
into your text editor or word-processor on one PC and have the
software program running on the other. You can then listen to the
directions on one computer whilst practising them on the other.
Alternatively, as is likely to be the case, if you only have the
one computer, you could launch your text editor or word-processor
and load the tutorial into it for reading. You could then launch
the program you wish to learn how to use in order to practise the
lessons. You would have to keep cycling between each running
program by pressing ALT TAB in this case.
Yet another approach might be to take a tape recorder or
dictaphone and get your screenreader to read the contents of a
given section or sub-section onto the tape. You could then play
the tape back and follow the instructions through on your PC
without having to keep moving from one running program to
another.
Other options would be for you to print out a copy of the
tutorial in large print if you can use this and work from this
hard copy, or you could get your local library or resource centre
to produce a Braille version for you to work from if you have one
in your area and you are a Braillist.
********
>SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION
This tutorial concentrates on the use of Nero Burning-ROM Version
6 to create your own data and audio Cds. It also covers
facilities such as burning hard disk back-ups and converting MP3
files to WAV or CDA files with Nero. There is also coverage of
Nero's INCD rewritable CD formatting program but the old Nero
Media Player is not covered in this edition of the Nero tutorial
because it has now become obsolete, having been replaced by other
facilities which are in-built in the main Nero program for
playing tracks and by other much more sophisticated alternative
music playing and editing Nero software. Additionally, some
general sections have been provided, including a look at the
Windows Volume Control and how to install an internal CD-RW disk
drive. The burning of DVDs and DD Cds is discussed and briefly
covered in some sections, and I can confirm that the steps in
burning DVDs are almost identical to burning Cds. There are
therefore no separate sections for burning DVD and DDCDs, because
you go through the same procedures as with burning Cds.
Nero is a fast-moving program and there is rarely a month which
goes by without something having been added to the program or
something having undergone a small change, so it is impossible
to keep up with all of these changes. This tutorial, nonetheless,
will provide the essentials to allow the competent use of Nero
Version 6.
Nero Burning-ROM 6 is a multi-featured suite of programs for all
types of CD and DVD video and audio burning and copying. AS the
Table of Contents indicates, this tutorial will be concentrating
on the burning of audio much more than with video for visually
impaired users. Whilst most of the essential elements and
programs in the Nero suite are accessible and usable from a non-
mouse and non-monitor perspective, some of the extra add-ons of
the Nero 6 suite are not as accessible, e.g. the Nero Express
burning interface and the Nero Wave Editor, and so these will not
be covered here. Perhaps they will be made more keyboard
accessible in later Nero releases or updates.
Nero Burning-ROM Version 6 has a number of different methods in
which you can elect to work with the various elements of the
program suite. If you like, you can use the old-style main Nero
Burning-ROM program interface and thereby avoid the more exotic
and sometimes more difficult to use interfaces of Nero Express
and Nero StartSmart. In fact, you are probably advised to give
the Nero Express a wide birth from a keyboard and non-monitor
point of view, as it is not very keyboard-friendly. On the other
hand, you should find the Nero StartSmart feature OK to work with
once you get used to it and you may, eventually, come to prefer
this as your burning interface of choice.
If you have been a user of an earlier version of Nero, such as
Version 4, 5 or 5.5, you will find not only extra programs and
different user interfaces to work with in Nero 6 but you will
also discover that some of the old options and menu choices are
still there but have been moved to different places. Some of the
ways you can select folders and files for burning and how you
work with the New Compilation and Browser windows have also
changed. Additionally, the Nero Wizard has been replaced and is
no longer available.
As already stated, because of the keyboard and screenreader-
unfriendly nature of the Nero Express feature, this will not be
covered in the tutorial. You can do everything that the Nero
Express can do in the other two interfaces provided by the Nero
main program or the Nero StartSmart feature, only more easily.
Having said this, I have successfully burnt both data and audio
disks using Nero Express, so it can be done, but the procedure
and number of times you have to ALT TAB to regain focus on what
you are doing and then ALT TAB again back to where you were is
so tortuous and frustrating that, if you do decide to have a play
with it, I am sure that you will soon abandon it and use one of
the other two more stable interfaces.
This tutorial is written from the viewpoint of a screenreader
user via speech or Braille display from the keyboard. No monitor
or physical mouse have been employed.
You can buy Nero Burning-ROM, together with INCD and Nero Media
Player plus several extra utilities which do not come with the
version bundled with CD-RWs from:
www.nero.com
but I am not sure if you will save any money by buying a
downloaded copy. Alternatively, you can purchase it from branches
of PC World and Dixons.
Lastly, for those with a curiosity to know, I believe that the
name of the software, Nero Burning-ROM, is a play on words or
type of parody. It hails from the famous historical emperor of
Rome who was said to have played his fiddle whilst Rome burnt:
hence Nero Burning-ROM.
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>SECTION 2
TYPES OF CD DRIVES, DVD DRIVES AND DISKS
2.1. Types of Recordable CD Disks
There are two main modern kinds of recordable blank CD disks:
2.1.1. Write-Only Compact Disks
Write-only disks, once written to and closed or finalised, cannot
be used again. However, if you do not close a disk after half
filling it, you can normally write more to the end of where you
last copied MP3 or data files but you will not be able to play
an audio disk until you close it.
An Audio (HI-FI music) disk falls into the write-only category.
It is a disk capable of holding digital audio tracks recorded in
CDDA format (compact disk digital audio). Such audio files have
a .CDA extension. These audio CDs are usually 74 or 80 minutes
long and can hold up to 99 separate tracks--but the tracks would
have to be very short to get this many on in the 74 or 80
minutes!
2.1.2. Rewritable Compact Disks
A rewritable disk, as its name implies, can be used over and over
again in the same way that a hard disk or floppy disk can be re-
used. You can either write music files straight to the disk with
a program such as Easy CD Creator or you can configure (format)
the disk and use it like a hard or floppy disk by creating
folders or directories and sub-folders and sub-directories, for
instance, with Adaptec Direct CD or Nero INCD software.
2.2. Compact Disk and DDCD Capacities
Typically the older type of write-only or rewritable CD disk will
hold around 650 Mb of music or data files. From a music point of
view this means that these older CDs can hold up to 74 minutes
of regular audio, HI-FI style music tracks. Some Cds, if your
copying software and/or Cd drive will support this (which they
will if they are anything like up to date), can hold up to 80
minutes of traditional music or 700 Mb of data. Very recently 90
minute Cds have come into being but, again, your burning software
and CD-RW drive will have to support this new standard to be able
to use them.
Another point to be aware of in respect of this read-only CD
time/space availability, is that when burning many individual
files or tracks to a read-only CD, you also have to be conscious
that with, say, an 80 minute/700 Mb CD you will not get this full
80 minute/700 Mb capacity out of the CD. This is because A Read-
only CD is split up into space areas known as clusters. When you
burn a file or a music track to a CD, it will use all of the
clusters it needs for the size of the file or track and will
invariably take up part only of a cluster at its end. This last,
partially used cluster, can no longer be used for any other
file/track burning and so what remains of it is lost CD space.
Thus, for example, if an 80 minute CD was to have 13 music tracks
burned to it, there would be 12 partially lost clusters on the
CD, which may mean a loss of some 10 or so minutes playing time
on the CD. By contrast, a CD which was full but with only two
very long music tracks would permit you to burn almost the full
80 minutes of music to the CD due to much less partial cluster
loss between tracks.
On the other hand, if you wish to format a rewritable disk, in
order to create folders and use it in the same way as you might
use a floppy diskette, then the resultant disk space is reduced,
because the formatting itself takes up some of the disk's
capacity. After formatting a 650 Mb rewritable CD, you will be
left with around 545 Mb of disk space to copy files to.
Another kind of CD, which is a kind of halfway stage between a
CD and DVD, is a "DDCD". this is a double density compact disk
(DDCD) and can hold 1.3 Gb of data.
2.3. Types of CD Drives
There are three main standards for modern CD drives:
2.3.1. CD-ROM
A CD-ROM drive (compact disk read-only memory) is only able to
play sound files and allow you to remove programs and other data
from it. It cannot itself record onto blank CD disks. This is the
traditional CD drive which has been supplied with most computers
for a few years now. The CD-ROM is the type of drive which you
would install your Windows programs and other software from. You
can play traditional HI-FI music CDs from a CD-ROM, as well as
speech or music compressed MP3 files.
The first CD-ROM drives were very slow at reading data from a cd
disk but modern ones are much faster. 1-speed CD-ROMs can only
read data on a disk at around 150 kilobytes per second and it is
this benchmark reading figure which is multiplied to derive the
speed of faster CD-ROMs, e.g. a 50 speed CD-ROM would read data
at a maximum speed of about 50 X 150 Kb per second. Modern CD-
ROMs can read a CD at 50 or 60 times faster than the first
drives. Today's CD-ROM drives run at typical speeds of 52 or 60
speed but it is true to say that the increase in speed is not
exactly proportionate to the number a drive carries, as there are
diminishing performance returns the faster a CD drive is rated.
You must also be aware that, when using a CD-ROM drive to burn
(copy) audio tracks from such as a music CD to a second CD drive
(a CD-RW drive), the copying speed is likely to be much slower
than the 40X or 50X speed which can be obtained when copying
plain data files. Some CD-ROMs can only achieve a speed of 2X or
3X when copying audio tracks by this drive to drive method.
2.3.2. CD-R
CD-R (compact disk recordable) drives have now mainly been
replaced by CD-RW drives. A CD-R can read files as with a CD-ROM
but, in addition, it can write (copy) music and other audio media
and data to a blank disk, such as copying HI-FI music or MP3
files. However, it cannot rewrite to a rewritable CD disk in the
way that a CD-RW can.
2.3.3. CD-RW
A CD-RW drive (compact disk rewritable) is a drive which can
read, write and rewrite to a compact disk. This means that, in
addition to being able to perform what the above two drives can
achieve, you can insert rewritable disks into this type of drive
and use them over and over again. For example, you can format a
CD disk in a similar way to formatting a floppy disk and copy
files to it, make folders/directories on it, etc, and then delete
these later and rewrite other files or folders to the same disk
to over-write the space which the first files occupied.
CD-RWs typically quote specifications such as 12X8X32 speed.
These figures mean that the drive is able to read the information
on a disk at 32 speed, write data to a blank write-only disk at
12 speed and write data to a rewritable disk at 8 speed. The
speed at which data can be written is also based on multiples of
the 1-speed benchmark of 150 Kb per second, e.g. a 12-8-32 speed
CD-RW drive can write data to a disk at approximately 12 X 150
Kb per second. Thus, it would typically take around 7 minutes to
completely fill a 700 Mb CD if writing at 12-speed.
2.4. CD Labels and Duel Case Inserts
A CD label is the small round sticker which you would stick to
the centre of the back of a CD with the CDs title, artist's name,
etc, on it. A duel case insert is the double-sided information
insert which you read through the see-through plastic case, with
such as CD title, artist's name, individual track titles,
artist's picture, etc, on it.
You can create and print out such labels and inserts on plain or
coloured A4 paper and then cut them out with scissors or you can
purchase specially printed and die-cut labels and inserts which
do not require cutting with scissors from shops such as PC World,
Staples, etc. Most CD burning programs like Nero Burning-ROM and
Easy Cd Creator provide software to permit the creation of these
labels and inserts but not all of them are very accessible.
You can also buy all-purpose packages from PC World and no doubt
other computer suppliers which contain the die-cut labels and
inserts plus a round spindle or template to use to ensure that
you get your label onto the back of the CD in the correct centred
position. You place the label onto the spindle in its centre,
adhesive side up, and then lower the CD down onto the spindle to
pick up the label.
There is also a Website where you can go to create or download
CD labels and to produce paper inserts from A4 paper. Its URL is:
www.papercdcase.com
2.5. Types of Recordable Digital Versatile disks (DVD)
As with CDs, there are several types of DVD disks.
2.5.1. Write-Only DVDs
Similarly to with CDs, you can only fill a write-only DVD once,
after which it can no longer be used again.
2.5.2. Rewritable DVDs
rewritable DVDs can be used over and over again just like a
rewritable CD or floppy disk. You can clear the disk by burning
its contents off (erasing it) and then refill it by burning new
data to it.
