Contents ======== [0] Introduction [0-1] Legal noise (disclaimers and copyrights) [0-2] What does this FAQ cover? [0-3] What's new since last time? [0-4] Is the FAQ only available in English? [0-5] Appropriate use of the newsgroups [0-6] I'm having trouble, how do I ask for help? [0-7] Spelling and name conventions [0-8] Can I advertise on the FAQ pages? [0-9] Can you mail the FAQ to me? [1] Simple answers to simple questions [1-1] What's CD-R? CD-RW? [1-2] Are they identical to normal CDs? [1-3] Can I create new audio and data CDs? [1-4] Can I use it to copy my CDs? [1-5] How much can they hold? [1-6] Can I just copy files onto a CD-R like I would to a floppy? [1-7] What can you tell me about DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, etc? [1-8] What's the cheapest recorder and best place to buy media? [1-9] Can I get step-by-step installation and use instructions? [1-10] Can I download MP3s from the Internet and make an audio CD? [1-11] How do I learn more? [2] CD Encoding [2-1] How is the information physically stored? [2-2] What is XA? CDPLUS? CD-i? MODE1 vs MODE2? Red/yellow/blue book? [2-3] How do I know what format a disc is in? [2-4] How does CD-ROM copy protection work? [2-5] What's a multisession disc? [2-6] What are subcode channels? [2-7] Are the CD Identifier fields widely used? [2-8] How long does it take to burn a CD-R? [2-9] What's the difference between disc-at-once and track-at-once? [2-10] Differences between recording from an image and on-the-fly? [2-11] How does an audio CD player know to skip data tracks? [2-12] How does CD-RW compare to CD-R? [2-13] Can DVD drives read CD-Rs? [2-14] Should I wait for DVD-R? [2-15] What are "jitter" and "jitter correction"? [2-16] Where can I learn more about the history of CD and CD-R? [2-17] Why don't audio CDs use error correction? [2-18] How does CD-R compare to MiniDisc? [2-19] What does finalizing (and closing and fixating) do? [2-20] How are WAV/AIFF files converted into Red Book CD audio? [2-21] What does MultiRead mean? [2-22] If recording fails, is the disc usable? [2-23] Why do recorders insert 00 bytes at the start of audio tracks? [2-24] How many tracks can I have? How many files? [2-25] Will SCMS prevent me from making copies? [2-26] Is a serial number placed on the disc by the recorder? [2-27] What's a TOC? How does it differ from a directory? [2-28] What's an ISO? A CIF? BIN and CUE? [2-29] Why was 74 minutes chosen as the standard length? [2-30] Why is there a visibly unwritten strip on the CD-R? [3] How Do I... [3-1] How do I copy a data CD? [3-1-1] Why can't I just do a block copy like a floppy? [3-2] How do I extract tracks from, or copy all of, an audio CD? [3-3] How do I get rid of hisses and clicks on audio CDs? [3-4] How do I copy game console discs (e.g. Playstation, Dreamcast) [3-5] How do I get long filenames onto a disc? [3-5-1] ISO-9660 [3-5-2] Rock Ridge [3-5-3] HFS [3-5-4] Joliet [3-5-5] Romeo [3-5-6] ISO/IEC 13346 and ISO/IEC 13490 [3-6] How do I use a CD-i disc on a PC? [3-7] How can I extract disc and track titles from an audio CD? [3-8] How do I write more than 74 minutes of audio or 650MB of data? [3-8-1] How well do 80-minute CD-R blanks work? [3-8-2] How can I exceed the stated disc capacity ("overburning")? [3-9] How do I put photographs onto CD-ROM? [3-9-1] How do I create a PhotoCD? [3-9-2] How can I set up a photo album on CD-ROM? [3-10] How do I make a CD that will work on a PC or a Mac? [3-11] How do I access different sessions on a multi-session CD? [3-12] How do I transfer my records or cassettes to a CD? [3-13] How do I transfer an audio DAT tape to CD? [3-14] How do I put audio and data on the same CD? [3-15] How do I make a bootable CD-ROM? [3-16] How do I convert home movies into video on CD? [3-16-1] How do I create a VideoCD from AVI or MPEG files? [3-17] How can I burn several copies of the same disc simultaneously? [3-18] Can I make copies of copies? [3-19] How can I compress or encrypt data on a CD-ROM? [3-20] Can I do backups onto CD-R? [3-21] How do I automatically launch something? Change the CD icon? [3-22] How can I be sure the data was written correctly? [3-23] How do I copy Audio Karaoke/CD+G discs? [3-24] How do I copy a CD-ROM with 3GB of data on it? [3-25] How do I get my CD-R pressed into a real CD? [3-26] How do I make a CD without that two-second gap between tracks? [3-27] How can I record RealAudio, MIDI, and MP3 on CD? [3-28] How do I add CD-Text information? [3-29] Can I distribute a web site on a CD-ROM? [3-30] How do I clean my CD recorder? [3-31] Is it better to record at slower speeds? [3-32] Where do I get drivers for my CD recorder? [3-33] Can I copy discs without breaking the law? [3-34] Can CD-Rs recorded at 2x be read faster than 2x? [3-35] How do I make my CD-ROM work on the Mac, WinNT, and UNIX? [3-36] How do I put "hidden tracks" and negative indices on audio CDs? [3-37] Do I need to worry about viruses? [3-38] How do I cover up a bad audio track on a CD-R? [3-39] How do I duplicate this hard-to-copy game? [3-40] How do I erase or format a disc? [3-41] How do I equalize the volume for tracks from different sources? [3-42] How do I make a bit-for-bit copy of a disc? [3-43] How do I put punctuation or lower case in CD-ROM volume labels? [4] Problems [4-1] What does "buffer underrun" mean? [4-1-1] What's the deal with Windows Auto-Insert Notification (AIN)? [4-1-2] What's all this about Win95 VCACHE settings? [4-2] I can't get long Win95 filenames to work right [4-3] I can't read the multisession CD I just made [4-4] Write process keeps failing N minutes in [4-5] Why did my CD-R eject between the "test" and "write" passes? [4-6] My CD-ROM drive doesn't like *any* CD-R discs [4-7] How do I avoid having a ";1" on my ISO-9660 discs? [4-8] I keep getting SCSI timeout errors [4-9] I'm having trouble writing a complete disc [4-10] What's the CDD2000 Write Append Error / spring problem? [4-11] Getting errors reading the first (data) track on mixed-mode CD [4-12] My recorder ejects blank discs immediately [4-13] I'm getting complaints about power calibration [4-14] My Adaptec 2940 pauses after finding my recorder [4-15] I can't see all the files on the CD-R [4-16] My multi-session disc only has data from the last session [4-17] I'm getting SCSI errors [4-18] Why doesn't the copy of an audio CD sound the same? [4-18-1] Why doesn't the audio data on the copy match the original? [4-18-2] The audio data matches exactly, why do they sound different? [4-19] Digital audio extraction of a track is slightly off [4-20] I can't play extracted audio files by double-clicking in Win95 [4-21] I can't read an ISO-finalized packet-written disc [4-22] I'm finding corrupted files on the CD-ROMs I write [4-23] Having trouble playing an audio CD in a home or car player [4-24] Having trouble using a CD-ROM on a different machine [4-25] I can't copy a VideoCD [4-26] The test write succeeds, but the actual write fails [4-27] I can no longer erase a particular CD-RW disc [4-28] Trouble formatting CD-RW discs with DirectCD for Windows 2.0a [4-29] I can't write CD-Rs after installing Windows 98 [4-30] I can't use the copy of a CD-ROM after installing Windows 98 [4-31] The disc I was writing with DirectCD is now unreadable [4-32] I'm getting a message about 100 form transitions [4-33] My system hangs when I insert a blank disc [5] Hardware [5-1] Which CD recorder should I buy? [5-1-1] Yamaha [5-1-2] Sony [5-1-3] Smart & Friendly [5-1-4] Philips [5-1-5] Hewlett-Packard (HP) [5-1-6] Plasmon [5-1-7] Kodak [5-1-8] JVC [5-1-9] Pinnacle [5-1-10] Ricoh [5-1-11] Pioneer [5-1-12] Olympus [5-1-13] Optima [5-1-14] Mitsumi [5-1-15] DynaTek Automation Systems [5-1-16] Microboards of America [5-1-17] Micro Design International [5-1-18] MicroNet Technology [5-1-19] Procom Technology [5-1-20] Grundig [5-1-21] Plextor [5-1-22] Panasonic [5-1-23] Teac [5-1-24] Wearnes [5-1-25] Turtle Beach [5-1-26] Creative Labs [5-1-27] Taiyo Yuden [5-1-28] Memorex [5-1-29] Hi-Val [5-1-30] Dysan [5-1-31] Traxdata [5-1-32] Acer [5-1-33] Waitec [5-1-34] BTC [5-1-35] Caravelle (Sanyo) [5-1-36] Micro Solutions [5-1-37] Pacific Digital [5-1-38] Iomega [5-1-39] Goldstar [5-1-40] AOpen [5-2] How long do CD recorders last? [5-3] What kind of PC is recommended? [5-4] What kind of Mac is recommended? [5-5] Which standard CD-ROM drives work well with CD-R? [5-6] What kind of HD should I use with CD-R? Must it be AV-rated? [5-7] What SCSI adapter should I use with a CD recorder? [5-7-1] Adaptec - 1510/1522A/1540/1542CF [5-7-2] Adaptec - 2840/2910/2920/2930/2940 [5-7-3] ASUS - SC-200/SC-875 [5-7-4] Diamond - FirePort 20/40/40dual [5-7-5] Adaptec - 1350/1460/1480 [5-8] Can I use a CD recorder as a general-purpose reader? [5-9] To caddy or not to caddy? [5-10] Can I burn CDs from a Jaz drive? Tape drive? [5-11] What is "Running OPC"? [5-12] What's the story with stand-alone audio CD recorders? [5-13] What's firmware? How and why should I upgrade my recorder? [5-14] How well do ATAPI (IDE), parallel-port, and USB recorders work? [5-15] How should I configure my system for an ATAPI CD recorder? [5-16] How important is CD-RW? [5-17] What is an "MMC Compliant" recorder? [5-18] What should I use to record from a UNIX system? [5-19] What do I need to record from a laptop? [5-20] I need to make *lots* of copies [5-21] How do I connect two drives to one sound card in a PC? [6] Software [6-1] Which software should I use? [6-1-1] Adaptec - Easy-CD, Easy-CD Pro, and Easy-CD Pro MM ("ECD") [6-1-2] Adaptec - CD-Creator ("CDC") [6-1-3] Gear Multimedia - GEAR [6-1-4] Adaptec - Toast [6-1-5] CeQuadrat - WinOnCD [6-1-6] Young Minds, Inc. - SimpliCD [6-1-7] Golden Hawk Technology (Jeff Arnold) - CDRWIN [6-1-8] Optical Media International - QuickTOPiX CD [6-1-9] Creative Digital Research - CDR Publisher [6-1-10] mkisofs [6-1-11] Asimware Innovations - MasterISO [6-1-12] Newtech Infosystems, Inc. (NTI) - CD-Maker and CD-Copy [6-1-13] Cirrus Technology/Unite - CDMaker [6-1-14] Hohner Midia - Red Roaster [6-1-15] Dataware Technologies - CD Author [6-1-16] CreamWare - Triple DAT [6-1-17] MicroTech - MasterMaker [6-1-18] Angela Schmidt & Patrick Ohly - MakeCD [6-1-19] Optical Media International - Audiotracer [6-1-20] Jörg Schilling - cdrecord [6-1-21] Prassi Software - CD Rep and CD Right [6-1-22] Nero Software - SubIgnition [6-1-23] Dieter Baron and Armin Obersteiner - CD Tools [6-1-24] PoINT - CDwrite [6-1-25] PoINT - CDaudio Plus [6-1-26] Adaptec - Easy CD Creator Deluxe ("ECDC") [6-1-27] Padus - DiscJuggler [6-1-28] Ahead Software - Nero [6-1-29] CharisMac Engineering - Discribe [6-1-30] István Dósa - DFY$VMSCD [6-1-31] RSJ Software - RSJ CD Writer [6-1-32] James Pearson - mkhybrid [6-1-33] JVC - Personal Archiver Plus [6-1-34] Adaptec - Jam [6-1-35] VOB - CD-Wizard [6-1-36] Sonic Foundry - CD Architect [6-1-37] Eberhard Heuser-Hofmann - CDWRITE [6-1-38] CeQuadrat - JustAudio! [6-1-39] Digidesign - MasterList CD [6-1-40] Thomas Niederreiter - X-CD-Roast [6-1-41] Jesper Pedersen - BurnIT [6-1-42] Jens Fangmeier - Feurio! [6-1-43] Asimware Innovations - HotBurn [6-1-44] DARTECH, Inc - DART CD-Recorder [6-1-45] Interactive Information R&D - CDEveryWhere [6-1-46] DnS Development - BurnIt [6-1-47] Andreas Müller - CDRDAO [6-1-48] Tracer Technologies - (various) [6-1-49] Elaborate Bytes - CloneCD [6-1-50] IgD - Fireburner [6-1-51] Jodian Systems & Software - CDWRITE [6-2] What other useful software is there? [6-2-1] Optical