The distance between the start- and end-position of the spiral are defined in the CD Red-Book and are the same for all 63, 74 & 80 minutes CD-R media. So the spiral has to be wound tighter to fit 80 minutes data in the same space were normally only 74 minutes data resides.

80 minutes CD-R's can be written by almost any CD-Writer but there are a few CD-Writer manufacturers (like HP & Sony) who say that they do NOT support 80 minutes CD-R's as these CD-R's do not comply to the CD Red-Book standard. So it is possible that the CD-Writers made by these manufacturers work with 80 minutes CD-R's but it most cases it won't. The only way to know it for sure is by writing 700 Mb data to a 80 minutes CD-R and then comparing it with the CD contents when the CD was written correctly.

For example the HP8100i & Sony CRX-100 CD-Writers will only write a 80 minutes CD-R up to 78:16 minutes.

As the 80 Minutes CD-R's are now widely available CD-Writer manufacturers will be forced to support them. Usually a firmware update will do the "trick".

The quality of the CD-R media made by these factories is not that high, as they need to be cheap, so keep this in mind when writing CD-R's!

TDK is the only quality factory which is making the TDK SCWA-ETC80A-X 80 Minutes CD-R. For now there are no other 80 Minutes CD-R's made by better quality factories like Taiyo Yuden, Mitsui Chemicals or Kodak (this is mainly because the 80 minutes don't comply to the CD Red-Book standard and are therefore "illegal").

For more details on the quality of CD-R media's see the CD Factories page.

80 minutes CD-R's can be OverSized up to 83:30 minutes DATA (= 734 Mb DATA & 842 Mb AUDIO)! For an explanation of the differences between DATA & AUDIO sizes checkout the CD-R Technical Information page.

Using the 80 minutes CD-R's can cause possible read failures on certain CD-Readers, this is because the spiral is wound tighter than on 74 minutes CD-R's. Some of the older CD-Readers never expected that these 80 minutes CD-R's would ever be released (as they don't comply to the CD Red-Book rules). These read failures can occur everywhere on the CD.

Here is a list of some of the CD-R software packages capable of Writing 80 Minutes CD-R's:

• Easy CD Creator Deluxe 3.5
• CD Wizard Pro 4.65
• CDRWIN 3.6
• DiscJuggler 1.05.238
• Nero Burning Rom 4.0.0.5
• Prassi CD Rep Plus 2.0
• WinOnCD 3.5 - 3.6

Discontinued CD-R software packages capable of Writing 80 Minutes CD-R's:

• Easy CD Pro 2.11c