2.6. DVD Capacities
A DVDs capacity ranges from 4.38 Gb to 15.95 Gb. This depends on
whether it is single sided, single layered; single sided, double
layered; double sided, single layered; or double sided, double
layered. However, the most common capacities are single sided 4.7
Gb disks and double sided with twice the capacity.
2.7. Types of DVD Drives
At present there are two format standards with DVDs, one being
DVD+ and the other DVD-. Most computer drives can normally play
both formats, but external DVD recorders can usually only play
their own format and not the opposition's, although there are
some more expensive stand-alone external DVD units which can deal
with both formats.
2.7.1. DVD-ROM
A DVD-ROM drive (digital versatile disk read-only memory) is only
able to play sound and video files from a DVD disk and allow you
to remove programs and other data from it. It cannot itself
record onto blank DVD disks. This is the first kind of DVD drive
which has been supplied with most computers for a few years now.
You can play traditional HI-FI music and video DVDs from a DVD-
ROM drive, as well as speech or music compressed MP3 files.
The benchmark single speed which DVD drive speeds are calculated
from is different from that of CD drives; it is a faster starting
point. The original 1-speed DVD-ROM drive could read at 1.25
megabytes per second, so 4 times DVD-ROM speed would mean that
it could read data at 5 Mb/s. In comparative terms in relation
to the speed of a CD drive, this means that a 1 times speed DVD
is approximately equivalent to an 8 times CD-ROM.
2.7.2. DVD-RW
A DVD-RW drive (digital versatile disk rewritable) is a drive
which can read, write and rewrite to a DVD disk. This means that,
in addition to being able to perform what the above drive can
achieve, you can insert both write once only disks and also
rewritable disks into this type of drive. If using rewritable
disks, you can use them over and over again. You can fill a disk
and then erase its contents and refill the disk with new data at
a later date if you like.
The typical speed of a DVD-RW drive would be something like 20
times 12 times 8. The way the speed figures are written is often
the opposite to how CD drives express them. So, with a 20 times
12 times 8 specification, you would have a DVD drive which reads
DVDs at 20 speed, writes to write-only DVDs at 12 speed and can
write to rewritable DVDs at 8 speed.
Note: Some DVD drives only specify two speeds, e.g. 16 times 8,
in which case this drive would have a 16 speed reading ability
and an 8 speed ability for both writing to write-only and
rewritable disks.
2.8. Combined CD and DVD Drives
You can purchase drives which will read, write and rewrite to
both Cds and DVDs. Such a drive will not normally be as fast as
dedicated stand-alone CD or DVD drives, as there is usually a
trade-off or compromise in speed with combination drives. For
example, a combination drive may have a specification of such as
16 times 4 times 2.5 for DVDs and it may have such as 16 times
12 times 24 for CDs.
2.9.CD and DVD Cleaning
Remember, you can purchase special CD and DVD cleaning fluid from
many outlets. If you cannot get hold of any of this or prefer to
keep your cash in your pocket you should try the following.
Always follow the specific cleaning and general maintenance
instructions which come with a particular make of CD or DVD. In
the absence of any instructions, the below-described means of
cleaning CDs and DVDs when they are not performing correctly
should work fine.
1. Take a very soft, clean cloth and wet it with warm clean
water.
2. Wipe the CD or DVD from the centre outwards. Do not clean in
a circular motion, as this could damage the tracks.
3. If a disk is very dirty or sticky, you might also use a little
mild toilet soap on the cloth as well and then thoroughly remove
this from the disk with clean water.
********
>SECTION 3
INSTALLING An Internal CD DRIVE
As a visually impaired person the idea of opening up your
computer and installing a Cd drive may not appeal to you. Others
may have sighted friends to help them in this and may relish the
challenge. This section will help you install a new CD-ROM, CD-R
or CD-RW into a desktop PC or at least give you an insight into
what has to be done and the components involved.
Alternatively, you may wish to take the easy way out, albeit a
little more expensive, and purchase an external CD-RW instead of
an internal one. This is also the route you are likely to have
to take if you have a laptop and not a desktop computer. External
drives simply plug into a port on the back of the computer, such
as a USB or serial port, if you have a spare one. If not, you may
have to purchase a port splitter or fit another port to the PC
or connect it via a SCSI card.
Whether you connect an internal CD-RW drive via the IDE socket
on the motherboard or via a SCSI card in a slot on the
motherboard there will be no difference in performance, although
the latter method will be more expensive. By contrast, if you
connect an external CD-RW using the parallel port, this will
result in slower performance than if you had attached it with a
SCSI card.
Please note, however, that opening your own PC and installing new
components may invalidate your hardware warranty, if it is still
running. You should therefore check the warranty clauses to
ensure that you do not invalidate this, unless, of course, you
are confident of what you are doing and not too concerned about
the possible ramifications of doing your own upgrade work.
3.1. Hardware Components
The three types of CD drives all have the same essential
components. These are:
* The disk drive box itself.
* Four securing screws.
* A thin audio cable.
* A wide IDE cable about 30 or 40 cm long.
3.2. CD Drive Description
For a description of the front of a CD drive, see Section 4
below. For the present, a description of the back of the CD drive
box is all that is required. If you hold the CD drive in front
of you, with the back facing you, the right way up, the following
plugs and switches can be observed:
1. At the very left side there is usually a small square or
oblong hole, which can be ignored.
2. Moving right by a centimetre or so, will bring you to the
plughole for the audio cable plug.
3. Now move a further centimetre or two to the right and you will
encounter a small oblong cavity which holds a "jumper". A jumper
is a small squarish, thin piece of plastic which has a thin vain
of metal running through it and can therefore conduct an
electrical signal. It slides between two small pins in this
jumper bay, which grip it fairly tightly. Normally, a jumper will
be factory set to the "slave" (SL) position, which is in the
middle of the jumper bay. If the jumper is pulled out with the
finger nails or a pair of tweezers, it can be reinserted a
millimetre or two to the left to place it in the "master" (MAR)
position. There is also a third jumper pin position to the right
of the middle slave position but this does not affect this type
of installation.
4. Another centimetre or so to the right of the jumper cavity is
the biggest socket at the back of the CD drive box, which is a
40-pin IDE plug socket. It is about 5 centimetres long and quite
thin.
5. Just to the right of the IDE socket you will find the last
component at the back of the drive. This is the power supply plug
socket.
3.3. Installation Procedure
1. With the computer switched off, remove the PC cover, after
detaching the cables at the back.
2. To remove any static from your body, earth yourself by
touching the box metal of the PC frame with both hands.
3. Remove one of the plastic covers at the front of the computer
to reveal a spare drive bay. There may also be a metal plate-like
tag behind this to pull off as well.
4. Slide the CD drive box into the slot at the front of the PC
where you just moved the plastic facing cover from and use the
four securing screws to hold it in place flush with the front of
the computer box. They insert through the metal housings provided
in the interior of the Pc case. You may not wish to fully tighten
them up immediately, as you may have to slide the drive backwards
and forwards a time or two whilst completing some of the below
steps. Afterwards make sure that the drive box is flush with the
front of the PC and the screws are tightened up.
5.A. If you do not already have a CD-ROM in your PC, you can
connect your new CD-RW onto the same IDE cable that your hard
disk is connected to. The IDE cable will have two identical plugs
near its end. This means that you do not have to use the extra
supplied IDE cable which came with your drive. Genteelly insert
the second IDE cable plug into the IDE Socket at the back of the
CD drive. It will only normally go in one way. This means of
connecting the CD drive to your motherboard is the "slave"
method, which means that the jumper should be in the slave
position. This is likely to be the way it is set up when you
receive the drive.
5.B. Alternatively, if you already have a CD-ROM in your computer
and are fitting your new CD-RW as a second CD drive, you will
have to use the new cable which came with the drive. Insert one
of the two plugs at the end of the IDE ribbon cable into the IDE
socket at the back of the drive and plug the other end onto the
second IDE socket pins on your motherboard. Most motherboards
have two IDE sockets which are normally located very close
together and parallel to one another. Just follow your hard disk
IDE cable to where it is plugged into the motherboard and the
second IDE plug connector should be next to that one. In this
configuration, you will need to move the jumper from the slave
position to the left and reinsert it in the master position.
Note: A PC normally only has two IDE sockets on its motherboard
(a primary and secondary connector) and each can only take two
drives. This means that, if all four connectors are already in
use, you will have to purchase a SCSI card to connect your new
CD-RW drive to.
Warning: Do not place your CD-R and CD-RW drives on the same
single IDE cable, as this may cause your burning software to
generate error messages when you try to fast copy on the fly
directly from your CD-R drive to your CD-RW drive.
6. Take the thin audio cable and plug it into the audio cable
socket on the back of the CD drive box, which is almost at the
very left. The other end of the audio cable should be plugged
into the sound card, if your sound card is separate from the
motherboard and is the PCI type, or plug it onto the pins on the
motherboard if it is the sort of card which comes as an integral
part of the motherboard itself. If the latter, you may need
sighted assistance to find these motherboard pins amongst all of
the other cables and bric-a-brac as they are only small. Your
motherboard manual will tell you which are the correct pins.
7. You should now take one of the unused power cables which
sprout out of the side or bottom of your computer power supply
at the back of the PC and plug it into the power in socket at the
very right of the CD drive box. It should only go in one way
round but if you find that it can be inserted both ways, then do
not switch the computer on before getting sighted help to tell
you which is the correct way to plug this in. Switching your
computer on with this plugged in the wrong way is likely to
damage the drive and may also damage your motherboard.
8. This is the end of the installation, so replace the computer
cover, plug everything into the back, screw everything up and
turn the PC on. If there is no blue flash or loud bang, chances
are that you've done it correctly!
9. The plug-and-play facility of Windows 9X, ME or XP should find
your new CD-RW and recognise the new CD drive automatically. It
should be working OK at this stage.
10. If you also like your CD drives to be accessible from DOS,
you should install a suitable generic or specific CD drive driver
which permits access via the command line. It is likely that your
new CD-RW came supplied with one of these on a standard floppy
disk. Just insert the floppy and type "A:\install" and press
ENTER to install it. If this does not work, consult the readme
or other file which should be provided on the disk for
instructions.
Note: You are now ready to commence testing your internal or
external CD-RW drive. You may have received at least two
complimentary CD disks with your Cd drive purchase. Typically,
one of these will be a standard disk which you can write to only
once but the other should be a rewritable disk which you can use
to practise on without wasting several standard disks.
********
>SECTION 4
BASIC COMPACT DISK MUSIC PLAYING
DIRECTLY FROM THE CD DRIVE
4.1. Features of the Front Panel of a CD Drive
Typically, your CD-ROM or CD-RW drive front panel is likely to
be the same as or similar to this description, although some very
basic CD drives feature only a CD drawer open and eject button.
Usually the panel has one or two lights to show that it is
powered up and working. Obviously, it also has a drawer which
ejects to permit the insertion of a CD disk in the same way you
would insert a music CD into your HI-FI CD player. On the left
side of the panel you are likely to find a mini jack stereo plug
socket where you can plug in headphones. Next to this will be
housed a small wheel for increasing or decreasing the volume of
the headphones only. On the right of the CD drive there is likely
to be two press buttons, the right of which is the CD drawer
close/eject button and the one just to its left is the
skip/recommence play button for skipping from the current music
track to the next one. Just above the close/eject button there
is generally an emergency eject hole, which should only be used
if the automatic eject button fails. You activate this by
inserting something like the end of a straightened-out paperclip
into the whole until the disk drawer pops out a little, then you
gently pull it out the whole way by hand.
4.2. Enabling the AutoPlay feature of Windows
The AutoPlay feature is what makes your audio music CDs commence
playing as soon as you insert one into the CD drive and shut it.
If you do not want AutoPlay to start up immediately, you should
hold down the left SHIFT key and then shut the CD drive drawer
and keep the SHIFT key down for several seconds before releasing
it. AutoPlay for CDs should already be enabled by default but,
if it is not, you can turn it on by:
1. Press Windows key followed by S (for Settings), then press C
(for Control Panel) and lastly press S several times until you
get to System, then press ENTER.