Media International - Disc-to-Disk [6-2-2] Gilles Vollant - WinImage [6-2-3] Asimware Innovations - AsimCDFS [6-2-4] Steven Grimm - WorkMan [6-2-5] Cyberdyne Software - CD Worx [6-2-6] Paul Crowley CD-ROM Productions - CD-R Diagnostic [6-2-7] DC Software Design - CDRCue Cuesheet Editor [6-2-8] Astarte - CD-Copy [6-2-9] Frank Wolf - CDR Media Code Identifier [6-2-10] Logiciels & Services Duhem - MacImage [6-2-11] Erik Deppe - CD Speed [6-3] What is packet writing software? [6-3-1] Adaptec - DirectCD [6-3-2] CeQuadrat - PacketCD [6-3-3] SmartStorage - SmartCD for Recording [6-3-4] Gutenberg Systems - FloppyCD [6-3-5] VOB - InstantWrite [6-3-6] Prassi - abCD [6-4] What's UDF? [6-5] Do I want to do packet writing? [6-6] I want to write my own CD recording software [6-6-1] PoINT - CDarchive SDK [6-6-2] Golden Hawk Technology (Jeff Arnold) [6-6-3] Gear Multimedia - GEAR.wrks [6-6-4] VOB - CD-Wizard SDK [6-6-5] Dialog Medien - ACDwrite.OCX [6-7] What software is available for doing backups? [6-7-1] Adaptec - Easy-CD Backup [6-7-2] D.J. Murdoch - DOSLFNBK [6-7-3] Dantz - Retrospect [6-7-4] Veritas - Backup Exec [6-7-5] Ghost Software - Ghost [6-7-6] PowerQuest - Drive Image Special Edition for CD-R [6-7-7] Centered Systems - Second Copy [6-7-8] FileWare - FileSync [6-7-9] Novastor - NovaDISK [6-7-10] Adaptec - Take Two [6-7-11] NTI - Backup NOW! [7] Media [7-1] What kinds of media are there? [7-2] Does the media matter? [7-3] Who manufactures CD-R media? [7-4] Which kind of media should I use? [7-5] How long do CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? [7-6] How much data can they hold? 650MB? 680MB? [7-7] Is it okay to write on or stick a label on a disc? [7-8] How do CD-Rs behave when microwaved? [7-9] What can I do with CD-R discs that failed during writing? [7-10] Where can I find jewel cases and CD sleeves? [7-11] What's "unbranded" CD-R media? [7-12] How do I repair a scratched CD? [7-13] What's this about a Canadian CD-R tax? [7-14] Can I get 80mm (3-inch "cd single") CD-Rs? [7-15] Where can I find CD-ROM business cards and "shaped" CDs? [8] Net Resources and Vendor Lists [8-1] Information resources [8-2] Magazines and other publications [8-3] Net.vendors [9] Contributors The last-modified date of each section is shown below the Subject line. The date format used is YYYY/MM/DD. The date stamps were added on 1998/04/06, so you won't find any older than that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: [0] Introduction Subject: [0-1] Legal noise (disclaimers and copyrights) (1999/02/09) This FAQ is Copyright (C) 1998-1999 by Andy McFadden, All Rights Reserved. Free distribution of the this FAQ is encouraged, as are conversions to HTML or other formats and translation to foreign languages, so long as no content is removed, and additions are clearly marked. The plain ASCII text and www.fadden.com HTML versions aren't restricted, but other conversions might be (the content is free, the presentation might not be). Check with the publisher. The date and version number on the FAQ *are* considered part of the content that must not be removed. I occasionally get messages from people who don't realize that the copy they're reading is more than a year and a half old. Caveat lector: the information here is derived from Usenet postings, e-mail, and information on WWW sites. As such, it may well be DEAD WRONG, and you are encouraged to verify it for yourself. I take no responsibility for damaged hardware, CD-Rs turned into coasters or frisbees, time lost, or any other damages you incur as a result of reading this FAQ. Information on specific models of hardware and software is based on *opinions* of other users, not scientific studies. I am not an expert in this (or any other) field. Everything here could be a total malicious lie, and should be treated as such. You have been warned. I don't get paid to plug anybody's software or equipment. The sections on "what XXX should I buy" are not here because I want to sway purchases one way or another, they're here because the questions are asked *a lot*, and the answers are pretty consistent. You are invited and encouraged to investigate the capabilities and reputations of all products. The various product and company names are trademarks of their respective companies. Visit http://www.clari.net/brad/copymyths.html for a mini-FAQ on copyright laws. Subject: [0-2] What does this FAQ cover? (1999/03/07) This document attempts to answer Frequently Asked Questions about CD-Recordable technology and related fields. It is a Usenet newsgroup FAQ, updated and posted around the middle of each month. The main foci are explaining CD-R technology, describing hardware and software solutions for creating audio CDs and CD-ROMs, and helping people find solutions to common problems. The FAQ is heavily biased toward PCs and computer-based recorders, because that's what I'm most familiar with, but I have made an effort to include useful information for owners of other equipment. I don't anticipate the section on stand-alone audio CD recorders expanding greatly, because they're far simpler to operate than computer-based recorders, and most of the "must know" information about them is more appropriate in an FAQ on stereo systems or studio recording. I do try to address deficiencies in Macintosh coverage. I don't usually address questions that can be phrased, "how do I make my software do this?" The answers to those should be in the manual that came with your software. In general, this is a collection of answers to specific questions, not a "how to" guide. I also don't try to track moving targets, like CD recorder firmware versions or software versions unless a specific release is especially interesting. Ditto for which recorders work with which packet-writing solutions, or which recorders can overburn. This FAQ does not, and will not, cover DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD+RW, or any of the other formats in the ever-expanding DVD morass. Recordable DVD will likely be an altogether different proposition, and will probably require its own FAQ (presumably written by somebody else!). You will not find a lot of detail about "backing up" copy-protected software, or where to find unlock codes or "warez". There are many web sites that explain these matters at length. Subject: [0-3] What's new since last time? (1999/12/19) All sections are tagged with a modification date, so you can see how long ago something was revised. If you want to know *everything* that has changed since last time, you can get a set of "context diffs" from http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/txtdiffs.zip. Highlights: After a two-month break, I think I'm caught up with the horde of new products. A little late for the Christmas buying spree we so enjoy in The States, but better late than never. Inserted section (1-10). Added sections (2-30), (5-1-40), (5-7-5), (5-19), (5-20), (5-21), (6-1-49), (6-1-50), (6-1-51), and (6-6-5). Subject: [0-4] Is the FAQ only available in English? (1999/09/12) There are a few translations available. Italian, by Simone Parca: http://digilander.iol.it/cdrfaq/ (formerly at http://users.iol.it/parsi/). French, by Marc Kergomard: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/marc.kergomard/gravure.html. Chinese, by Alex Gao: http://www.cdwell.org/. French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish translations can be done through http://babelfish.altavista.digital.com/cgi-bin/translate. This is an automatic language translator that is HTML-aware. It only translates the first part of each document, so it's not entirely helpful if you just want to read a translation, but it may make doing a full translation much easier. (The translation is pretty good for an automatic translator, but is still pretty rough. I don't want to post a translation that is inaccurate or misleading, so I'm not going to run the FAQ parts through babelfish automatically.) If you're interested in translating this FAQ, you are welcome to do so, but please respect the amount of work that I and others have put into it. Don't strip out sections, remove author attributions, or hide the revision date of the document. I don't think the terms in section (0-1) are terribly restrictive. If, for whatever reason, you can't keep up with every update of the English version, that's fine; all I ask is that you include a link to the www.fadden.com version, so that the current information is easily locateable. (Some commonly updated things, like the list of recorders in section (5-1), don't need much translation.) If you don't want to translate a particular section, just leave it in English. If you want to start with an HTML version, use the pages from http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/. If you prefer to do the translation on a text document, and you're converting to an iso-latin language, the "faq2html" converter that I use can be found in the "downloads" section on http://www.fadden.com/. If you do a translation, let me know and I'll put the URL here. Subject: [0-5] Appropriate use of the newsgroups (1998/04/06) This FAQ covers the three newsgroups in the comp.publish.cdrom hierarchy, one for software, one for hardware, and one for multimedia. The names of the newsgroups imply that the intended topics are related to publishing material on CD-ROMs, but the current discussions cover most everything related to CD-Recordable devices. Here are a few guidelines. These aren't hard and fast rules -- nobody died and put me in charge of making the rules -- but if you're not sure what the appropriate subject matter is then this may be helpful. news:comp.publish.cdrom.hardware is the most popular of the groups. Appropriate material includes questions about past, current, and future CD-R devices. Asking for installation help or advice on what to buy is appropriate, as are questions about related hardware like SCSI adapters and CD-ROM drives. Some related newsgroups are: news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.systems news:alt.comp.periphs.cdr news:comp.periphs.scsi news:alt.cd-rom news:linux.apps.cdwrite news:comp.publish.cdrom.software is for discussions about software used to prepare material for and create CDs and CD-ROMs. Questions about how to do things with a specific piece of software belong here, as do "the CD-R software from XXX won't recognize my drive", and "does a program exist that does YYY". Some related newsgroups are: news:alt.cd-rom news:linux.apps.cdwrite news:comp.publish.cdrom.multimedia is for discussions about creating multimedia products on CD-ROMs. Questions about multimedia authoring software belong here, as do most production-type questions, e.g. "where can I go to get my CD pressed with jewel cases and glossy inserts?" Related newsgroups are: news:comp.multimedia news:rec.video.desktop news:rec.video.professional news:rec.photo.digital news:misc.education.multimedia Please try to keep cross-posting to a minimum. Broadcasting questions to 3 or 4 related newsgroups will increase the noise level and probably won't get you more answers. Some general rules apply to all of the comp.publish.cdrom.