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At Spectrum Digital Services, we strive to give you the highest quality disc using as little of your time as possible. In order to accomplish this, our expert staff has put together the following guidelines and considerations that should be taken into account before a master is sent for duplication.

CD-R vs. CD-RW: Because many CD drives are incompatible with CD-RW, Spectrum recommends that only a CD-R be used for mastering.

Disc Modes: There are two types of modes that a CD-R can be recorded in:

Mode 1: Mode 1 is the standard for recording data to a CD-R. It can be read by virtually any CD drive and operating system.

Mode XA (or Mode 2): Mode XA is a format created to support multiple sessions. There are many compatibility issues related to the use of mode XA, therefore we do not recommend XA type discs unless more information will be recorded to it prior to distribution (ie: Photo CD's).

Spectrum Digital recommends Mode 1 for any disc meant for mass distribution. The easiest way to achieve this is to select 'Disc at Once' mode in your burning software's options. This tells the recorder to not lift the laser up at any point while recording and 'closes' the disc.

File Systems: What file system you record in depends on what computing platform your target audience uses. The following is a listing of different file systems and a short description of each.

ISO 9660: ISO 9660 was designed by the International Standards Organization with the goal of making a universal disc to support the different computing platforms available. There are different forms of ISO 9660, but the most basic form limits filenames to uppercase letters and digits 0 to 9. It should be noted that ISO 9660 makes the disc readable on all platforms. It will not, for example, allow a UNIX user to execute a Windows executable program.

Microsoft Joliet: Joliet is the standard Windows format. This format also supports long filenames.

Macintosh HFS: HFS is the standard for the Macintosh computing platform. This file system should only be used if your disc is being distributed only to Mac users.

Hybrid: Some software, such as Adaptec Toast, allows for the creation of hybrid discs. A hybrid disc allows you to burn multiple file systems to one CD. This is common for authors who want to reach both the PC and the Mac computing world.

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