2. You will land in the "General" property sheet, so press
CONTROL TAB to get to "Device Manager" and then ARROW down or
press C until you reach "CD-ROM". You then open this folder by
pressing right ARROW. ARROWing down will now reveal your single
or several CD drives by manufacturer names. With the focus on the
one you wish to enable AutoPlay on you should TAB to "Properties"
and press ENTER.
3. From Properties you should CONTROL TAB to the "Settings"
property sheet and then press TAB until you reach "Auto Insert
Notification" and if this is not already checked, press the
SPACEBAR to check and therefore enable it.
4. After this TAB to "OK" and press ENTER and do the same on the
next dialogue, followed by pressing ALT F4 to exit the Control
Panel.
4.3. Windows Music CD AutoPlay
1. As stated above, when AutoPlay is enabled, all you need do to
hear a standard HI-FI music CD is insert it into the CD drive
drawer and press the close/eject button. It should start playing
automatically within a few seconds without you doing anything
else. If it does not start playing, just press the
skip/recommence play button. The disk will play until the last
track has been played and then stop.
2. Whilst playing, if you wish to skip to the next track, just
press the skip button. Repeated presses will move you further
into the CD track by track.
3. If you wish to pause the playing of a track, you can press the
close/eject button once. To recommence the playing of the track,
press the skip button once.
4. To eject the CD, press the close/eject button twice.
Note: To hear music using the headphone socket at the front of
the CD drive you do not need a sound card. On the other hand, if
you wish to hear tracks via your PC external stereo speakers, you
would require a sound card on your computer's motherboard.
4.4. Changing C D Playback Volume and Quality
1. Whilst a CD is playing you can alter the music volume in
several ways:
A. If using headphones, adjust the volume wheel to the right of
the headphone jack socket.
B. If listening to speakers, either use the volume knob on the
speakers; or
C. If the speakers do not have a volume knob or the volume knob
does not increase the volume sufficiently, you may be able to
increase the playback volume in a more permanent way via the
Windows Volume Control. You can go straight to this from within
the menus of some music playing programs, or through the System
Tray or by navigating to it via:
C:\Program Files\Accessories\Multimedia\Volume control
in Windows 95, or
C:\Program Files\Accessories\Entertainment\Volume Control
in Windows 98.
(See Section 5 below to discover how to use the Volume Control).
2. You can also make adjustments in volume and quality of music
output from the Multimedia section of the Control Panel. Do this
by:
A. Press Windows Logo key followed by S (for Settings) and then
C (for control Panel).
B. Then press M several times until Multimedia is selected, then
press ENTER to open it.
C. You will fall on the "Audio" property sheet. TAB down this and
make your desired changes to the "playback volume" and Recording
Volume" with the ARROW up and down and PAGE up and down keys.
D. Then TAB to "Preferred Quality" and ARROW through the choices.
You should set this to CD quality for best quality playback
results.
E. Press ENTER on "Apply" and then press CONTROL TAB to look at
the other three property sheets in this multi-sheet dialogue box.
They include "Video", "MIDI", "CD Music" and "Advanced". Make any
changes you think would suit your particular needs and set-up.
For instance, if you can make use of large scale pictures/print
on a monitor, you might wish to ARROW to the "Double Original
Size" option in the "Video" sheet and therefore select this. In
the "Advanced" sheet you have a tree of multimedia audio, video,
mixer devices, etc, which you can change, select, view the
properties of or remove, as you like, but you are likely to have
to go into navigation or mouse mode to be able to use your right
mouse key to open and thus view or change any of a particular
device driver's properties.
F. You should ensure that, in the "CD Music" sheet, "Headphones"
is set to 100 per cent by pressing PAGE down to achieve this.
G. Then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish.
********
>SECTION 5
SOUND CARDS AND WINDOWS VOLUME CONTROL
5.1. Sound Cards and Their Capabilities
The many different sound cards can have massively different input
and output abilities and may support varying sets of surround
speakers.
5.1.1. Types of Sound Cards
For best results, you will need a good quality sound card. The
more up-to-date Creative Labs Sound Blaster cards should meet
this requirement, such as the Sound Blaster 128 or 1024 Live
(preferably the latter as it is multi-channel whereas the former
is not). Even more recent and better Sound Blaster cards are the
Sound Blaster 5.1, the Audigy I and the Audigy II cards, which
provide such as extra speaker support and greater depth of sound
sampling. Another range of good multi-channel sound cards is made
by Roland and there are also the Turtle Beach Montigo cards.
You can listen to music and voice recordings with more basic 16-
bit sound cards but the quality may be substandard.
You can also make music and voice recordings with basic 16-bit
sound cards but, again, the quality of the recording may be
affected, for instance, you may get more background hiss and you
may find that the volume of the recording, even with the Volume
Control levels on full, is well below that obtained with a better
quality card. Using the option to increase the volume of a
recording after it has been made, which some recording programs
provide, may succeed in bringing the volume of a recording up but
you may also experience a proportionate increase in background
noise, crackle and hiss. This type of substandard audio input
recording result is often found with the on-the-motherboard
varieties of 16-bit sound cards, so you may have to upgrade these
to Sound Blaster Live or equivalent standards.
Just because your software synthesiser works well and is plenty
loud enough through a basic sound card does not mean that music
or voice recordings will be as loud or clear.
Note: Some sound cards may not allow a software synthesiser and
music or speech from such as an MP3 file to work together. This
may be because your sound card is single-channel, not the
recommended multi-channel type. In this case, you would have to
unload your screenreader before the music or other sound file can
play, e.g. with HAL do this with CONTROL SPACEBAR, then ALT
SPACEBAR followed by Q and then ENTER; with JAWS use INSERT F4
and then press ENTER; and with Window-Eyes use CONTROL \, then
ALT F4, X and ENTER; after first placing focus on the link you
wish to play, then press ENTER to hear the audio content.
Alternatively, if your screenreader has a "sleep" mode, you may
find that using this has the desired result (see "Putting your
Screenreader to Sleep" in the section below entitled "Putting
Your Screenreader to Sleep").
5.1.2. What Does Such as 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound Mean?
A couple of years ago sound cards were produced with 5.1 surround
sound capabilities, e.g. the Sound Blaster 5.1 card. This means
that you have a six speaker system with two stereo speakers in
front of you, two stereo speakers behind you and a bass speaker
located anywhere else in the room you like. the sixth speaker is
the dialogue speaker, which you would normally place at the
source of any speech which may come through your system, e.g. on
top of or underneath your TV set.
More recently, 7.1 systems have been supported by sound cards,
such as the Audigy II and the Video Logic Sonic Explosion DVD
sound and video cards. A 7.1 system replicates the type of all-
round sound you would expect to hear at a cinema and has the same
speaker configuration as that just described for a 5.1 system but
also features two more stereo speakers, one immediately to your
left and another to your right.
You can purchase the above-mentioned types of 7.1 surround sound
sound and video cards from such as:
Audigy II: WWW.Creative.com
Video Logic: www.puredigital.com
Turtle Beach: www.turtlebeach.comYahamah: www.yamaha.com
Terratec: www.en.terratec.net
Yamaha: www.yamaha.com
5.2. Putting Your Screenreader to Sleep
You may wish to silence your screenreader by permanently putting
it to "sleep" whenever a particular program is launched rather
than unloading it if it prevents you from getting the required
sound card throughput or if the screenreader speech chatters at
the same time as you are trying to listen to other audio output.
This may be especially annoying if you are trying to record
speech onto disk via your microphone in programs such as Windows
Sound Recorder and Sound Forge. You should consult your
screenreader manual to find out how to do this. However, I have
provided below an example of how this is done with the JFW
screenreader:
1. Launch your audio program, e.g. RealPlayer, and then press
INSERT F2 to load the JAWS Manager.
2. From the list provided, press ENTER on "Configuration
Manager", which will open the RealPlayer configuration file.
3. Press ALT S (for Set Options" and ARROW up to "Advanced
Options" and press ENTER.
4. In the Advanced Options dialogue you will immediately be on
"Sleep Mode Enable". You should press the SPACEBAR to enable this
and therefore reduce the chance of JFW speaking and interrupting
the flow of streaming audio.
5. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER twice, followed by CONTROL S to
save the change and then ALT F4 to leave the manager. You will
have to unload and then reload JFW to have the changes
recognised.
6. If you wish to return to how things were before, you should,
without Realplayer running, open and edit the realplay.jcf file
in a plain text editor such as Notepad (not in a word-processor
unless you then know how to save the result as a text file) and
change the line which reads "sleepmode=1" to "sleepmode=0", save
the file and then unload and reload JFW. The realplay.jcf file
is found in the folder:
c:\jaws37\settings\enu\realplay.jcf
Note: Putting JAWS into sleep mode will, of course, drastically
reduce the amount of screenreader feedback which you get whilst
using such programs and you will have to be able to remember the
keystrokes to make things work, so some users may not be happy
with this and may rather leave their screenreader as it is and
just unload it at times when it conflicts with other sound files.
You may also find the JAWS INSERT S hot key of use as it toggles
between speak all changes on the screen, speak highlighted only
and speak none modes.
Warning: Do not mess with these settings if you are likely to be
unable to reverse the above procedure or if you are not
comfortable with reinstalling your screenreader should you get
into trouble.
5.3. Enabling a Multi-Channel Sound Card
Somewhat in contrast to what we have just done above, but just
as essential for general PC use, a multi-channel sound card may
need to be enabled before it will work properly. With JFW, to
ensure that a multi-channel sound card works properly, allowing
your synthesiser and other sounds to be heard simultaneously when
this is desirable, rather than operating as a single-channel
card:
1. With no program running, press INSERT F2 again and hit ENTER
on "Configuration Manager".
2. Press CONTROL SHIFT D to open the "default.jcf" file.
3. Press ALT S (for Set Options) and then S (for Synthesiser
Options).
4. TAB to "Allow Wave Files with Software Synthesisers" and if
it is not already selected, press SPACEBAR to check it on.
5. Tab to "OK" and press ENTER.
6. To save this change and leave the manager, Press CONTROL s,
then ENTER followed by ALT F4. Now unload and then reload JFW to
have the saved changes recognised.
Note: Obviously, this type of enabling will not be necessary if
your sound card already works satisfactorily with both your
synthesiser and other sound files.
5.4. The Windows Volume Control
You can enter the Volume Control by going to the Windows System
Tray (if your screenreader is able to take you there, e.g. INSERT
F11 with JAWS, INSERT S with WE or left SHIFT Numpad SLASH with
HAL 5) or by:
pressing Windows Logo key, P (for Program Files, A (for
Accessories), M (for Multimedia) and then V (for Volume Control)
in Windows 95; or
Pressing Windows Logo key, P (for Program Files), A (for
Accessories), E (for Entertainment) and then V (for Volume
Control)
in Windows 98 and ME.
When in the Volume Control you can change the various levels of
volume, the balance between left and right channels and mute a
particular type of sound if you do not want it coming through.
You can do this for various types of input and output media, such
as the volume of sound out of your speakers, the volume of
ringing tone you hear when your modem dials, the volume of your
line in and microphone sockets at the back of your computer where
the sound card interfaces with the outside world, etc.
When you first enter the Volume Control, you can TAB through
several balance and volume adjusters. The most important for
output and input of audio data are "CD Audio Volume" which,
depending on the quality of your sound card, you may need on
between 70 and 100 per cent. The "Volume" option may also need
adjusting, depending on your sound card and how loud you want
output volume as against input volume, e.g. if you are using a
headset with its own microphone, you may wish to have the
"Playback" setting lower for your ears and the "Microphone"
setting louder for any voice recording you are doing.
5.5. Example of Changing a Sound Property--The Microphone
settings
To change the microphone settings you would:
1.A. Launch the Volume Control by the Program Files\ path method
outlined above; or
1.B. If you elect to launch the Volume Control via the System
Tray, you should press ENTER on the (Open Volume Control" choice.