* groups: (1) Piracy of CD-ROM software or CDs: CD recorders can be used to make copies of copyrighted material, and while backups of data are legal, making or accepting copies from others most likely isn't. Whatever your opinion of the matter, software piracy and other copyright violations are illegal in most countries in the world, so requests and/or advertisements for pirated material should be kept off the newsgroup. Also, please don't start or participate in a debate about whether or not software piracy is bad. There have been hundreds of such debates over the past several years, and the only thing that either side has managed to prove is that piracy debates are a tremendous waste of time. (2) Personal CD-R hardware and software sales: strictly speaking, these groups aren't appropriate for selling off your old hardware or software. Such things are best left in misc.forsale.computers.*, ba.market.computers, and related groups. Since many readers are in the market for new hardware, a limited number of clearly marked articles are tolerated. The common Usenet convention is to use "FS: HP4020i $400 obo" for "For Sale" messages and "WTB: HP4020i" for "Want To Buy" messages. (3) CD-R product advertising: these groups by their nature are somewhat commercial. Many readers are in the market for new hardware or CD-R media, and for this reason a *limited* amount of retail/wholesale advertising is tolerated but discouraged. If you *clearly* mark your postings as advertisements, you will get relatively few complaints. Posting frequent and useless followups just to broadcast your 20-line signature will get you flamed and subsequently ignored. Feel free to send mail to people who post questions about product pricing and availability, but please don't create mailing lists and broadcast to everyone who posts. (4) Other advertising: while it's certainly the case that most or all of the readers have a CD-ROM drive on a computer, the same could be said of almost every person reading news from a home computer today. Please keep ads in newsgroups that are more appropriate. Advertising the latest educational, game, or adult CD is inappropriate for these groups, as are "hot new Cyrix 686 PC" posts. Subtle attempts to advertise web sites ("golly, this looked really neat, so I thought I'd tell everyone") are more obvious than you might think. (5) Spam: you cannot make money fast. That's life, get used to it. If the message involves putting your name at the top of a list of 5 or 10 people, don't post it. If it has an 800 or 888 number that a reader would call to hear more about your unique business opportunity, don't post it. (6) Job postings: looking for job candidates on these newsgroups is a tolerated but generally futile exercise. Most of the readers are looking for or offering help on CD-Rs, not searching for a job. Try one of the other groups, like misc.jobs.offered. (7) Binaries: as with most Usenet newsgroups, posting binary files (large or small) is inappropriate. If you want to make a binary file available to Usenet readers, send it to an appropriate alt.binaries newsgroup, and just post a pointer to it in the other group(s). One final note: bear in mind that these groups are read by people all over the world. If you're looking for local retailers, be sure to specify what "local" is for you. Posting in English is the best way to ensure that you will get a response, but the readership is diverse enough that you will likely get a reply no matter what language you use. If you want to quote prices, specify the currency to avoid confusion (e.g. US$300 or CAN$300 or Y30000 or ...). Subject: [0-6] I'm having trouble, how do I ask for help? (1998/04/06) The first thing to do is look at the web pages for the products you're using. Sometimes there will be software or firmware updates, or pages with information on common problems. Scanning through news archives on servers like www.altavista.digital.com or www.dejanews.com will often turn up relevant material. If you don't find anything, calling or sending an e-mail message to the technical support department for the product that is giving you trouble is a good second step. If you want to contact other users, posting a message to one of the Usenet newsgroups is a reasonable thing to do. You will get faster, more accurate responses to questions if you include enough detail in your mail message or news posting. For most problems having to do with recording, you need to specify: (1) Platform. PC, Mac, Sun, whatever. (2) Operating system, with version. Win95, Win98, WinNT3.5, WinNT4, etc. Mention any interesting goodies, e.g. IE4 Active Desktop. (3) CD-R brand, model, and firmware revision, e.g. "Yamaha CDR-102 v1.00". (4) Other relevant hardware details. If the recorder comes in SCSI and IDE or parallel-port versions, specify which you were using, and what sort of interface was used (e.g. "SCSI, Adaptec 2940U"). For SCSI device problems, listing the other devices on the chain may help. (5) Software in use, including version numbers, e.g. "Easy-CD Pro 95 v1.2". (6) Brand of media. Be sure to specify CD-R or CD-RW. (7) What were you trying to do? What specific steps did you take to go about it? Have you tried anything to correct the problem, and if so, what were the results? (8) Specific error messages seen. Write down *exactly* what it says, add any numeric error codes along with it. Be sure to write down what it *said*, not what you think it *meant*. Add your interpretation of events only after you've gotten all the details down. Try to include any details which you think might be relevant. Take the time to organize your report so that it is easy to understand. And PLEASE check this FAQ for the answers first! Much of the volume on the newsgroups is from people whose questions are already answered here. Subject: [0-7] Spelling and name conventions (1999/07/22) Whenever possible, the FAQ tries to use the correct spelling and terminology. Errors may be reported to the FAQ maintainer, but bear in mind that I don't modify the contents of quoted material, the names of products, or the titles of articles and web pages. Some common mistakes are: (1) Writing "CDROM" instead of "CD-ROM". It should be CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, and CD-DA, not CDROM, CDR, CDRW, CDDA. (2) Writing "disk" instead of "disc". The words have the same meaning, but are spelled differently in different countries, just like "color" and "colour". By convention, CDs are called "discs", while hard drives and floppies are called "disks". "Disc-to-disc" copies are different from "disk-to-disc" and "disc-to-disk" copies! (3) Referring to a sector as a "frame". On a CD, the basic allocation unit is the 2352-byte sector (sometimes called a "block"). A "frame" is a structure at a lower level. There are 24 bytes in a frame, and 98 frames in a sector (24*98 = 2352). Subject: [0-8] Can I advertise on the FAQ pages? (1999/10/10) Not really. In an effort to keep the FAQ fair and impartial, I don't accept advertising. Vendors with relevant products can have URLs added to appropriate sections of the FAQ. Vendors without URLs for their products aren't usually listed. Products that solve specific problems, such as recovering data from damaged discs, repairing scratches, or removing pops and clicks from digitized audio tracks, will be listed under the appropriate topic. CD recording software and hardware vendors can get their own sub-section. Vendors that don't fit in a specific category will be listed in section (8). Subject: [0-9] Can you mail the FAQ to me? (1999/09/24) I'm not set up to act as a mail server, but some other places are. You can request a copy of the FAQ from rtfm.mit.edu's mail server like this: To: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu Subject: foo send faqs/cdrom/cd-recordable/part1 send faqs/cdrom/cd-recordable/part2 send faqs/cdrom/cd-recordable/part3 send faqs/cdrom/cd-recordable/part4 The mail server breaks each part into smaller pieces, so you will end up with about a dozen mail messages when all is done. You can get a full FAQ list on "accessing the Internet through e-mail" from http://www.faqs.org/faqs/internet-services/access-via-email/ or by mail request: To: mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu Subject: foo send usenet/news.answers/internet-services/access-via-email Don't put anything else in the body of these messages; just one or more "send" lines. The "subject" line is ignored. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: [1] Simple answers to simple questions (1998/04/06) These are intended to be brief (if somewhat incomplete) answers to basic questions. More detailed information can be found later in the FAQ. For example, section (1-5), "How much can they hold?", is answered in far more detail in section (7-6). Subject: [1-1] What's CD-R? CD-RW? (1999/12/19) CD-R is short for "CD-Recordable". Recordable CDs are WORM (Write Once, Read Multiple) media that work just like standard CDs. The advantage of CD-R over other types of optical media is that you can use the discs with a standard CD player. The disadvantage is that you can't reuse a disc. A related technology called CD-Rewritable (CD-RW) allows you to erase discs and reuse them, but the CD-RW media doesn't work in all players. CD-Rewritable drives are able to write both CD-R and CD-RW discs. All CD recorders can read CDs and CD-ROMs, just like a standard CD-ROM drive. Subject: [1-2] Are they identical to normal CDs? (1998/10/07) The CDs you buy in a store are pressed from a mold. CD-Rs are burned with a laser. They may look different (often green, gold, or blue instead of silver), they're less tolerant of extreme temperatures and sunlight, and they're more susceptible to physical damage. Whether CD-Rs or pressed CDs last longer is difficult to answer. While they're not physically identical, they work just the same. Some CD players and CD-ROM drives aren't as good at reading CD-R and CD-RW discs as they are at reading pressed CDs, but by and large they work just fine. By the way, you can't write data onto pressed discs. Buying a bunch of old CDs in the hopes of writing new stuff onto them is a bad idea. You have to buy blank CD-R or CD-RW media. Subject: [1-3] Can I create new audio and data CDs? (1998/05/16) Yes. You can create CD-ROMs from data on your hard drive, and you can create new audio CDs from anything you can record into a WAV or AIFF sound file. With an audio-only CD-Recorder, which hooks up to your stereo system instead of your computer, you can record directly from CD, cassette, DAT, or whatever. The CD-ROMs you produce will play in ordinary CD-ROM drives, and the audio CDs you create will work in your home or car CD player. Writing to CD-Rs and CD-RWs requires a special drive. You can't write CDs with an ordinary CD-ROM drive. Subject: [1-4] Can I use it to copy my CDs? (1998/04/06) Yes, both audio and data CDs can be duplicated. You can even create audio CDs that are compilations of other audio CDs (perhaps a personal "best of" disc). Bear in mind that most CDs are protected by copyright laws. Subject: [1-5] How much can they hold? (1999/09/20) About 74 minutes of audio, or about 650MB of data. Some CD-R blanks can hold 80 minutes of audio, or about 700MB of data. Subject: [1-6] Can I just copy files onto a CD-R like I would to a floppy? (1998/04/06) Yes and no. The process can be a bit more involved than that, and requires special software that (usually) comes bundled with the drive. With "packet writing" software, and a recorder that supports it, you can treat a CD-R or CD-RW disc like a floppy. Generally speaking, you can only write to each part of the disc once, so deleting files doesn't gain