Is it safe....?

[Xr4eyes]

when burning things to cd/dvd is it best not to do anything else e.g Surfing the web and using win amp until burning finshed?

If you do carry on, will this affect the quality of the file your burning?

[superne]

I have burned literally hundreds of CDs and dozens of DVDs. In my experience, there is no adverse effect on the information being burned while another application is the focus or is running in the background. The reason? Unless I'm mistaken (someone please correct me if I am), while recording, burners use a buffer where "on deck" data is held. Usually the buffer will be at 100%. If you run other applications, the percentage and speed of the burn may drop. If the percentage drops too far, you'll likely get a bad burn (however, I was recently pleasantly surprised to discover that my TDK DVD burner successfully burned to DVD+R at 2X speed with 1% of the buffer).
One of 2 things will happen should you decide to run WinAmp (or anything else) while burning.

1. Your burn will be successful (your burning software will tell you) and you have nothing to worry about. The data on the disk is fine. In case you have doubts (about your burner, your media, etc), verify the disk (verify is an option in most CD/DVD burners).
2. Your burn will be unsuccessful (your burning software will tell you). Try burning at a lower speed, closing unnecessary applications, or changing to different media disk provider.

A couple of things are key to getting good burns while running other applications. DO NOT stress your processor. The fewer clock cycles available to the burning software, the greater the chance of getting a bad burn. DO NOT stress your memory. Again, less memory for the burning software means some of its processes will be delayed which could lead to a bad burn.

[Xr4eyes]

thats all i needed to hear :D

Thanks

[gamesmell]

I did not read all of what he posted so this might be in there but
if you have a relly slow processer the underrun protection buffer might run out and with it the actuall buffer in the drive