Do not get side tracked at this stage with this--come back to it
later--but Note that there is also an "Adjust Audio Properties"
choice in here as well which, if you press ENTER on it, will give
you a list of five or so preferred recording devices, such as SB
Live, Use any available device, game compatible device, etc. In
this second choice dialogue, you can also press ENTER on
"Playback Advanced Properties" and select from several types of
playback speaker types, such as Desktop stereo speakers, Stereo
headphones, laptop mono speakers, etc, and you can CONTROL TAB
to a "Performance" property sheet to reduce speaker performance
playback demands to less than 100 per cent if things are not
working as well as you would like because your computer is not
powerful enough to take the maximum settings. You can also TAB
to a slider to move the "Sample Rate Conversion" from zero to
either 50 or 100 per cent to further enhance sampling conversion
quality but be aware that increasing the levels in here can also
slow down the speed of response of your computer due to extra CPU
overhead. Experiment with the various options to see what is best
for your PC set-up.
2. Press the ALT key to open the "Options" menu. Then ARROW down
to "Properties" and press ENTER.
3. You will land on the line which tells you the type of sound
card in your PC which is being used, e.g. SB Live . . ..
4. Press TAB once to "Adjust Volume For" and the first option
will be "Playback". ARROW down once to "Recording" and then TAB
once to a list of recording options.
5. ARROW down this list to "Microphone", ensure that it is
checked (pressing SPACEBAR will do this if it is not already
checked) and then TAB to "OK" and press ENTER.
6. You will now have entered the Microphone adjustment controls
where you can make alterations to the input volume for your
microphone input to the jack on the sound card at the back of the
computer. If you are not already on it, TAB forward to
"Microphone Volume" and view its volume level, increasing or
decreasing this as suits your PC set-up, microphone and sound
card sensitivity. Use the PAGE up or down and ARROW up or down
keys to increase or decrease this.
ARROWING or PAGING up increases the volume, although some
screenreaders may announce decreasing levels of calibration,
making this a little misleading.
7. Then TAB to the "Select" button and press the SPACEBAR to turn
it on if it is not already selected.
8. Sometimes you can just TAB again at this stage to the
"Advanced" button and press ENTER; otherwise, see how to get into
advance settings in 9 below. In here you can make a few further
fine advanced adjustments, such as checking on the "Mik Boost (20
Db)" box for further volume increases if these are required. Then
TAB to "Close" and press ENTER.
9. If you did not find the "Advanced" button as described above
in 8, you can now press ALT O (for Options) again and press ENTER
on "Advanced" to enable the advanced features, which may vary
depending on the type of sound card you have. If you do not enter
the advanced features box when you do this, it is because the
advanced features are already enabled. In this case, you can
enter the Advanced dialogue to view the Mik boost feature by
pressing ALT and then ARROWING to "Advanced" and pressing ENTER
or SPACEBAR.
10. Lastly, press ALT O (or just ALT if ALT O does not work) and
ARROW to "Exit" and press ENTER to finish.
Note 1: Some of the features in the Volume Control can vary,
depending on the type of sound card your PC is fitted with, so
some may have, for instance, more "Advanced" features and some
may have none. The above example was done with a Sound Blaster
Live 1024 card fitted.
Note 2: You will normally use the microphone jack plug on your
sound card and the microphone settings in the Volume Control for
your mic and the line in jack plug and line in setting in the
Volume Control for inputting sound data such as from a tape
recorder, record deck, mini Cd player, etc, if you have a good
sound card. The mic input is usually much more sensitive than the
line in socket. However, if you have a poorer sound card, such
as an on-the-motherboard type, you may find the line in socket
not sensitive enough and so wish to use the mic jack socket for
both mic and tape recorder input. You will have to experiment
with sockets and various volume levels until you find out what
is best for your requirements and sound card.
Note 3: If you would like to experiment with a different way of
manipulating the Volume Control, which may suit some
screenreaders, you can try a utility called "Sound Control Plus".
This is downloadable from:
http://software.reallyeffective.co.uk
********
>SECTION 6
NERO BURNING-ROM VERSION 6
Nero Burning-ROM is a multi-featured suite of programs for all
types of CD and DVD video and audio burning and copying. AS the
Table of Contents indicates, this tutorial will be concentrating
on the burning of audio much more than with video for visually
impaired users. Whilst most of the essential elements and
programs in the Nero suite are accessible and usable from a non-
mouse and non-monitor perspective, some of the extra add-ons of
the Nero suite are not as accessible, e.g. the Nero Express
burning interface and the Nero Wave Editor, and so these cannot
be covered here. Perhaps they will be made more keyboard
accessible in later Nero releases or updates.
Nero Burning-ROM Version 6 has a number of different methods in
which you can elect to work with the various elements of the
program suite. If you like, you can use the old-style main Nero
Burning-ROM program interface and thereby avoid the more exotic
and sometimes more difficult to use interfaces of Nero Express
and Nero StartSmart. In fact, you are probably advised to give
the Nero Express a wide birth from a keyboard and non-monitor
point of view, as it is not very keyboard-friendly. On the other
hand, you should find the Nero StartSmart feature OK to work with
once you get used to it and you may, eventually, come to prefer
this as your burning interface of choice.
If you have been a user of an earlier version of Nero, such as
Version 4, 5 or 5.5, you will find not only extra programs and
different user interfaces to work with in Nero 6 but you will
also discover that some of the old options and menu choices are
still there but have been moved to different places. Some of the
ways you can select folders and files for burning and how you
work with the New Compilation and Browser windows have also
changed. Additionally--and perhaps somewhat unfortunately for
keyboard users--the Nero Wizard has had a vanishing spell placed
upon him and so no longer exists. The Nero StartSmart and Express
take over the old Wizard's magical duties.
Because of the keyboard-unfriendly nature of the Nero Express
feature, this will not be covered in the tutorial. You can do
everything that the Nero Express can do in the other two
interfaces provided by the main Nero Burning-ROM program or the
Nero StartSmart feature, only more easily.
6.1. Installing Nero and System Requirements
System requirements and Nero installation are as follows:
6.1.1. System Requirements
For Nero Burning-ROM and Nero StartSmart to function you will
need:
1. a Pentium 100 or better--probably a Pentium 166 or better if
using a screenreader.
2. 32 Mb or more of RAM.
3. 10 Mb of spare hard disk space.
4. Windows 98 or Windows 95 OSR2 or later operating systems.
5. A supported CD-RW or DVD-RW burning drive.
6.1.2. Installing Nero 6
If you have an older version of Nero on the computer hard disk
partition you are installing Nero 6 to, Nero 6 will remove this
and overwrite it. You cannot have such as Nero 5.5 and Nero 6
installed to and both working on the same hard disk partition,
although you can have different versions of Nero on different
hard disk partitions.
Installation may vary slightly, depending on whether you have a
shop-bought CD or downloaded version, but it should go something
like this:
1.A. With the CD version, insert the program CD disk into your
CD-ROM or CD-RW drive, when it should autorun. If it does not,
use Windows Explorer or the Run feature on the Start Menu to
locate the setup.exe file on the CD and press ENTER on it. It is
likely to be at:
d:\nero\setup.exe
1.B. With the downloaded demo version, to run it either as a demo
for the trial period or to register the demo for ongoing use, go
to the downloaded Nero .exe file with Windows Explorer or My
Computer and press ENTER on it.
2. The install wizard will start the installation and you just
press ENTER on the "Next" button.
3. You next come to the license agreement, so TAB to "I do not
Accept" and ARROW up to "I Accept all Terms of the License
Agreement" and then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER.
4. Complete the name editfield if your name is not automatically
placed there already and then TAB to "Company" and type this in
or just enter "None". Then TAB to "Next" and press ENTER.
5. The installation will commence and may take a few minutes,
after which you will be on a "Finish" button to press ENTER on
to complete the installation process. However, before pressing
ENTER on "Finish", you are advised to TAB to and press SPACEBAR
to check on "Add a Shortcut to Nero StartSmart to the Desktop"
and press SPACEBAR to "Automatically Launch Nero StartSmart when
a Disk is Inserted" to turn this off if it is checked on. If,
later, you would like this latter option on, you can always
reactivate it from within the program. Later sub-versions of Nero
6 also feature a "Launch the Appropriate Application when a disk
is Inserted" option and if you have this checked on, Nero will
start up automatically when you insert such as a CD; or turn it
off if you do not want these things to happen automatically.
6. Whilst this is not strictly speaking essential, I would
recommend that you now remove the installation CD from the CD
drive, close Nero with ALT F4 and then reboot your PC.
7. To launch Nero press Windows key and then P (for Program
files), then N (for Nero) and then ARROW to "Nero Burning-ROM"
and press ENTER.
8. When you first run Nero, you will get a dialogue box requiring
you to personalise Nero by typing your name, company and Nero
serial number into it. The number should be on the stickers which
came with the installation disk. So TAB to the "Serial Number"
editfield and type the full number in with the dashes. Then TAB
to "OK" and press ENTER. Otherwise, if you are trying out the
downloaded demo only, skip the serial number editfield and press
ENTER on the "Demo" button instead.
Note 1: If you already have a copy of Nero Burning-ROM on your
PC and have just downloaded a free update to it from the
Ahead/nero Website, you can simply run the executable file you
downloaded and Nero will go through the usual above installation
procedure.
Note 2: When you download and install Nero, what you are
installing is the full, all-features version of Nero, which
includes Nero Express, Nero Burning-ROM Ultra and Nero Burning-
ROM Enterprise Edition. It is the serial number you get or
purchase to run Nero with which determines which version of the
full software you are able to unlock and use. So, if you are only
entitled to use the "free" OEM version of Nero which comes with
some CD-RW drives (which does not feature the Nero Burning-ROM
program itself), the serial number you are provided with will be
different from that you would use if you are authorised to unlock
the Nero Ultra software and yet another possible serial number
will enable the unlocking of the most professional version of
Nero with extra features and software known as Nero Enterprise.
6.2. Launching Nero
Normally, Nero 6 places a quick start icon on your Desktop to run
the new Nero StartSmart front-end interface from but it does not
do this for the main Nero Burning-ROM or Nero Express interfaces.
It expects you to do all of your selecting and burning through
Nero StartSmart, because there is a list in StartSmart which lets
you drop into either Nero Express or Nero Burning-ROM after
making your initial command choices. However, I recommend that
you create a direct link to the main Nero Burning-ROM program on
your Desktop to be able to go straight there without the added
step of having to launch Nero StartSmart.
6.2.1. Launching Nero Burning-ROM via the Program Files Path
To run the standard Nero Burning-ROM program or Nero Express you
may also wish to place a shortcut on your Start Menu or Desktop.
Otherwise, launch Nero Burning-ROm or Nero Express by:
1. Pressing Windows key, then P (for Program Files).
2. Then press N (for Nero) until you reach it and then press
ENTER.
3. In the list of Nero programs you are now in, ARROW to and
press ENTER on "Nero Burning-ROM or "Nero Express".
6.2.2. Creating a Desktop Icon from which to Launch Nero Burning-
ROM
Alternatively (or additionally), if you prefer this, you
may wish to put a shortcut icon on your Desktop to run
the main Nero Burning-ROM program from. You can use this
procedure to create shortcuts for any of your other programs as
well. To do this:
1. place focus on the "Nero Burning-ROM" launch link by
navigating to it as in Folders Navigation Method above but do not
press ENTER to launch it.
2. Now press SHIFT F10 to bring up a Context Menu and ARROW to
"Send To" and press ENTER.
3. Lastly, ARROW down to "Desktop" and press ENTER.
4. If you do not like the default name which has been given to
the Nero icon on your Desktop, just go to it after pressing
Windows key and M and then press F2 to open up an editfield. Type
in here the new icon name you would like to hear when you go to
it to launch Nero Burning-ROM, e.g. "Nero 6" and press ENTER to
save this new Desktop Word icon title.
5. You can now, in the normal way, go to this shortcut on
your Desktop by pressing Windows key M or Windows key D followed
by N until "Nero Burning-ROM" (or whatever you renamed it to) is
spoken and then press ENTER to load it.
Warning: When you first launch Nero 6, you may encounter a
complaint by Nero that it cannot find a given ASPI driver on your
operating system and so it will not be able to work with full
functionality. To be honest, this aspi driver is essential, so
you must obtain a copy. You should have this driver but you may
not. I certainly did not have it on my system and had to obtain
a copy from another computer. If this happens to you, just let
me know and I will e-mail you a copy or you can get one from the
Microsoft Website (if you live long enough to find it there!) or
beg a copy from a friend. The ASPI driver in question is called
"aspi32.sys" and needs to be copied to the following
folder/directory:
C:\Windows\system32\drivers\
Note 1: It is recommended that to burn CDs and DVDs you use
either the Nero StartSmart or Nero Burning-ROM program interfaces
and not the Nero Express.