any space. There are other limitations as well. With more traditional software -- necessary if you want the broadest possible compatibility -- you usually end up writing everything to the disc all at once. When you're doing the writing you can't interrupt the drive, and you can't reclaim the space you've used. If you want to write your files in smaller bunches, you lose a fair bit of space every time you stop and start again. Subject: [1-7] What can you tell me about DVD, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-RW, etc? (1999/10/10) Nothing. This FAQ is about CD-R and CD-RW, and only crosses over into DVD when the two technologies rub up against each other. To learn more about DVD, try http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html. Subject: [1-8] What's the cheapest recorder and best place to buy media? (1999/02/07) I don't know. I don't track prices. There are web sites dedicated to finding the lowest prices, and you can do a little research with a web browser, starting perhaps with the vendors listed in section (8-3). Subject: [1-9] Can I get step-by-step installation and use instructions? (1999/02/07) Yes, from the manual that comes with your recorder and software. There's no information of this type in the FAQ because there are far too many permutations of hardware and software, and the instructions would have to be updated with every new release of the software. Subject: [1-10] Can I download MP3s from the Internet and make an audio CD? (1999/12/18) Yup. You can download MP3s, write them to a CD, and play it in anything that handles audio CDs. In fact, many of the popular CD recording programs will decode the MP3s for you. It's also possible to take songs from a CD and convert them to MP3s for use in an MP3 player. Section (3-27) has more details. Subject: [1-11] How do I learn more? (1998/05/16) This FAQ contains a great deal of information, but it's geared toward answering specific questions rather than providing a general education. Some of the other net resources are more like a tutorial than a Q&A list, and may provide a better starting point. Mike Richter has a primer on CD-R at http://resource.simplenet.com/. Octave's CD-Recordable Handbook is available in HTML from http://www.octave.com/library/ricoh/cdrhandbook.html. Adaptec has a lot of information at http://www.adaptec.com/cdrec/. I get a lot of questions about digital audio extraction that are answered at http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~psyche/cdda/. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: [2] CD Encoding (1998/04/06) CD fundamentals. Subject: [2-1] How is the information physically stored? (1998/08/16) From _The Compact Disc Handbook, 2nd edition_ by Ken Pohlmann, 1992 (ISBN 0-89579-300-8): "Write-once media is manufactured similarly to conventional playback-only discs. As with regular CDs, they employ a polycarbonate substrate, a reflective layer, and a protective top layer. Sandwiched between the substrate and reflective layer, however, is a recording layer composed of an organic dye. .... Unlike regular CDs, a pre-grooved spiral track is used to guide the recording laser along the spiral track; this greatly simplifies recorder hardware design and ensures disc compatibility." Your basic CD-R is layered like this, from top to bottom: [optional] label [optional] scratch-resistant and/or printable coating UV-cured lacquer Reflective layer (24K gold or a silver-colored alloy) Organic polymer dye Polycarbonate substrate (the clear plastic part) Yes, it's real gold in "green" and "gold" CDs, but if you hold a CD-R up to a light source you'll notice that it's thin enough to see through (the gold layer is between 50 and 100nm thick). Something to bear in mind is that the data is closest to the label side of the CD, not the clear plastic side that the data is read from. If the CD-R doesn't have a hard top coating such as Kodak's "Infoguard", it's fairly easy to scratch the top surface and render the CD-R unusable. A laser in the CD recorder creates a series of holes in the disc's dye layer called "pits". The spaces between the pits are called "lands". The pattern of pits and lands on the disc encodes the information and allows it to be retrieved on an audio or computer CD player. Discs are written from the inside of the disc outward. On a CD-R you can verify this by looking at the disc after you've written to it. The spiral track makes 22,188 revolutions around the CD, with roughly 600 track revolutions per millimeter as you move outward. If you "unwound" the spiral, it would be about 3.5 miles long. The construction of a CD-RW is different: [optional] label [optional] scratch-resistant and/or printable coating UV-cured lacquer Reflective layer Upper dielectric layer Recording layer (the part that changes form) Lower dielectric layer Polycarbonate substrate (the clear plastic part) See the net references section for pointers to more data (especially http://www.cd-info.com/). http://www.pc.be.philips.com/cdrw/general.html has some nice pictures, as does http://www.nswc.navy.mil/cosip/nov97/cots1197-2.shtml. Subject: [2-2] What is XA? CDPLUS? CD-i? MODE1 vs MODE2? Red/yellow/blue book? (1999/02/07) See the net references section for pointers. The "CD Related Info" section on http://www.cdarchive.com/ has useful data, as does http://www.cd-info.com/ and the alt.cd-rom FAQ pages. A quick summary of standards: Red Book = physical format for audio CDs (a/k/a CD-DA) Yellow Book = physical format for data CDs Green Book = physical format for CD-i Orange Book = physical format for recordable CDs Part I = CD-MO (Magneto-Optical) Part II = CD-WO (Write-Once; includes "hybrid" spec for PhotoCD) Part III = CD-RW (ReWritable) White Book = format for VideoCD Blue Book = CD Extra (occasionally used to refer to LaserDisc format) CD Extra = a two-session CD, 1st is CD-DA, 2nd is data (a/k/a CD Plus) CD-ROM/XA = eXtended Architecture, a bridge between Yellow Book and CD-i MODE-1 = standard Yellow Book sectors MODE-2 = may be of form-1 or form-2 FORM-1 = 2048 bytes of data, with error correction, for data FORM-2 = 2324 bytes of data, no ecc, for audio/video ISO-9660 = file layout standard (evolved from High Sierra format) Rock Ridge = extensions allowing long filenames and UNIX-style symlinks CD-RFS = Sony's incremental packet-writing filesystem CD-UDF = industry-standard incremental packet-writing filesystem CD-Text = Philips' std for encoding disc and track data on audio CDs In case the above seems straightforward, Yellow Book actually defines both mode 1 and mode 2, where mode 2 contains 2336 user data bytes. Green Book defines mode 2 form 1 and form 2. This means that mode 2 sectors may be "formless" and are sometimes called Yellow Book mode 2. If you're not entirely put off by all this, pay a visit to http://www.emediapro.net/AprEM/parker4.html. See http://www.licensing.philips.com/ if you want to buy copies of the standards. They're not cheap! You can download some of them from http://www.ecma.ch/. ECMA-119 describes ISO-9660, and ECMA-130 sounds a lot like "yellow book" if you say it slowly. Subject: [2-3] How do I know what format a disc is in? (1998/12/20) You can usually tell by looking at the packaging and/or the disc itself: - CD-DA discs will have a "Compact Disc Digital Audio" logo; - CD+G discs will have the words "CD Graphics"; - CD-i discs will have a "Compact Disc Interactive" logo; - VideoCD discs will have a "Compact Disc Digital Video" logo and/or the words "VideoCD". VideoCD is different from CD-Video. CD-V is an analog format, like LaserDisc, and the video can't be viewed with a CD-ROM drive. Subject: [2-4] How does CD-ROM copy protection work? (1999/12/19) There are several possibilities; as yet no developers have come forward and announced what they're doing (for obvious reasons). For anyone interested in protecting their own discs: don't bother. Copy protection, on the whole, does not work. If you have a major application, such as a game or CAD package, you may want to consider one of the commercially licensed schemes listed later, or (heaven forbid) the use of a dongle. A simple and commonly seen technique is to increase the length of several files on the CD so that they appear to be hundreds of megabytes long. This is accomplished by setting the file length in the disc image to be much larger than it really is. The file actually overlaps with many other files. So long as the application knows the true file length, the software will work fine. If the user tries to copy the files onto their hard drive, or do a file-by-file disc copy, the attempt will fail because the CD will appear to hold a few GB of data. (In practice this doesn't foil pirates, because they always do image copies.) One possible implementation, given sufficient control over the reader and mastering software, is to write faulty data into the ECC portion of a data sector. Standard CD-ROM hardware will automatically correct the "errors", writing a different set of data onto the target disc. The reader then loads the entire sector as raw data, without doing error correction. If it can't find the original uncorrected data, it knows that it's reading a "corrected" duplicate. This is really only viable on systems like game consoles, where the drive mechanism and firmware are well defined. A less sophisticated but nonetheless effective method is to press a silver CD with data out beyond where a 74-minute CD can write. Copying the disc would then require special CD-R blanks, moving the data and hacking the disc to compensate, or pressing silver discs with the pirated data. If taken too far, though, the disc can become unreadable on some drives. An overburned 80-minute blank (sections (3-8-1) and (3-8-2)) can hold about as much as you can reliably fit on a disc anyway. The approach PC software houses have taken lately is to use nonstandard gaps between audio tracks and leave index marks in unexpected places. These discs are uncopyable by most software, and it may be impossible to duplicate them on drives that don't support disc-at-once recording (see section (2-9)). Another method gaining popularity is non-standard discs with a track shorter than 4 seconds. Most recording software, and in fact some recorders, will either refuse to copy a disc with such a track, or will attempt to do so and fail. A protected application would check for the presence and size of the track in question. Some recorders may succeed, however, so this isn't foolproof. (In one case, a recorder could write tracks that were slightly over three seconds, but refused to write tracks that were only one second. There may be a limit below which no recorder will write.) Putting multiple data tracks interleaved with audio tracks on a CD will confuse some disc copiers. Sometimes the copy of a disc will have a different volume label. This usually only happens with file-by-file copies, not disc image copies, so checking the disc name is marginally useful but not very effective. Modifying the TOC so that the disc appears to be larger than it really is will convince some copy programs that the source disc is too large. The Laserlok system from http://www.diskxpress.com/ claims to be able to prevent unauthorized disc duplication at a low cost. (VOB's CD-Wizard, listed in section (6-1-35), claims to be able to copy them.) A recent innovation is TTR Technology's DiscGuard (http://www.ttr.co.il/). They claim to