Music to CD-Writers' ears

New technology from AOpen promises to deliver faster CD writing, with fewer errors. Engineers at the company claim the new technique, called JustLink Technology, greatly improves the quality of MP3 audio data.

It works by monitoring the writing process and making predictions about when an 'under-run' may occur. An under-run happens when the process of writing to a CD is interrupted by another task, and the buffer depletes, a particular problem at higher writing speeds. AOpen says that JustLink will intentionally interrupt the write cycle until the buffer refills and the writing can pick up exactly where it left off.

"Unlike other popular recording technologies used at 12x writing speeds," the company says, "JustLink technology minimises the write gap to only two microns, as compared to 40 microns in existing technologies." This improves the playback of MP3 files, apparently, presumably by ensuring data gets to the MP3 playback software more smoothly.

AOpen's first product to include the new technology will be the CDRW1232 CD-R/W Optical drive, which will be available "early" this year, according to the company. ®