Note 2: In the above list of Nero programs you can also launch
the individual Nero components as well as launching them via such
as the Nero Express and Nero StartSmart interfaces.
6.3. The Nero Compilation/Browser Window and Customisation
In contrast to older versions of Nero, where the New Compilation
window and Browser windows were separate so that you had to press
the F6 key to move between them, Nero 6 displays a combined
Compilation and Browser window which you can simply TAB through.
6.3.1. The Default Look of Nero
The browser and compilation windows are where you make your
selections for which tracks or files you wish to burn (copy) to
your hard disk or directly to your CD-RW or DVD-RW burning
drives. The intended method of selecting files/tracks from the
Browser files list and then dragging and dropping them in the
files/tracks list is best replaced, from a screenreader and
keyboard point of view, by a more circuitous operation but it is
still possible to do this and it has got easier with each upgrade
of Nero. You can do it with the Nero StartSmart feature or in the
standard main Nero Burning-ROM program mode. What you do is
outlined below. Essentially, the browser has a Windows Explorer-
type appearance and functionality, with one combined window
showing a files or tracks listbox and also lists where you go to
any given drive or folder and another list where you select
individual folders or files/tracks or groups of folders or
files/tracks.
6.3.2. Customising Nero for Visually Impaired Users
You might like to start by making a few changes in the way Nero
does things by default. setting things up as suggested below
should make it clearer just what is happening and at what stage
you are at whilst using Nero, although these configuration
changes are by no means essential and if you are not confident
enough to do this at this stage, leave things as they are and
come back to this section later. Additionally, more configuration
suggestions and possibilities are outlined near the end of this
whole Nero section for you to consider, under the heading
"Viewing and Customising Nero Preferences". Initially, just make
the below few configuration changes.
1. Launch the main Nero Burning-ROM program (not Nero StartSmart
or Nero Express) by one of the methods outlined in the last
section and then press ESCAPE to close the Nero Burning-ROM
compilation window. Then press ALT F (for File), followed by F
(for Preferences).
2. You will come into a nine property sheet multi-dialogue box
in which you can press CONTROL TAB to move between sheets and
then TAB to cycle through individual sheets.
3. Press CONTROL tab to the "Sounds" property sheet and TAB to
each of three checkboxes in here and press SPACEBAR to turn them
all on so that you can get Nero to provide you with specific
musical sounds to indicate what has happened whilst you are
burning CDs and DVDs, e.g. Checking all three of the controls in
here will provide a trumpet sound to let you know that your burn
was successful, a boo sound to let you know if it was
unsuccessful and a dingdong sound to tell you to place a CD in
the CD drawer. I would recommend that you check all three of
these on by pressing the SPACEBAR on them.
4. TAB to "OK" and press ENTER to finish. That is all for now.
6.4. Burning Data or Audio Tracks to CD or DVD with the Standard
Nero Burning-ROM Interface
You can burn CDs without using Nero StartSmart or Nero Express.
You use the main, standard Nero Burning-rOM program and
interface. This may suite some users and/or their screenreaders
better than the other two interface methods. It does also
sometimes give more access to the full range of options and
formats available in the program.
To use the main Nero Burning-ROM interface you would:
1. Launch Nero Burning-ROM from your Desktop icon link or by:
Pressing Windows key, then P (for Program Files), then N (for
Nero) ENTER, then press ENTER again on "Nero 6 . . ." followed
by ARROWING to "Nero Burning-ROM" and pressing ENTER.
2. You should load into the "NEW Compilation" multi-property
sheet. If you do not, press CONTROL N to get there. This
multipage dialogue has six property sheets within it which you
can CONTROL TAB through. The one you are on now is the
"Multisession" sheet.
3. You will be on a list of three types of session you can elect
to choose from. They are "Start Multisession Disk", "Continue
Multisession Disk" and "No Multisession". So ARROW to the one you
want. The former is for burning one of many sessions to a CD or
DVD, i.e. leaving it open for future burning as it will not be
filled on this session, the second is for when you will be
inserting a multisession disk which is already partly filled from
a previous burning session and the third option is for burning
a disk in one session so that it will not be available for
additional burns to that disk without loosing the already burned
data.
So, for this example, leave focus on "Start Multisession Disk"
or on "No Multisession", whichever suits your needs.
4. Now TAB four times to a list of around 10 to 13 different
formats you can burn a CD or DVD to (depending on the sub-version
of Nero 6 Ultra or Enterprise you are using), e.g. starting with
"CD-ROM (ISO)", and under it comes such as "Audio CD", "Mixed
Mode CD", "CD Extra", etc. The "ISO" option is to be used if you
want to copy standard data files or MP3 files to a CD. One press
of ARROW down takes you to "Audio-CD" where you would place the
focus if you wanted to create an audio music CD. "Mixed Mode CD"
permits the making of CDs with both data and audio files on them,
the latter intended for playing on a car stereo, a home stereo
or on a computer and the former for playing on a PC only. "CD-
Copy" permits you to clone (duplicate) any type of CD precisely
as the original in the CD-ROM drawer. There are other types of
CD and DVD burning selections but, for visually impaired people,
these are likely to be of secondary importance, e.g. creating
video CDs, Creating CDs for use on Apple Mac PCs, creating a
system boot CD (you can do this with your Windows operating
system on a floppy disk, etc. You also get a couple of extra
burning facilities if you have the Enterprise Edition of Nero,
such as "MiniDVD" and "CD-ROM (EFI Boot)".
Note: If you accidentally close this Mew Compilation dialogue,
you can reopen it by pressing CONTROL N.
5. Leave focus on the "CD-ROM (ISO)" line to burn data files and
ensure that you have a standard write-only CD-R or DVD-R or
rewritable CD-RW or DVD-RW blank disk inserted into the burning
drive drawer. You can use any reasonable quality blank CD-R or
DVD disk for this type of copying. On the other hand, you may,
for learning and practise purposes only, wish to use a rewritable
disk so that it can be erased and used again without wasting
write-only disks in trial and error burns.
Note 1: If you had of wanted to burn audio tracks, such as wave
or CDA tracks, instead of data files, you would, of course, have
left focus on "Audio CD" in the last step instead of on "CD-ROM
(ISO)". However, this would not apply to MP3 audio files, as
these are, in fact, not standard audio files but rather they are
data files.
Note 2: There is an "Open" button just before you get to the next
stage, which you can use if you do not need to create a new
compilation template but already have one created earlier which
you now wish to have loaded in for burning. More about this
later.
6. Tab to the "New" button and press ENTER.
7. Now you are at the browsing and compilation stage, in a blank
compilation window, and you must select tracks or files for
burning directly to CD or DVD, as described below. However,
firstly note that you will be on the title (also known as the
volume label) of your about to be created CD. the default title
is "New" but you are not likely to want to call all of your CDs
"New", so to change this to a label of your own preference, just
press the F2 key to open up an editfield and in here type the
label name you would like to give to and have burnt to this CD,
e.g. type in something like "Audio Sounds 2", "myfiles 3", etc,
and press ENTEr. You will now observe that "New" has changed to
your own label title.
8. Now, to add your complete folders of files or to select
individual files for burning, press TAB twice to move from the
CD title to the File browsing tree/list and you will now be in
a standard Windows browsing tree (similar to being in Windows
Explorer or My Computer) to be able to ARROW down and open disk
drives or folders in by pressing ENTER on them or right ARROWING
on them. This is the normal Windows-type tree structure with your
drives and folders on the left and the individual files within
each folder on the right, which you may have to press the TAB key
to move to. You can now leave focus on a whole folder of data
files to get it and all of its contents burnt or open that folder
and individually highlight sub-folders or files for burning as
required. For instance, if you have opened a folder and only want
the files from within it burnt and not the folder itself, just
press CONTROL A to get all files highlighted for burning or, if
you want only file 1, 3 and 6 of a list of 10 files burning,
ARROW to file 1, and then hold down the CONTROL key, which will
automatically select/highlight this first file for you, then,
keeping the CONTROL key held down all of the time, ARROW down to
file 3 and press and release the SPACEbar, then ARROW to file 6
and again press the SPACEBAR to select that as well. You should
have had the CONTROL key held down all of the time and you will
now have your three non-contiguous files highlighted for burning.
Other standard Windows selecting and highlighting keystrokes will
also work fine in here as well.
9. Now that you have got your folder(s) or files highlighted,
just press CONTROL C to copy them to the Clipboard.
10. After selecting files and copying them to the Clipboard, you
press TAB twice to move past the CD title/volume label to a files
listbox which will be empty. To get your selected folders or
files pasted into this listbox, just press CONTROL V. They are
now in place for burning to CD but you can make changes to them
before burning them if you like. For example, if you ARROW to any
of the folder or filenames in the files to be burnt listbox and
press F2, you can overtype the current folder or filename with
a new name of your own choice, e.g. type over track01.mp3 with
something more meaningful such as Sergeant Pepper.mp3.
Note: You can also use an alternative method of copying selected
files to the above files list with the shortcut keystroke of
CONTROL 1. This would replace steps 9 and 10 above. For example,
after highlighting/selecting files at step 8, you would then skip
step 9 and achieve the results of step 10 by pressing CONTROL 1
to insert your selected tracks straight into the files list. If
you were adding non-consecutive files to the files list, you
could also do this by ARROWING to each file in turn and getting
each inserted into the files list individually by pressing
CONTROL 1 on each file in turn.
11. With all files now selected and renamed if necessary, you
press ALT R (for Recorder) followed by O (for Burn Compilation)
and the burn dialogue will load in for you to finish the process
off. You can also load this burn dialogue at this stage with
later sub-versions of Nero 6 with the shortcut of CONTROL B.
Note: Unfortunately, with Nero, you cannot determine the order
in which data files (including MP3 audio files) will copy to CD
in by use of the keyboard. This can only be done with the sighted
drag-and-drop procedure. The data/MP3 files will copy in
alphabetical or numeric order. Happily, however, you can move
audio tracks around into your preferred order, which will be
demonstrated later.
12. In the burn dialogue box:
A. You will be on a "Determine Maximum Speed" checkbox to press
SPACEBAR on to ensure that Nero always burns at your CD-RWs
maximum speed if you would like to do this.
B. TABBING to the "Simulation" checkbox and ensuring that this
is turned on can make Nero test your CD and burner/buffering
abilities and do a dummy run before then actually burning the
files to CD to ensure that the copying will be successful and
warn you if there are likely to be any problems, so that you can
abort the burning if you wish and not waste a CD. However, you
will also have to have the "Write" option checked off as well to
ensure that this feature works without burning the CD. The
"Write" checkbox is immediately underneath the "Simulation"
checkbox.
C. TABBING to the "Finalise CD" checkbox allows you to ensure
that only the files you firstly burn to a given disk can be put
on it if you want to close the disk. However, you will not be
able to burn more data to the disk if you check this on, so leave
the finalise option checked off for burning successive data files
in different sessions to a disk so that you will be able to fill
it. Be aware, though, that you will need to check the finalise
box on if you want to be able to play an audio CD on a standard
HI-FI system, because a HI-FI CD player needs both certain disk
beginning and disk ending data/markers to be present before it
will play properly.
D. The "Write Speed" option lets you ARROW up and down to the
speed you would like to write at, e.g. 48X if your CD-RW can work
at this speed, but remember that cheaper quality disks may
require a slower writing speed to be successful, such as 12X or
24X speed. Similarly, some older CD-ROMs cannot extract at more
than 1X or 2X speed, particularly with audio tracks, despite what
their data reading speed may be said to be. The slower the
writing speed, the more likely you are to obtain an unblemished
copy. you'll just have to experiment with different qualities of
compact disks and different speeds to familiarise yourself with
your CD-ROM's/DVD-ROM's, CPUs and different blank disk
capabilities.