be able to write a signature onto pressed CDs and CD-Rs that is detectable by all CD-ROM drives but isn't reproducible without special hardware. A program could use this for copy protection by checking for the presence of the signature, and refusing to run if it's not there. Sony DADC is promoting a simliar product called Securom. Some information is at http://www.sonydadc.com/hotnews/secu_fra.htm. Yet another variant is C-Dilla's SafeDisc[tm]; see http://www.c-dilla.com/ for more. On the other side of the table, CloneCD (section (6-1-49)) claims to be able to copy most or all of these discs given the right combination of reader and writer. All of the above applies to CD-ROM discs. For audio CDs, a TTR product called MusicGuard (http://www.MusicGuard.com/) claims to do the trick. See also the "CD Protections" frame on http://www.esware.net/empire/hardware/cdrom/cd.htm. A separate but related issue is "counterfeit protection", where the publisher wants to make it easy to detect mass-produced duplicates. An example of this is Microsoft's placement of holograms on the hub of their recent CD-ROMs. Subject: [2-5] What's a multisession disc? (1999/06/05) A session is a recorded segment that may contain one or more tracks of any type. The CD recorder doesn't have to write the entire session at once, but the last session on a disc must be "closed" before a standard audio CD or CD-ROM player will recognize it. Additional sessions can be added until the *disc* is closed or there's no space left. Multisession writing was first used on PhotoCD discs, to allow additional pictures to be appended. Today it's most often used with "linked" multisession discs, and occasionally for CD-Extra discs. These require a bit more explanation. When you put a data CD into your CD-ROM drive, the OS finds the last session on the disc and reads the directory from it. (Well, that's how it's supposed to work. Depending on your operating system and CD-ROM drive, you may get different results.) If the CD is ISO-9660 format - which it almost certainly is unless it's a Macintosh CD written in HFS - the directory entries can point at any file on the CD, no matter which session it was written in. Most of the popular CD creation programs allow you to "link" one or more earlier sessions to the session currently being burned. This allows the files from the previous sessions to appear in the last session without taking up any additional space on the CD (except for the directory entry). You can also "remove" or "replace" files, by putting the new version into the last session, and not including a link to the older version. In contrast, when you put an audio CD into a typical CD player, it only looks at the first session. For this reason, multisession writes don't work for audio CDs, but as it happens this limitation can be turned into an advantage. See section (3-14) for details. This limitation does *not* mean you have to write an entire audio CD all at once; see section (2-9) for an overview of track-at-once writing. (Some audio CD players do seem to be able to recognize all of the tracks on a multisession audio disc. Most do not. The only way to know for sure is to try and see. If you are planning to give an audio CD you create to others, it would be wise to write it in a single session.) Note that mixing MODE-1 (CD-ROM) and MODE-2 (CD-ROM/XA) sessions on a single disc isn't allowed. You could create such a thing, but many CD-ROM drives will have a hard time recognizing it. See also http://www.adaptec.com/support/faqs/multisession.html, which goes into more depth. Discs written with packets are an entirely different story. See section (6-3). Subject: [2-6] What are subcode channels? (1998/04/06) There are eight subcode channels (P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W). The exact method of encoding is beyond the scope of this FAQ, but it should be noted that the data is distributed uniformly across the entire CD, and each channel can hold a total of about 4MB. The P subcode channel can be controlled with the JVC/Pinnacle recorders, but apparently isn't used for much. The Q subcode channel includes useful information, which can be read and written on many recorders. The user data area contains three types of subcode-Q data: position information, media catalog number, and ISRC code. Other forms are found in the lead-in, and are used to enable multisession and describe the TOC (table of contents). The position information is used by audio CD players to display the current time, and has track/index information. This can be controlled when doing Disc-At-Once recording. The ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is used by the recording industry. It states the country of origin, owner, year of issue, and serial number of tracks, and may be different for each track. It's optional; many CDs don't use this. The media catalog number is similar, but is constant per disc. Note these are different from the UPC codes. See http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/CE/reports/Group.1/matt_page_individual/subcode.html. The R-W subcode channels are used for text and graphics in certain applications, such as CD+G (CD w/graphics, supported by SegaCD among others). A new use has been devised by Philips, called ITTS. It enables properly equipped players to display text and graphics on Red Book audio discs. The most recent result of this technology is "CD-Text", which provides a way to embed disc and track data on a standard audio CD. The other subcode channels are generally inaccessible and unused. For more details, see the book by Pohlmann mentioned in section (2-1); _Principles of Digital Audio_, 3rd edition, by Ken Pohlmann, McGraw-Hill, 1995 (ISBN 0-07-050469-5); or _The Art of Digital Audio_, 2nd edition, by John Watkinson, Focal Press, 1994 (ISBN 0-240-51320-7). Subject: [2-7] Are the CD Identifier fields widely used? (1999/02/06) At present, not many manufacturers use them, and not all devices can read all of the fields. Programs that identify audio CDs automatically compute an ID based on the quantity and lengths of the audio tracks. http://www.cddb.com/ has a collection of CD information. Subject: [2-8] How long does it take to burn a CD-R? (1998/04/06) It depends on how much data you're going to burn, and how fast your drive is. Burning 650MB of data takes about 74 minutes at 1x, 37 minutes at 2x, and 19 minutes at 4x, but you have to add a minute or two for "finalizing" the disc. Remember that single speed is 150KB/sec, double speed is 300KB/sec, and so on. If you have half the data, it will finish in (about) half the time. Subject: [2-9] What's the difference between disc-at-once and track-at-once? (1998/06/14) There are two basic ways of writing to a CD-R. Disc-at-once (DAO) writes the entire CD in one pass, possibly writing multiple tracks. The entire burn must complete without interruption, and no further information may be added. Track-at-once (TAO) allows the writes to be done in multiple passes. There is a minimum track length of 300 blocks (600K for typical data CDs), and a maximum of 99 tracks per disc, as well as a slight additional overhead associated with stopping and restarting the laser. Because the laser is turned off and on for every track, the recorder leaves a couple of blocks between tracks, called run-out and run-in blocks. If done correctly, the blocks will be silent and usually unnoticeable. CDs with tracks that run together will have a barely noticeable "hiccup". Some combinations of software and hardware may leave junk in the gap, resulting in a slight but annoying click between tracks. Some drives and/or software packages may not let you control the size of the gap between audio tracks when recording in track-at-once mode, leaving you with 2-second gaps even if the original didn't have them. A few recorders, such as the Philips CDD2000, allow "session-at-once" (SAO) recording. This gives you disc-at-once control over the gaps between tracks, and allows you to write in more than one session. This can be handy when writing CD Extra discs (see section (3-14)). There are some cases where disc-at-once recording is required. For example, it may be difficult or impossible to make identical backup copies of some kinds of discs without using disc-at-once mode (e.g. copy-protected PC games). Also, some CD mastering plants may not accept discs recorded in track-at-once mode, because the gaps between tracks will show up as errors. The bottom line is that disc-at-once recording gives you more control over disc creation, especially for audio CDs, but isn't always appropriate or necessary. It's a good idea to get a recorder that supports both disc-at-once and track-at-once recording. Subject: [2-10] Differences between recording from an image and on-the-fly? (1998/12/20) Many CD-R creation packages will give you a choice between creating a complete image of the CD on disk and doing what's called "on-the-fly" writing. Each method has its advantages. Disc image files are sometimes called virtual CDs or VCDs (not to be confused with VideoCD). These are complete copies of the data as it will appear on the CD, and so require that you have enough hard drive space to hold the complete CD. This could be as much as 650MB for CD-ROM or 747MB for an audio disc when using 74-minute blanks. If you have both audio and data tracks on your CD, there would be an ISO-9660 filesystem image for the data track and one or more 16-bit 44.1KHz stereo sound images for the audio tracks. (On the Mac, you might instead use an HFS filesystem for the data track. You can create the image with Mac CD recording software, or create it as a DiskCopy image file and then burn the data fork under a different OS. The DiskCopy method doesn't seem to allow you to create bootable CD-ROMs though.) On-the-fly recording often uses a "virtual image", in which the complete set of files is examined and laid out, but only the file characteristics are stored, not the data. The contents of the files are read while the CD is being written. This method requires less available hard drive space and may save time, but increases the risk of buffer underruns (see (4-1)). With most software this also gives greater flexibility, since it's easier to add, remove, and shuffle files in a virtual image than a physical one. A CD created from an image file would be identical to one created with on-the-fly recording, assuming that both would put the same files in the same places. The choice of which to use depends on user preference and hardware capability. Subject: [2-11] How does an audio CD player know to skip data tracks? (1999/04/11) There are subcode flags for each track: Data If set, the track contains data; if not, the track contains audio. Digital Copy Permitted Used by SCMS. Set to allow copies, clear to prevent them. Four-Channel Audio The Red Book standard allows four-channel audio, though very few discs have ever been made that use it. Pre-Emphasis Set if the audio was recorded with pre-emphasis. The last two are rarely used. Subject: [2-12] How does CD-RW compare to CD-R? (1999/08/29) CD-RW is short for CD-Rewritable. It used to be called CD-Erasable (CD-E), but some marketing folks changed it so it wouldn't sound like your important data gets erased on a whim. The difference between CD-RW and CD-R is that CD-RW discs can be erased and rewritten, while CD-R discs are write-once. Other than that, they are used