I couldn't find any discussions on the matter, but I recently accidentally dropped some 24/48 audio files into a regular audio CD compilation using Nero 7. Nero scanned the files and allowed me to burn them to CD with no warnings at 40X. Never popped any messages up through the process and the disc plays no problem in my car CD player.
So WTF is going on here? Is Nero 7 dithering and re-sampling in real time? I mean, this disc sounds fine in my car CD player, which is the only place I listen to CD's and pretty much the only reason I dither/re-sample a copy to 16/44.1. But if Nero is gonna do it on the fly for me, why should I even bother wasting the space and $$$ on my computer/external drives/backup DVD's?