E. TABBING to the "Write Method" will let you ARROW to and select
from either "Track-at-Once" to get files or tracks burnt
separately with short gaps between them (the CD-RW laser turns
off for a couple of seconds between tracks), or "Disk-at-Once"
where you can get the burning done without the laser turning off
between tracks or "Disk-at-Once 96" for another format of disk-
at-once burning.
F. In the other options in here, you can sometimes elect to get
more than one copy burnt successively one after another with one
burning drive, to get more than one copy burnt simultaneously
using more than one CD-RW or DVD-RW recording drive (if you have
more than one) and you can get the Nero virus-checker to run on
the files before they are burnt to ensure that they are virus-
free (if you own a shop-bought full version of the Nero 6 Ultra
or Reloaded program or the Enterprise Edition--not the
complimentary copy which comes with some CD-RW drives). Having
set these burning parameters, most of them will hold as the
defaults for future burning sessions, unless you change them or
some of the earlier selections.
13. Lastly, press TAB until you reach the "Burn" button and press
ENTER to start the copying process.The program may say that it
is waiting for a CD but just ignore this if you have already
inserted a CD into the CD-RW drive.
14. When the copying/burning to CD has finished, Nero will tell
you that the burning process was successful--hopefully! You will
have an "OK" button to press ENTER on. During the burning you can
check the progress of burning if you like by using your
screenreader's read title Bar hot key to hear the percentage of
burning already completed (INSERT T with JAWS, CONTROL SHIFT T
with Window-Eyes and Numpad 7 with HAL) and you can also view
this in mouse mode but if you are burning audio files for the
finished product it is probably a good idea not to do this too
often in case you cause pops or clicks on the resultant sound
file. I would therefore advise that, when you are in the
learning/practising stage and still need to know and be assured
of what is going on, you use a rewritable disk which can be later
erased and practised on again to save wasting CD-R or DVD-R
(write-once only) disks. You can then use your screenreader's
mouse mode and informational hot keys as much as you like until
you get the hang of things, e.g. JAWS users might want to press
INSERT S to circulate between reading highlighted text, no text
at all and all text and changes on screen, leaving things on
"All" to listen to the simulating and then burning as it goes
through the various steps. (Once your CD-RW disk is full, you
will have to erase it to be able to work with it again, so see
"Erasing the Contents of a Rewritable CD or DVD" below for how
to erase a rewritable disk.)
15. To finish with the current burning session and start another
or to exit Nero, TAB to "Done" and press ENTER, when your disk
will automatically be ejected by Nero. You can then start another
burning session by pressing CONTROL N or exit Nero by pressing
ALT F4 and answering "No" to the message you will receive about
saving changes to the ISO1 compilation.
Note 1: Depending on whether you have the "Simulate" option
checked on or off and/or the "Write" option on or off, the usual
"Burn" button at step 12 above may appear as either a "Simulate"
or a "OK" button.
Note 2: If, in step 8 above, you find it difficult to highlight
non-consecutive files, you could always copy the files you want
to an empty folder on your hard disk first and then burn/copy
them from there to a CD or DVD after pressing CONTROL A to
highlight them all. You should also remember the Nero shortcut
of CONTROL 1 to get individual files inserted into the burning
files list as well.
Note 3: At step 8 above, if you had of wanted to place individual
tracks within a folder on the CD which you wish to create at this
stage yourself, before pressing CONTROL V to paste the files into
the compilation, you could have created this folder at this stage
by pressing ALT E (for Edit) and then R (for Create Folder). The
default folder name will be "New", so type over this with a
folder name of your own liking, e.g. "workfiles", "memos", etc,
and press ENTRE to create the folder on the CD. If this empty
folder now has focus when you copy other sub-folders or files
into the Compilation window, then the sub-folder or files will
be copied inside this main folder which you have created. If you
want to create a second main folder on the CD (not a sub-folder),
just ARROW up to your volume label first and then create your
second main level folder in the same way as you created the first
main level folder with ALT E and then R. If you want to create
a sub-folder running from any of your main folders, put focus on
that main folder and go through the process again with ALT E and
then R.
6.5. Creating a Data CD from Files on Your Hard Disk Drive with
Nero StartSmart
You can create data Cds in a variety of ways, one of which is
outlined in this section and another of which is described near
the end of Section 6 (the Windows Explorer method).
Whilst this section has been called creating Cds with Nero
StartSmart, the same procedures would apply if you were creating
DVDs in this way.
To clarify, Nero StartSmart is really only a front-end command
interface which you can launch prior to then electing to do the
remainder of your selecting and burning via the other two Nero
interfaces of the Nero express (not recommended) or the Nero
Burning-ROM interface (strongly recommended).
One very good aspect of the StartSmart interface is that, for
beginners, it makes it clearer exactly what types of files and
formats can be burnt using a given type of procedure. The
category or type of files/tracks/disk to be created can be
selected firstly and then later in the StartSmart dialogue you
get a list of the kinds of CD you can create and burn with that
particular format/type of file. Below is a simple example using
a straightforward data burning category.
To burn folders and/or files to disk using the Nero StartSmart
feature:
1. Put a blank CD-R or CD-RW disk into your CD writer drive and
then launch the Nero StartSmart Program interface by pressing
ENTER on it on your Desktop, after pressing ALT M to get to the
Desktop. Note that if Nero tries to take you online to the
Internet each time you launch StartSmart, it is doing this
because "Automatically check for Updates" is checked on in the
"Nero Product Centre", so press ENTER on this and uncheck it with
the SPACEBAR. You can always re-enter this dialogue at any time
to get updates manually if you like (see the section entitled
"Automatic and Manual Updating of the Nero Program via the Nero
Website" for more details about Nero updating.
2. Now SHIFT TAB back and press ENTER on the "Show/Hide
Applications and Help" button to open up more of the options and
choices which the StartSmart interface offers.
3. You now have to TAB to "Choose Your Category" and select the
type of CD you would like to produce by ARROWING left or right
amongst the six options, i.e. Favourites, Data, Audio, Photo and
Video, Copy and Backup and Extras. For this example, leave focus
on "Data". the data option is for a CD containing such as text
files, programs, MP3 tracks, etc, but not uncompressed music or
video files like Wav or JPeg files.
4. Now, before starting the process, ensure that the Nero burning
program and not the Nero Express is selected by TABBING twice to
"Open With", where "Nero Burning-ROM" should be selected rather
than "Nero Express". You ARROW up or down to the one you want.
5. Now SHIFT TAB backwards to a "Make Data Disk" button and press
ENTER.
6. Now you are at the browsing and compilation stage, in a blank
compilation window, and you must select tracks or files for
burning directly to CD, as described below. However, firstly note
that you will be on the title (also known as the volume label)
of your about to be created CD. the default title is "New" but
you are not likely to want to call all of your Cds "New", so to
change this to a label of your own preference, just press the F2
key to open up an editfield and in here type the label name you
would like to give to and have burnt to this CD, e.g. type in
something like "Audio Sounds 2", "myfiles 3", etc, and press
ENTEr. You will now observe that "New" has changed to your own
label title.
7. Next, to add your complete folders of files or to select
individual files for burning, press TAB twice to move from the
CD title to the File browsing tree/list and you will now be in
a standard Windows browsing tree (similar to being in Windows
Explorer) to be able to ARROW down and open disk drives or
folders in by pressing ENTER on them or right ARROWING on them.
This is the normal Windows-type tree structure with your drives
and folders on the left and the individual files within each
folder on the right, which you may have to press the TAB key to
move to. You can now leave focus on a whole folder of data files
to get it and all of its contents burnt or open that folder and
individually highlight sub-folders or files for burning as
required. For instance, if you have opened a folder and only want
the files from within it burnt and not the folder, just press
CONTROL A to get them all highlighted for burning or, if you want
only file 1, 3 and 6 of a list of 10 files burning, ARROW to file
1, and then hold down the CONTROL key, which will automatically
select/highlight this first file for you, then, keeping the
CONTROL key held down all of the time, ARROW down to file 3 and
press and release the SPACEbar, then ARROW to file 6 and again
press the SPACEBAR to select that as well. You should have had
the CONTROL key held down all of the time and you will now have
your three non-contiguous files highlighted for burning. Other
selecting and highlighting keystrokes will also work fine in here
as well.
8. Now that you have got your folder(s) or files highlighted,
just press CONTROL C to copy them to the Clipboard.
9. After selecting files and copying them to the Clipboard, you
press TAB twice to move past the CD title/volume label to a files
listbox which will be empty. To get your selected folders or
files pasted into this listbox, just press CONTROL V. They are
now in place for burning to CD but you can make changes to them
before burning them if you like. For example, if you ARROW to any
of the folder or filenames in the files to be burnt listbox and
press F2, you can overtype the current folder or filename with
a new name of your own choice, e.g. type over track01.mp3 with
something more meaningful such as Sergeant Pepper.mp3.
10. With all files now selected and renamed if necessary, you
press ALT R (for Recorder) followed by O (for Burn Compilation)
and the burn dialogue will load in for you to finish the process
off.
Note: Unfortunately, with Nero, you cannot determine the order
in which data (including MP3) files will copy to CD in by use of
the keyboard. This can only be done with the sighted drag-and-
drop procedure. The files will copy in alphabetical or numeric
order. Happily, however, you can move audio tracks around into
your preferred order, which will be demonstrated later.
11. In the burn dialogue box:
A. You will be on a "Determine Maximum Speed" checkbox to press
SPACEBAR on to ensure that Nero always burns at your CD-RWs
maximum speed if you would like to do this.
B. TABBING to the "Simulation" checkbox and ensuring that this
is turned on will make Nero test your CD and do a dummy run
before then actually burning the files to CD to ensure that the
copying will be successful and warn you if there are likely to
be any problems, so that you can abort the burning if you wish
and not waste a CD. If you want to do this simulating
successfully, ensure that the "Write" option is checked off
first.
C. The "Write Speed" option lets you ARROW up and down to the
speed you would like to write at, e.g. 48X if your CD-RW can work
at this speed, but remember that cheaper quality disks may
require a slower writing speed to be successful, such as 12X or
24X speed. Similarly, some older CD-ROMs cannot extract at more
than 1X or 2X speed, particularly with audio tracks, despite what
their data reading speed may be said to be. The slower the
writing speed, the more likely you are to obtain an unblemished
copy. you'll just have to experiment with different qualities of
compact disks and different speeds to familiarise yourself with
your CD-ROMs, CPUs and different blank disk capabilities.
D. TABBING to the "Write Method" will let you ARROW to and select
from either "Track-at-Once" to get files or tracks burnt
separately with short gaps between them (the CD-RW laser turns
off for a couple of seconds between tracks), or "Disk-at-Once"
where you can get the burning done without the laser turning off
between tracks or "Disk-at-Once 96" for another format of disk-
at-once burning.
E. In the other options in here, you can sometimes elect to get
more than one copy burnt successively one after another with one
CD-RW drive, to get more than one copy burnt simultaneously using
more than one CD-RW recording drive (if you have more than one)
and you can get the Nero virus-checker to run on the files before
they are burnt to ensure that they are virus-free (if you own a
shop-bought full version of the Nero 6 Ultra or Reloaded program
or Enterprise Edition--not the complimentary copy which comes
with some CD-RW drives). Having set these burning parameters,
most of them will hold as the defaults for future burning
sessions, unless you change them.
12. Lastly, press TAB to the"Burn" button and press ENTER to
start the burning to disk process.The program may say that it is
waiting for a CD but just ignore this if you have already
inserted a CD into the CD-RW drive.
13. When the copying/burning to CD has finished, Nero will tell
you that the burning process was successful--hopefully! You will
have an "OK" button to press ENTER on. During the burning you can
check the progress of burning if you like by using your
screenreader's read title Bar hot key to hear the percentage of
burning already completed (INSERT T with JAWS, CONTROL SHIFT T
with Window-Eyes and Numpad 7 with HAL) and you can also view
this in mouse mode but if you are burning audio files for the
finished product it is probably a good idea not to do this too
often in case you cause pops or clicks on the resultant sound
file. I would therefore advise that, when you are in the
learning/practising stage and still need to know and be assured
of what is going on, you use a rewritable CD-RW disk which can
be later erased and practised on again to save wasting CD-R
(write-once only) disks. You can then use your screenreader's
mouse mode and informational hot keys as much as you like until
you get the hang of things, e.g. JAWS users might want to press
INSERT S to circulate between reading highlighted text, no text
at all and all text and changes on screen, leaving things on
"All" to listen to the simulating and then burning as it goes
through the various steps. (Once your CD-RW disk is full, you
will have to erase it to be able to work with it again, so see
"Erasing the Contents of a Rewritable CD or DVD" below for how
to erase a rewritable disk.)