just like CD-R discs. Let me emphasize that: they are used just like CD-R discs. You can use packet writing on both CD-R and CD-RW, and you can use disc-at-once audio recording on both CD-R and CD-RW. Some software may handle CD-RW in a slightly different way, because you can do things like erase individual files, but the recorder technology is nearly identical. CD-RW drives use phase-change technology. Instead of creating "bubbles" and deformations in the recording dye layer, the state of material in the recording layer changes from crystalline to amorphous form. The different states have different refractive indicies, and so can be optically distinguished. These discs are not writable by standard CD-R drives, nor readable by most older CD readers (the reflectivity of CD-RW is far below CD and CD-R, so an Automatic Gain Control circuit is needed to compensate). Most new CD-ROM drives do support CD-RW media, but not all them will read CD-RW discs at full speed. A few older audio CD players and many new ones can handle CD-RW discs, but many can't. If you want to create audio CDs on CD-RW media, make sure that your player can handle them. All CD-RW recorders can write to CD-R media, so the only reason not to buy a CD-RW recorder is price. Some Internet sites like to put the devices in completely separate categories, calling them "CD recorders" and "CD ReWriters", but the differences between them don't really merit such a distinction. Think of a "CD ReWriter" as a CD recorder that can also make use of CD-RW media. Oddly enough, it may be easier for a DVD drive to read CD-RW discs than CD-R discs, because of the way the media is constructed. CD-RW media is more expensive than CD-R, but recent price reductions have narrowed the gap considerably. There is a limit to the number of times an area of the disc can be rewritten, but that number is relatively high (the Orange Book requires 1000, but some manufacturers have claimed as much as 100,000). It appears that CD-RW discs have speed ratings encoded on them, so discs that are only certified for 2x recording can't be written to at 4x (or, for that matter, 1x). For an *excellent* description of the technology, see http://www.emediapro.net/cdrompro/0996CP/bennett9.html A technical discussion along with some handy drawings and graphs is available from http://www.pc.be.philips.com/cdrw/general.html. Some interesting articles on CD-RW - including an editorial critical of the new technology - can be found at: http://www.emediapro.net/JanEM/news1.html#erase http://www.emediapro.net/FebEM/writer2.html http://www.emediapro.net/AprEM/parker4.html#bennett If you're trying to decide if you want a drive that supports CD-RW, see section (5-16). Subject: [2-13] Can DVD drives read CD-Rs? (1999/09/12) The only discs that a DVD drive is guaranteed to read are DVD discs. Support for CD-ROM, CD-R, and CD-RW may be included, but is by no means guaranteed. CD-R was designed to be read by an infrared 780nm laser. DVD uses a visible red 635nm or 650nm laser, which aren't reflected sufficiently by the organic dye polymers used in CD-R media. Some DVD players come with two lasers so that they can read CD-R. CD-RW discs have a different formulation, and may work even on players that can't handle CD-R media. Some DVD drives may be unable to read multisession discs. If the box doesn't say that something is supported, assume that the feature isn't. Look for the MultiRead logo, which indicates that the DVD player can read all existing CD formats, including CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-R and CD-RW. [ I verified that the Sony DVP-S3000 can read CD-R media, though the manual didn't say anything about them. It plays audio CDs and VideoCDs off CD-R just fine. I'm told that some models include two lasers -- called Dual Discrete pickup in the fancier Sony models -- but most players don't. I'm not planning on starting a compatibility list, so if you plan to buy a DVD player and CD-R compatibility is important, bring an audio or VideoCD CD-R with you to the store and try to play it before you buy anything. ] Subject: [2-14] Should I wait for DVD-R? (1999/10/10) Probably not. The recorders are still very expensive, and the format wars have made a mess of things. An example: http://www.electroweb.com/product/hard.htm was, as of early February '98, selling a Pioneer CDVR-S101 DVD-Recordable Drive for US$18K. In June '99, the same site had a Pioneer CDVR-S201 for US$5100. The prices on hardware and software will eventually reach consumer levels. As mentioned in section (0-2), this FAQ will not be expanding to cover DVD recorders. See http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html instead. Writers for formats like DVD-RAM are available for less, but may not be compatible with current DVD players. Subject: [2-15] What are "jitter" and "jitter correction"? (1998/04/06) The first thing to know is that there are two kinds of jitter that relate to audio CDs. The usual meaning of "jitter" refers to a time-base error when digital samples are converted back to an analog signal; see http://www.digido.com/jitteressay.html for a discussion. The other form of "jitter" is used in the context of digital audio extraction from CDs. This kind of "jitter" causes extracted audio samples to be doubled-up or skipped entirely. (Some people will correctly point out that the latter usage is an abuse of the term "jitter", but we seem to be stuck with it.) "Jitter correction", in both senses of the word, is the process of compensating for jitter and restoring the audio to its intended form. This section is concerned with the (incorrect use of) "jitter" in the context of digital audio extraction. The problem occurs because the Philips CD specification doesn't require block-accurate addressing. While the audio data is being fed into a buffer (a FIFO whose high- and low-water marks control the spindle speed), the address information for audio blocks is pulled out of the subcode channel and fed into a different part of the controller. Because the data and address information are disconnected, the CD player is unable to identify the exact start of each block. The inaccuracy is small, but if the system doing the extraction has to stop, write data to disk, and then go back to where it left off, it won't be able to seek to the exact same position. As a result, the extraction process will restart a few samples early or late, resulting in doubled or omitted samples. These glitches often sound like tiny repeating clicks during playback. On a CD-ROM, the blocks have a 12-byte sync pattern in the header, as well as a copy of the block's address. It's possible to identify the start of a block and get the block's address by watching the data FIFO alone. This is why it's so much easier to pull single blocks off of a CD-ROM. With most CD-ROM drives that support digital audio extraction, you can get jitter-free audio by using a program that extracts the entire track all at once. The problem with this method is that if the hard drive being written to can't keep up, some of the samples will be dropped. (This is similar to a CD-R buffer underrun, but since the output buffer used during DAE is much smaller than a CD-R's input buffer, the problem is magnified.) Some CD-ROM drives, e.g. most of the Plextor models, include special circuitry that enables them to accurately detect the start of a block. An approach that has produced good results is to do jitter correction in software. This involves performing overlapping reads, and then sliding the data around to find overlaps at the edges. Most DAE programs will perform jitter correction. Subject: [2-16] Where can I learn more about the history of CD and CD-R? (1999/02/06) I don't have a favorite book or web site to recommend. Poke around on the http://www.cd-info.com/ web site, especially some of the books and links listed in the bibliography. http://www.cdpage.com/ has a CD-Recordable museum on their web page. Subject: [2-17] Why don't audio CDs use error correction? (1999/02/06) Actually, they do. It is true that audio CDs use all 2352 bytes per block for sound samples, while CD-ROMs use only 2048 bytes per block, with most of the rest going to ECC (Error Correcting Code) data. The error correction that keeps your CDs sounding the way they're supposed to, even when scratched or dirty, is applied at a lower level. All of the data written to a CD uses CIRC (Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon Code) encoding. Every CD has two layers of error correction, called C1 and C2. C1 corrects bit errors at the lowest level, C2 applies to bytes in a frame (24 bytes per frame, 98 frames per block). In addition, the data is interleaved and spread over a large arc. (This is why you should always clean CDs from the center out, not in a circular motion.) If there are too many errors, the CD player will interpolate samples to get a reasonable value. This way you don't get nasty clicks and pops in your music, even if the CD is dirty and the errors are uncorrectable. Interpolating adjacent data bytes on a CD-ROM wouldn't work very well, hence the need for additional ECC and EDC (Error Detection Codes). See http://www.cdpage.com/dstuff/BobDana296.html for an overview of error correction from the perspective of media testing. If you really want to get into the gory technical details, try http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/CE/kuhn/cdmulti/95x7/iec908.htm. Subject: [2-18] How does CD-R compare to MiniDisc? (1998/05/05) MiniDiscs, or MDs, are small (64mm) discs that hold about 140MB of data or 160MB of audio. By using sophisticated compression techniques they are able to compress audio by a 5:1 ratio, allowing a capacity of 74 minutes with little or no audible difference in quality. As with CD recorders, there are MD recorders that connect to your computer and MD recorders that connect to your stereo. There are stamped MDs that are similar to CDs in construction, and rewritable MDs that use magneto-optical technology. Audio MD recorders are generally more convenient than stand-alone audio CD recorders, because the playback mechanism allows a more flexible layout of audio data, so it's possible to delete a track from the middle of the MD and then write a longer one that is recorded in different places across the disc. The current generation of MD technology is unlikely to replace CD-R or DAT, however, because the lossy compression employed is disdained by audio purists. MD is more often positioned as a replacement for analog cassette tape, which it matches in portability and recordability, and surpasses in durability and its ability to perform random accesses. Computer-based MD recorders can write data, but may not be able to record audio. Check the specifications carefully. A wealth of information is available from http://www.minidisc.org/. If you want to transfer CD to MD or MD to CD-R, check the FAQ there for information about digital transfers (currently item #37). Subject: [2-19] What does finalizing (and closing and fixating) do? (1999/06/05) A disc that you can add data to is "open". All data is written into the current session. When you have finished writing, you close the session. If you want to make a multisession disc, you open a new session at the same time. If you don't open a new session then, you can't open one later, which means that it's impossible to add more data to the CD-R. The entire