14. To finish with the current burning session and start another
or to exit Nero, TAB to "Done" and press ENTER, when your disk
will automatically be ejected by Nero. You can then start another
burning session by pressing CONTROL N or exit Nero by pressing
ALT F4 and answering "No" to the message you will receive about
saving changes to the ISO1 compilation.
Note 1: If, in step 8 above, you find it difficult to highlight
non-consecutive files, you could always copy the files you want
to an empty folder on your hard disk first and then copy them
from there to a CD after pressing CONTROL A to highlight them
all.
Note 2: At step 8 above, if you had of wanted to place individual
tracks within a folder on the CD which you wish to create at this
stage yourself, before pressing CONTROL V to paste the files into
the compilation, you could have created this folder at this stage
by pressing ALT E (for Edit) and then R (for Create Folder). The
default folder name will be "New", so type over this with a
folder name of your own liking, e.g. "workfiles", "memos", etc,
and press ENTRE to create the folder on the CD. If this empty
folder now has focus when you copy other sub-folders or files
into the Compilation window, then the sub-folder or files will
be copied inside this main folder which you have created. If you
want to create a second main folder on the CD (not a sub-folder),
just ARROW up to your volume label first and then create your
second main level folder in the same way as you created the first
main level folder with ALT E and then R. If you want to create
a sub-folder running from any of your main folders, put focus on
that main folder and go through the process again with ALT E and
then R.
6.6. Saving Compilations or Log Files
You can save your compilations to be able to use them again or
you can save a log file of the burning parameters you used when
doing a burn if you wish.
6.6.1. Saving Your Compilation Settings for Use in a Later
Burning Session
If you would like to save the above compilation for possible
future identical CD burning, with the same CD volume label, same
folder structure, same tracks/files, etc, you would:
1. After finishing burning your first copy at stage 14 in the
last section (i.e. after activating the "Done" button), you would
press CONTROL S (for Save) and type a filename into the editfield
which opens up (no extension). You will be overtyping Nero's
default compilation filename of such as "Audio1", so type
something you can identify like "Audio1b" or "Best Hits 1".
2. TAB forward to "Save as Type" and accept the default of ".nra"
as the standard Nero file extension for audio copying
compilations.
3. TAB to "Save" and press ENTER. The compilation template may
be saved to either the same folder that your original files were
copied from or to My Documents but you can change this to a
folder where only your saved .nra files are kept if you wish. So,
for example, if you decided to call this compilation template
"tutorials", its full filename would now be "tutorials.nra".
Note: Nero sometimes gives saved compilations a ".nri" instead
of a ".nra" extension. The type of extension allotted depends on
the kind of files or tracks you are dealing with in the
compilation, e.g. the "a" in .nra signifies an audio compilation
and the "i" in .nri indicates that this is an ISO (data)
compilation. There are several other possible compilation
extensions as well for yet other types of compilations.
6.6.2. Saving Nero's Finished Burning Compilation Messages for
Later Viewing
After your CD or DVD has finished burning, you can save the
finished burning information messages, burning parameter details
and information about the parts of your system which were used
in the burning process if you wish to view these later but you
are not very likely to want to do this unless you are having
burning difficulties and your screenreader cannot read the error
messages on screen very well. In the unlikely event that you
would need to do this, take the following action:
1. After your burn has completed or failed and you come onto the
standard list of things you can do after burning, e.g. "Save Log,
"Print Log, "Done", "Verify Written Data", and "Automatically
Shutdown the PC when Done", you can press ALT S to activate the
"Save Log" option.
2. In the editfield you come into, type a name for the file of
your own choice, e.g. neroinfo.
3. TAB to "Save" and press ENTER to save the file as a plain txt
text file for later viewing in your word-processor or Windows
Notepad.
4. If you now receive messages about accessing CDDB databases,
just press ESCAPE to clear these and then TAB to "Close" and
press ENTER.
5. To view the saved information file, search for it with the
Windows Find feature, as it can be saved in different places
depending on the version of Windows you are using, e.g. it may
be found at:
C:\My Documents\neroinfo.txt
or
c:\Documents and Settings\John Wilson\My Documents\neroinfo.txt
but, of course, your operating system registered name would
appear in the above path instead of mine.
6.7. Opening a Saved Compilation Template
To open one of the above .nra saved compilations for further CD
burning:
1. Press CONTROL O and then either:
A. In the filename textbox you land in, type the compilation
filename in and press ENTER, e.g. "audio1b" (no need for the
extension).
or
B. If the above does not work for you, type in the full path and
filename to the compilation template, e.g. C:\my
documents\audio1b.nra, and press ENTER.
Or
C. TAB once to "Files of Type" and:
i. ARROW to the type of file you are looking for, e.g. CD-ROM
(ISO)" (data files), "Audio CD compilation", etc. If you wish to
be able to view all Nero's file extension types, ARROW right up
to "All Nero Compilations and Images".
ii. SHIFT TAB back several times to the list of drives/folders.
ARROW up or down until you reach the drive, such as C:, where
your compilation templates are saved to. Then TAB to the list of
folders and press ENTER to open up the compilation ".nra" or
other file type files.
iii. Place focus on the one you want, TAB to "Open" and press
ENTER.
2. The compilation will load in and you press ENTER on an OK
button if it appears.
3. If you would like to burn another CD exactly the same as the
first one burnt with this compilation, you now just press ALT R
(for Recorder) and O (for Burn compilation) and the burn dialogue
will load in and take you through the usual last few steps of
burning.
Note: The word "ISO" is both an acronym for International
Standards Organisation and it is the Greek word for equal to or
the same as.
6.8. Extracting Audio Tracks to WAV Format Before Creating an
Audio CD
It is important with Nero to ensure that the format of audio
tracks is correct before creating an audio CD for playing on a
HI-FI system. They must be wave files in the .WAV format, in 44.1
KHz and 16-bit stereo. This is, of course, only necessary if you
are burning uncompressed tracks such as .cda music tracks via the
hard disk, not for on the fly direct CD-ROM to CD-RW burning or
for extracting and burning MP3 files. You can achieve this in the
following way.
1. If you have the Nero Burning-ROM manual compilation dialogue
open, close it by pressing ESCAPE. If you have the Nero
StartSmart interface open, close that by TABBING to the "Nero"
button, press ENTER and then press ESCAPE.
2. Insert your music CD into the CDRW or CD-ROM drawer and close
it. Keep the left SHIFT key depressed for about 20 seconds whilst
you do this to stop the Windows autoplay feature from launching
an audio player and starting to play your CD.
3. Press ALT X (for Extras) and then S (for Save Tracks).
4. You now enter the first of three dialogue boxes. This first
dialogue is where you just ARROW up or down to choose the CD
drive you wish to extract your tracks from and then TAB to and
press ENTER on "OK".
5. Next you come into a tracks selecting dialogue on a list of
all of the tracks on your CD in your CD drive. The tracks may
already be named for you if the Nero CDDB database already knows
about the disk you have decided to extract tracks from; otherwise
you may get a "Yes" or a "No" or a "Access Internet Database"
button to press ENTER on to get Nero to go onto the Nero titles
and CDDB database on the Internet and retrieve the album title,
artist's name, individual tracks' titles, etc, or you can elect,
instead, to name the album and tracks yourself manually by
TABBING to and pressing ENTER on "Create a New CD Entry". If you
neither want to go onto the Internet to the CDDB database nor
manually name the album and tracks at this stage, you can TAB to
"No" or "Cancel" and press ENTER to skip this naming stage.
Note: You can turn off the automatic opening of the above CD
database to show or allow completion of tracks and artist's
details if you wish by either pressing SPACEBAR on "Never Show
this Message Again" checkbox in the above CDDB database dialogue
or by going to File, Preferences, CONTROL TABBING to "Database"
and then pressing SPACEBAR on "Open the Database During Save
Track". Below this is where to check off "Open the Database
During CD Copy" if you would like to skip this step in direct CD
to CD copying as well.
6. The third dialogue box you come into, after the above Nero
title and CDDB database naming option or electing to skip that
step, is the main selecting and extracting dialogue, which has
several settings, options, radio buttons and dialogues you can
TAB through and check on, arrow to or press ENTER on to go into
(e.g. the "Settings" button, to change such as bit rate,
mono/stereo recording, etc, and you eventually press ENTER on a
"Go" button to get selected tracks converted. Ensure that you
have ARROWED to The "PCM Wav File" format for this exercise but
note that there are several different possible conversion
formats. Additionally, in this dialogue, before going to the "Go"
button, if you press SPACEBAR on the "Options" button, you will
obtain several more options which you can check on or off
depending on the quality and age of your CD drive and your
requirements and preferences, e.g. To enable jitter correction
(recommended), to remove the silent gaps between tracks, to
automatically create an M3U playlist of stored audio tracks (a
tracks tagging and listing ability), etc. You should also note
that the "Browse" button, if pressed, will permit you to navigate
to a different tracks saving folder if you wish, e.g. C:\music,
provided that you have created such a folder for this first.
Otherwise, the default saving folder will be C:\My Documents.
The above "Browse" dialogue should also allow you to BACKSPACE
out the current track name, such as track1, and type another more
appropriate track name in if you wish, before going to the "Save"
button and then the "Go" button. However, this browser/renaming
dialogue is not very reliable from a keyboard and screenreader
point of view, as sometimes it does not give you the track
renaming option, so you may have to use an alternative method of
renaming tracks to their correct names, e.g. after you have saved
the tracks to your saving folder, you may wish to use Windows
Explorer to go to them and then press the F2 key on each name in
turn and type in the correct track name with the .wav extension
or you may wish to press ENTER on each track to get such as
Windows Media Player to open up and start playing the track,
after which you should be able to press CONTROL S (for save) and
then resave the track to a new filename such as:
C:\music\Let It Be.wav
but you will then have to delete the original tracks so that you
do not get duplicate tracks with different names.
In fact, when creating compilation music CDs, if you are
selecting such as track 1 from several Cds, you will find that
Nero will try to over-write your original track 1 with the new
track one unless you rename the original track one to something
else first.
7. In the above tracks selection step you use traditional Windows
highlighting procedures in the tracks list to get the tracks you
want to extract selected, e.g. the SHIFT KEY with the ARROW up
and down keys to select consecutive tracks, the CONTROL key to
move to non-consecutive tracks and press SPACEBAR to select
tracks randomly and there is a "Select All" button if you want
to highlight all of the tracks on a disk for extracting. If you
named the tracks in the previous dialogue or the CDDB database
did this, then the track names will appear in the tracks list;
otherwise they will simply be numbered 1, 2, 3, etc, followed by
some information about the track such as its size in minutes and
seconds, its size in Mb, the type of file extension it has, and
so on. If you want to select a few tracks from more than one CD,
you would be advised to let the Nero CDDB provide a title for the
album and tracks, then extract the tracks you want from the first
CD to your hard disk, followed by doing the same with CD number
two, etc. Alternatively, and a little more messy, if you do not
have an Internet connection, you could extract the tracks from
CD one first, rename them manually and then extract more tracks
from CD two, etc, until you have them all extracted to different
names.
8. When you have made all of the tracks selections and options
changes you want, you press ENTER on "Go" (or use the shortcut
of ALT G) and after the extraction has finished (which may take
only a few seconds or a minute or two) you will return to the
"Go" button and can SHIFT TAB to "Close" to finish.
9. You are now ready to select these extracted wave tracks and
place them into a compilation using one of the procedures
outlined in both earlier and later sections, obviously by
navigating to the C:\My Documents folder or any other folder
you extracted the tracks to and placing them into the compilation
window.
Summary: The above requirement to convert .cda tracks to .wav
format before burning to another CD for HI-FI playing would seem
to be somewhat long-winded and complicated. However, once you
have set up the normal parameters and settings you require these
will hold for future conversions and if you do not elect to use
the Nero title and CDDB option, then the series of keystrokes for
future conversions can be simplified to:
Press ALT X, then S, then ENTER, then ESCAPE (to leave the CDDB
database dialogue if you have not disabled this), then select
your tracks individually or all tracks with ALT A and finish by
pressing ALT G.
Note 1: As is generally the case when working with track burning,
you should resist the temptation to keep using your screenreader
when tracks are being extracted to avoid getting clicks or jumps
in your extracted tracks.
Note 2: You can use this "Save Tracks" feature for data tracks
as well as for audio conversion, e.g. for if you wish to convert
different file standards to image files which could then be burnt
to a CD in such as Apple Mac and HAS and other none standard
formats. However, these are much less frequent formats and there
are restrictions in what you can do in practice. They will not
be described here as this tutorial is about data and audio
burning with IBM-compatible PCs, not for non-IBM compatible
computer formats.
6.9. Creating Audio Cds and DVDs
Many of the steps for burning audio tracks with Nero StartSmart
are the same as in the burning of data files. After pasting audio
tracks into the tracks list of the Audio 1 Browser/compilation
pane, you can then arrange them in the order you like and rename
them before burning them to CD.
If your original tracks are not already in a WAV format and you
are not burning on the fly, convert them to WAV files as directed
above in "Extracting Audio Tracks to WAV Format Before Creating
an Audio CD". This will also mean that any tracks you want to
burn from one CD-ROM to another CD will already have to be in the
wav format, in 44,100 Hz stereo if you are burning from another
CD or these will also have to be extracted and converted to wav
files as well and placed on your hard disk. After this what you
do is outlined below.
6.9.1. Creating an Audio Music Disk from Your CD-ROM Drive or
Hard Disk with Nero StartSmart
Note that the steps for burning a DDCD and a DVD are the same
as for burning a CD but the references to CD in the options and
selections change to references to DVD or DD CD.
To burn audio tracks using the Nero StartSmart feature:
1. Place a blank CD into the CD-RW burning drive drawer and shut
it. If you have Nero StartSmart set up to automatically run when
a CD is placed into the burning drive, it will launch itself for
you. If not, you should press ENTER on its icon on the Desktop
if you put one there or launch it from:
C:\Program Files\Nero\Nero StartSmart
2. Now, if you have not already opened the extra features of
StartSmart as directed in burning data files above (it will hold
as the default if you did), SHIFT TAB back and press ENTER on
the "Show/Hide Applications and Help" button to open up more of
the options and choices which the StartSmart interface offers.
3. You now have to TAB to "Choose Your Category" and select the
type of CD you would like to produce by ARROWING left or right
amongst the six options, i.e. Favourites, Data, Audio, Photo and
Video, Copy and Backup and Extras. For this example, leave focus
on "audio". the audio option is for burning tracks from a CD
containing such as .wav music tracks on a standard CD-ROm or in
a folder on your hard disk but not for data files only or video
files only. You are also unlikely to be able to burn mixed mode
and other joint compilation disks using keyboard procedures, as
all keyboard methods fail to effectively select files or tracks
in the second half of the compilation list, so stick to burning
data files to one disk and audio or video files to a different
disk.
4. Now, before starting the process, ensure that the Nero burning
program and not the Nero Express is selected by TABBING twice to
"Open With", where "Nero Burning-ROM" should be selected rather
than "Nero Express". You ARROW up or down to the one you want.
5. Now SHIFT TAB backwards to a "Make Audio CD" button and press
ENTER. Note that you could have ARROWED down from "Make Audio CD"
to several other types of audio burning options, such as "Make
MP3 Disk", "Make Audio and Data CD", etc, but remember that the
latter of these would not work using the keyboard.
6. Now you are at the browsing and compilation stage, in a blank
audio compilation window, and you must select tracks or files for
burning directly to CD, as described below.
7. You are now in the equivalent of the data burning files list
but this time it is the tracks list and it will be empty. You can
press your Screenreader's read line hot key to hear the tracks'
header columns spoken, such as where the track names will appear,
the title and duration of the tracks, etc, which will appear in
here after you select them and paste them into this list. TAB
once to move to a File browsing tree/list and you will now be in
a standard Windows browsing tree (similar to being in Windows
Explorer or My Computer) to be able to ARROW down and open disk
drives or folders in by pressing ENTER on them or right ARROWING
on them. This is the normal Windows-type tree structure with your
drives and folders on the left and the individual files within
each folder on the right or below, which you may have to press
the TAB key to move to. You can now open that CD of wav tracks
or hard disk folder of wav tracks and individually highlight
tracks for burning as required. For instance, if you have opened
a CD-ROM drive or a hard disk folder, just press CONTROL A to get
all tracks highlighted for burning or, if you want only tracks
1, 3 and 6 of a list of 10 tracks burning, ARROW to track 1, and
then hold down the CONTROL key, which will automatically
select/highlight this first track for you, then, keeping the
CONTROL key held down all of the time, ARROW down to track 3 and
press and release the SPACEbar, then ARROW to track 6 and again
press the SPACEBAR to select that as well. You should have had
the CONTROL key held down all of the time and you will now have
your three non-contiguous tracks highlighted for burning. Other
selecting and highlighting keystrokes will also work fine in here
as well, such as pressing CONTROL A to highlight all tracks on
a CD or in a hard disk folder.
8. Now that you have got your folder(s) or files highlighted,
just press CONTROL C to copy them to the Clipboard.
9. After selecting files and copying them to the Clipboard, you
press TAB once to move to the empty tracks listbox. To get your
selected tracks pasted into this listbox, just press CONTROL V.
They are now in place for burning to CD but you can make changes
to them before burning them if you like. For example, you can
change the position of the tracks and change there default
filenames of such as "no01.wav", "no02.wav", etc, to their
correct track titles. How to do this is covered in the next sub-
section. For now just burn a few tracks with their default names
to get a hang of things before getting into the added
complications of track naming and rearranging. If you have a
rewritable CD as well as right-once CDs, use this to practice on
so that you do not produce unwanted or spoiled CDs whilst
experimenting.
10. With all files now selected, you press ALT R (for Recorder)
followed by O (for Burn Compilation) and the burn dialogue will
load in for you to finish the process off. You can also use the
shortcut of CONTROL B to open this same burn dialogue.
11. In the burn dialogue box:
A. You will be on a "Determine Maximum Speed" checkbox to press
SPACEBAR on to ensure that Nero always burns at your CD-RWs
maximum speed if you would like to do this.
B. TABBING to the "Simulation" checkbox and ensuring that this
is turned on will make Nero test your CD and do a dummy run
before then actually burning the files to CD to ensure that the
copying will be successful and warn you if there are likely to
be any problems, so that you can abort the burning if you wish
and not waste a CD. If you want to do this simulating
successfully, ensure that the "Write" option is checked off
first.
C. Next TAB to "Finalise CD". If you have this checked on, you
will be closing the CD-r once and for all so that nothing else
can ever be burnt to it (this does not, of course, apply to a
rewritable CD-RW disk), so only finalise it after filling it. If
you want to add more tracks later, leave it unchecked for now.
Note , however, that whilst an unfinalised CD will play OK in
your computer, it will not play in such as a car stereo system
or home HI-FI system until it has been closed by finalising itd.
D. The "Write Speed" option lets you ARROW up and down to the
speed you would like to write at, e.g. 48X if your CD-RW can work
at this speed, but remember that cheaper quality disks may
require a slower writing speed to be successful, such as 12X or
24X speed. Similarly, some older CD-ROMs cannot extract at more
than 1X or 2X speed, particularly with audio tracks, despite what
their data reading speed may be said to be. The slower the
writing speed, the more likely you are to obtain an unblemished
copy. you'll just have to experiment with different qualities of
compact disks and different speeds to familiarise yourself with
your CD-ROMs, CPUs and different blank disk capabilities.
E. TABBING to the "Write Method" will let you ARROW to and select
from either "Track-at-Once" to get tracks burnt separately with
short gaps between them (the CD-RW laser turns off for a couple
of seconds between tracks), or "Disk-at-Once" where you can get
the burning done without the laser turning off between tracks or
"Disk-at-Once 96" for another format of disk-at-once burning.
F. In the other options in here, you can sometimes elect to get
more than one copy burnt successively one after another with one
CD-RW drive and to get more than one copy burnt simultaneously
using more than one CD-RW recording drive (if you have more than
one on your computer). Having set these burning parameters, most
of them will hold as the defaults for future burning sessions,
unless you change them.
G. Lastly, press TAB to the"Burn" button and press ENTER to start
the CD burning process.The program may say that it is waiting for
a CD but just ignore this if you have already inserted a CD into
the CD-RW drive.
12. When the copying/burning to CD has finished, Nero will tell
you that the burning process was successful--hopefully! You will
have an "OK" button to press ENTER on. During the burning you can
check the progress of burning if you like by using your
screenreader's read title Bar hot key to hear the percentage of
burning already completed (INSERT T with JAWS, CONTROL SHIFT T
with Window-Eyes and Numpad 7 with HAL) and you can also view
this in mouse mode but if you are burning audio files for the
finished product it is probably a good idea not to do this too
often in case you cause pops or clicks on the resultant sound
file. I would therefore advise that, when you are in the
learning/practising stage and still need to know and be assured
of what is going on, you use a rewritable CD-RW disk which can
be later erased and practised on again to save wasting CD-R
(write-once only) disks. You can then use your screenreader's
mouse mode and informational hot keys as much as you like until
you get the hang of things, e.g. JAWS users might want to press
INSERT S to circulate between reading highlighted text, no text
at all and all text and changes on screen, leaving things on
"All" to listen to the simulating and then burning as it goes
through the various steps. (Once your CD-RW disk is full, you
will have to erase it to be able to work with it again, so see
"Erasing the Contents of a Rewritable CD or DVD" below for how
to erase a rewritable disk.)
13. To finish with the current burning session and start another
or to exit Nero, TAB to "Done" and press ENTER, then start
another burning session by pressing CONTROL N or exit Nero by
pressing ALT F4 and answering "No" to the message you will
receive about saving changes to the Audio 1 compilation.
Tip: If you prefer, in the selecting of audio tracks list at
steps 8 and 9 above, you can also select tracks in the order you
want them adding to your compilation by going to each track in
turn and by pressing CONTROL 1 (on the main keyboard) when each
track you want to add to your audio compilation has focus. You
can also add tracks to your compilation in blocks with CONTROL
1 by firstly selecting a contiguous or non-contiguous block of
tracks and then pressing CONTROL 1.
6.9.2. Editing Audio Track Titles and Rearranging Track Positions
Prior to Burning
If you would like to change the order in which audio tracks will
be burnt to CD in or the names they will have when they are
burnt:
6.9.2.1. Rearranging Tracks' Burning Order
1. When you are at step 9 in the last section and have just
pasted your tracks into the empty tracks list, you will be able
to ARROW up and down the list of default track names, such as
"no01.wav", "no02.wav", etc.
2. With focus on any track, cut it to the Clipboard by pressing
CONTROL X. The track will disappear.
3. Now move your cursor to the track position which you want your
track to move into and press CONTROL V to paste it in there, when
the track your cursor is currently on and all tracks below it
will move down one place.
4. Continue to do this until you have all tracks where you want
them and then continue the burning process as described in the
last section.
6.9.2.2. Changing the Titles of Tracks before Burning Them
To rename tracks:
1. Again at step 9 in the last sub-section, after pasting your
tracks into the empty tracks list, ARROW to and put focus on a
track you wish to rename.
2. Now press ALT ENTER to open up the properties dialogue box for
that file (or select "Properties" from the Edit menu).
3. You come into a three property sheet dialogue, on the
appropriate sheet.
4. You will be on the track name editfield containing the default
title of your track, so simply overtype this with your preferred
track title, e.g. waterloo.wav (ensure that you maintain the
correct file extension).
5. Lastly, TAB to and press ENTER on "Apply" and then to "OK".
6. View the changed track name in your tracks list and do the
same for all other tracks before proceeding with the rest of the
burning process.
6.9.3. Creating an Audio CD by Selecting Tracks Prior to
Launching Nero
If you prefer to select your audio tracks prior to launching
Nero,