disc is considered "closed". The process of changing a session from "open" to "closed" is called "finalizing", "fixating", or just plain "closing" the session. When you close the last session, you have finalized, fixated, or closed the disc. A single-session disc has three basic regions: the lead-in, which has the Table of Contents (or TOC); the program area, with the data and/or audio tracks; and the lead-out, which doesn't have anything meaningful in it. An "open" disc doesn't yet have the lead-in or lead-out written. If you write data to a disc and leave the session open, the TOC -- which tells the CD player or CD-ROM drive where the tracks are -- is written into a separate area called the Program Memory Area, or PMA. CD recorders are the only devices that know to look at the PMA, which is why you can't see your data in an open session on a standard playback device. CD players won't find any audio tracks, and CD-ROM drives won't see a data track. When the session is finalized, the TOC is written in the lead-in area, enabling other devices to recognize the disc. (Something to try: write an audio track to a blank CD, and leave the session open. Put the disc in a CD player. Some players will deny the existence of the disc, some will spin the disc up to an incredible speed and won't even brake the spindle when you eject the disc, others will perform equally random acts. The TOC is important!) If you close the current session and open a new one, the lead-in of the closed session will include a link to the lead-in of the next. The CD player in your car or stereo system doesn't know about chasing from one lead-in to the next, so it can only see tracks in the first session. Your CD-ROM drive, unless it's broken or fairly prehistoric, will know about multisession discs and will happily return the first session, last session, or one somewhere in between, depending on what the OS tells it and what it is capable of. Some CD-ROM drives, notably certain NEC models, are finicky about open sessions, and will gag when they try to read the lead-in from a still-open session. They follow the chain of links in the lead-ins of each session, but when they get to the last, they can't find a valid TOC and become confused. Even though these drives support multi-session, they require that the last session be closed before they will read the disc successfully. Fortunately, most drives don't behave this way. If you use disc-at-once recording, the lead-in is written at the very start of the process, because the contents of the TOC are known ahead of time. With most recorders there is no way to specify that an additional session should be added, so creating a multisession disc with DAO recording isn't generally possible. If you're using Win95 or WinNT, the Auto Insert Notification feature will "discover" the CD-R as soon as the TOC is written. This usually causes the write process to fail. Many of the current CD recording software packages will automatically disable AIN for this reason. In track-at-once mode, it will fail during finalization; in disc-at-once mode, it will fail near the beginning of the write process. In both cases, test writes will succeed, because the TOC doesn't get written during a test pass. Packet-written discs follow the same rules with regard to open and closed sessions, which is why they have to be finalized before they can be read on a CD-ROM drive. The "Packet Writing - Intermediate" document in the primer at http://resource.simplenet.com/primer/primer.htm goes into a little more detail on this subject. There are gory details beyond what is written here. For example, the lead-in on a CD-R actually has a pre-recorded TOC that specifies physical parameters of the recording layer, such as required laser recording power, and information about the disc, like how many blocks can be written. You don't usually need to worry about such things though. Subject: [2-20] How are WAV/AIFF files converted into Red Book CD audio? (1999/05/06) There is absolutely nothing special about the audio data encoded on a CD. The only difference between a "raw" 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo WAV file and CD audio is the byte ordering. It isn't necessary to convert a WAV or AIFF file to a special format to write to a CD, unless you're using some proprietary coding (like MP3 compression) that doesn't have a system-recognized codec. Similarly, you don't have to do anything special to audio extracted from a CD. It's already in a format that just about anything can understand. Just put your audio into the correct format -- 44.1KHz, 16-bit, stereo, uncompressed (a/k/a PCM) -- and the software you use to write CDs will do the rest. All of the fancy error correction and track indexing stuff happens at a lower level. Some people get confused by programs (such as Win95 Explorer) that show ".CDA" files. This is just a convenient way to refer to the audio tracks. It's not a file format unto itself. You can't drag-and-drop CD audio tracks unless you're using software that understands what you're trying to do, such as a CD recording program or Plextor's "AudioFS". Subject: [2-21] What does MultiRead mean? (1998/07/28) The MultiRead logo indicates that a CD or DVD player can read all existing CD formats, including CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-R and CD-RW. See the press release at http://www2.osta.org/osta/html/press/pr150797.html. The presence of this logo on a CD-ROM drive does *not* mean that the drive can read DVD. Subject: [2-22] If recording fails, is the disc usable? (1998/07/31) That depends on what was being recorded, how it was being recorded, and how far along in the process things were. If it failed while writing the lead-in, before any data was written, the disc probably isn't usable. Some drives, notably certain Sony models, have a "repair disc" option that forcefully closes the current session. This would allow you to add extra data in a second session on the disc, but anything written in the first session will be unavailable. Failures when finalizing the disc may be correctable. Sometimes the TOC gets written before the failure, and the disc can be used as-is. Sometimes you can use a "finalize disc" option from a program menu that will do the trick. Other times the recorder will refuse to deal with a partially-finalized disc, and you're stuck. Failures in the middle of writing result in a CD-ROM that probably isn't worth trusting. Some of the data will be there, some won't. The directory for the disc may show more files than are actually present, and you won't know which are actually there until you try to read them. Audio CDs recorded in disc-at-once mode are a special case. Because the TOC is written up front, the disc is readable in a standard CD player even if the write process doesn't finish. You will be able to play the tracks up to the point where the recording failed. If you were using a packet writing program like DirectCD, the experiences of people on Usenet suggest that you are either 100% okay or 100% screwed. The ScanDisk utility included with DirectCD 2.5 may help though. Subject: [2-23] Why do recorders insert 00 bytes at the start of audio tracks? (1998/08/14) This phenomenon is familiar to users who have attempted to extract digital audio from a CD-R. Very often the result of copying an audio CD is an exact copy of the original audio data, but with a few hundred zero bytes inserted at the front (and a corresponding number lost off the end). Since this represents the addition of perhaps 1/100th of a second of silence at the start of the disc, it's not really noticeable. The actual number of bytes inserted may very slightly from disc to disc, but a given recorder usually inserts about the same number. It's usually less than one sector (2352 bytes). According to a message from a Yamaha engineer, the cause of the problem is the lack of synchronization between the audio data and the subcode channels, much like the "jitter" described in section (2-15). The same data flow problems that make it hard to find the start of a block when reading also make it hard to write the data and identifying information in sync. According to the engineer, no changes to the firmware or drive electronics can fix the problem. Making copies of copies of audio CDs would result in a progressively larger gap, but it's likely to be unnoticeable even after several generations. Subject: [2-24] How many tracks can I have? How many files? (1999/03/07) You can have up to 99 tracks. Because the track number is stored as a two-digit decimal number starting with "01" (BCD encoded, in case you were wondering), it's not possible to exceed this. The maximum number of files depends on the filesystem you're using. For ISO-9660, you can (in theory) have as many as you want. In practice, DOS or Windows will treat the disc internally as a FAT16 filesystem, so you are limited to about 65,000 files if you want broad compatibility. Subject: [2-25] Will SCMS prevent me from making copies? (1999/04/11) SCMS is the Serial Copy Management System. The goal is to allow consumers to make a copy of an original, but not a copy of a copy. Analog recording media, such as audio cassettes and VHS video tape, degrades rather quickly with each successive copy. Digital media doesn't suffer from the same degree of generation loss, so the recording industry added a feature that has the same net effect. SCMS will affect you if you use consumer-grade audio equipment. Professional-grade equipment and recorders that connect to your computer aren't restricted. See section (5-12) for more about the differences between these types of devices. The system works by encoding whether or not the material is protected, and whether or not the disc is an original. The encoding is done with a single bit that is either on, off, or alternating on/off every five frames. The value is handled as follows: - Unprotected material: copy allowed. The data written is also marked unprotected. - Protected material, original disc: copy allowed. The data written will be identified as a duplicate. - Protected material, duplicate: copy not allowed. There are hardware "SCMS strippers", primarily used in conjunction with a DAT deck, that strip the SCMS bits out of an S/PDIF connection. Some have found that these introduce unacceptable artifacts into the audio. It's possible to "wash" the audio by converting it to and from analog format, but again the quality will suffer. If you're using a consumer audio CD recorder, SCMS will prevent you from making copies of copies of protected material. It will not prevent you from making a copy of an original disc you have purchased, and it won't stop you from copying unprotected discs. Related sites: http://www.oade.com/tapers/scms1.html http://www.sfb.net/scms.htm http://www.xs4all.nl/~jacg/dcc-faq.html Subject: [2-26] Is a serial number placed on the disc by the recorder? (1999/07/12) In general, no, but it appears that some of the newer stand-alone audio CD recorders write one. See http://www.sfb.net/scms.htm for a blurb about RID (Recorder Unique Identifier). Windows will show something like "Volume Serial Number is 4365-0FED". There does not appear to be any way to control this. Some have suggested that the serial number is generated based on data found on the disc, similar to the way that audio CDs can (mostly) be uniquely identified by the number and durations of the tracks. Subject: [2-27] What's a TOC? How does it differ from a directory? (1999/06/05) The TOC (Table Of Contents) identifies the start position and length of the tracks on a disc. The TOC is present on all CDs. If it weren't, the disc would be unreadable on a CD player or CD-ROM drive. (Section (2-19) has some more details.) A "directory" is a list of files. If you're a Mac user, you're probably used to the term "folder". It's part of a filesystem, such as the ISO-9660 or HFS filesystem present on most CD-ROMs. Audio tracks don't have files, so they don't have directories either. There's nothing stopping you from writing a FAT16 or Linux ext2 filesystem directly onto a CD-ROM. Whether or not you can read such a disc is a different matter. (The Linux "mount" command should allow you to mount just about anything read-only, but Windows may not be so willing.) The CD specification defines the TOC, and there are well-defined standards for certain filesystems, but [AFAIK] nothing in the CD spec requires that you fill a data track with a certain kind of data. Subject: [2-28] What's an ISO? A CIF? BIN and CUE? (1999/12/18) In common use, an "ISO" is a file that contains the complete image of a disc. Such files are often used when transferring CD-ROM images over the Internet. Depending on who you're talking to, "ISO" may refer to all disc image files or only certain kinds. Going by the more restrictive definition, an "ISO" is created by copying an entire disc, from sector 0 to the end, into a file. Because the image file contains "cooked" 2048-byte sectors and nothing else, it isn't possible to store anything but a single data track in this fashion. Audio tracks, mixed-mode discs, CD+G, multisession, and other fancy formats can't be represented. To work around this deficiency, software companies developed their own formats that *could* store diverse formats. Corel developed CIF, which is still in use by Adaptec's Easy CD Creator. (What does CIF mean? Nobody knows, though "Corel Image Format" is as good a definition as any.) Jeff Arnold's CDRWIN created them as "BIN" files, with a separate "cue sheet" that described the contents. You can unpack a BIN/CUE combo with "binchunker", which is now integrated into Fireburner (section (6-1-50)). A ".ISO" file that contains an image of an ISO-9660 filesystem can be manipulated in a number of ways: it can be written to a CD-ROM; mounted as a device with the Linux "loopback" filesystem (e.g. "mount ./cdimg.iso /mnt/test -t iso9660 -o loop"); copied to a hard drive partition and mounted under UNIX; or viewed with WinImage (section (6-2-2)). There is no guarantee, however, that a ".ISO" file contains ISO-9660 filesystem data. And it is quite common to hear people refer to things as "ISO" which aren't. (The rest of this section is a philosophical rant, and can safely be skipped. This is intended to be more illustrative than factual, and any relation to actual events is strictly coincidental.) The term "ISO" is ostensibly an abbreviation of "ISO-9660 disc image", which is itself somewhat suspect. ISO-9660 is a standard that defines the filesystem most often used on CD-ROM. It does not define a disc image format. "ISO-9660 filesystem image" would be more appropriate. When you capture or generate a CD-ROM image, you have to call it something. When a CD-ROM was generated from a collection of files into an ISO-9660 filesystem image, it was written into a file with an extension of ".ISO". This image file could then be written to a CD-ROM. As it happens, the generated image files were no different in structure from the images that could be extracted from other CD-ROMs, so to keep things simple the extracted disc images were also called ".ISO". (Some programs used the more appropriate ".IMG", but unfortunately that was less common.) This meant that, whether you extracted a data track from a disc written with the HFS filesystem or the ISO-9660 filesystem, it was labeled ".ISO". This makes as much sense as formatting a 1.4MB PC floppy for HFS, creating an image, and calling it a "FAT12 disk image" because such floppies are usually formatted with FAT. It didn't really matter though, because no matter what was in the file, the software used the same procedure to write it to CD-R. As a result of this filename extension convention, any file that contained a sector-by-sector CD-ROM image was referred to as an "ISO file". When CD recorders hit The Big Time and many people started swapping image files around, the newcomers didn't know that there was a distinction between one type of disc image and another, and started referring to *any* sort of disc image as an "ISO". These days it's not altogether uncommon to see messages about "making an ISO" of an audio CD, which makes no sense at all. Subject: [2-29] Why was 74 minutes chosen as the standard length? (1999/07/18) The general belief is that it was chosen because the CD designers wanted to have a format that could hold Beethoven's ninth symphony. They were trying to figure out what diameter to use, and the length of certain performances settled it. There are several different versions of the story. Some say a Polygram (then part of Philips) artist named Herbert von Karajan wanted his favorite piece to fit on one disc. Another claims the wife of the Sony chairman wanted it to hold her favorite symphony. An interview in the July 1992 issue of _CD-ROM Professional_ reports a Mr. Oga at Sony made the defining request. The "urban legends" web site has some interesting articles for anyone wishing to puruse the matter further. The relationship of Beethoven's ninth to the length is noted "believed true" in the alt.folklore.urban FAQ listing, but no particular variant is endorsed. http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/cd/cd_length_skeptical.html http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/cd/cd_length_karajan.html http://www.urbanlegends.com/misc/cd/cd_length_origin.html Searching the net will reveal any number of "very reliable sources" with sundry variations on the theme. Subject: [2-30] Why is there a visibly unwritten strip on the CD-R? (1999/12/17) You haven't closed the session yet. The lead-in area, which includes the TOC (section (2-27)), isn't written until the session is closed. A space is left for it that is large enough to see. Read section (2-19) for more details on what happens when you close a disc. You will see the narrow unwritten strip if you: - write a disc, telling the program to leave the disc and session open. - eject a packet-written disc without having closed it in ISO-9660 mode. - have a failure during recording in track-at-once mode. In some cases it's perfectly normal to see this space; it's where the lead-in area will be written when the session is closed. It's not necessarily a sign of failure. If you use disc-at-once recording, the lead-in area is written right away, so after a failure you won't see the gap. Subject: [3] How Do I... (1998/04/06) This is general information about recommended ways to do specific tasks. Subject: [3-1] How do I copy a data CD? (1998/05/16) Several publishers have CD-to-CD copiers. Two low-cost versions for the PC are Adaptec EZ-SCSI, which comes with a simple CD copier called "CD Copier", and Jeff Arnold's freeware CD2CD (http://www.goldenhawk.com/). Mac users can get a product called CD-Copy from Astarte (http://www.astarte.de/). The easiest and most reliable method to make copies of single-track data CDs is also the least expensive: CD2CD runs under DOS and works very well with a wide variety of hardware. Software such as Arnold's and Adaptec's will allow you to make a CD image on a hard drive that can then be written to multiple CDs. The fancier packages will usually provide a way to do this as well, but the software tends to be more complicated and harder to use. Multi- session and other complicated formats require more sophisticated software, such as Jeff Arnold's SNAPSHOT or CDRWIN. It's important to remember that, when copying directly from one CD to another, the source MUST be faster than the target, and must be error-free. If the source pauses or spins down to read a marginal area of the disc, the target may outrun the source, and the CD-R will only be useful as a frisbee. Most programs have a "test write" feature that put the CD-R device into a mode where it goes through all the motions but doesn't actually write anything; it's a good idea to do this right before copying. Subject: [3-1-1] Why can't I just do a block copy like a floppy? (1998/04/06) CDs don't have circular tracks. They're laid out on a spiral, with multiple sessions composed of multiple tracks composed of sectors, and the data in the sectors is interleaved and spread over a large area. The sector format is standard, but there's more than one standard. "The nice thing about standards is that you have so many to choose from." -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum, _Computer Networks_, 2nd ed, p.254 The ability to read certain portions of a CD depends on the CD firmware. Some CD players aren't capable of understanding multi-session discs or of reading audio tracks as digital data. Jitter, described in section (2-15), is also a problem for most drives. Subject: [3-2] How do I extract tracks from, or copy all of, an audio CD? (1999/12/12) Start with the CD-DA FAQ: http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~psyche/cdda/. Take a look at http://come.to/cdspeed to see if your CD-ROM drive is up to the task. EAC, from http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/, is often recommended for extracting ("ripping") audio tracks. To copy from CD to CD, the source drive needs to support digital audio extraction, which is rare among older drives but very common in current models. Ideally, the copy program will use disc-at-once recording to produce a duplicate that mimics the original as closely as possible (CDRWIN works well; see section (6-1-7)). Some programs will only copy the CD to the hard drive and from there to CD-R, some will allow CD-to-CD directly but only if the source is a SCSI CD-ROM, and some will work with IDE or SCSI. As with copying CD-ROMs, you must be able to read data off of the source drive faster than your recorder is writing. If you can only extract audio at 1x, you're not going to be able to do a CD-to-CD copy reliably. If you're just interested in extracting digital audio, you don't even need a CD-R unit, just a CD-ROM drive that supports Digital Audio Extraction (DAE) and some software. The CD-DA sites noted at the top of this section list drives that support DAE, have software to evaluate your existing drive, and have links to several different DAE applications. Different drives can extract digital audio at different speeds. For example, the Plextor 6Plex can extract audio at 6x, while the NEC 6Xi can only extract at 1x. The Plextor UltraPlex has been clocked at over 20x. Some CD-ROM and CD-R drives have trouble extracting digital audio at high speed, so if you're getting lots of clicks and pops when extracting you should try doing it at a slower speed. You may also run into trouble if you try to extract faster than your hard drive can write. One user found that he was able to eliminate clicks and pops by defragmenting his hard drive. Another found that the Win95 "vcache" fix (section (4-1-2)) solved his problems. It should be pointed out that, while digitally extracted audio is an exact copy of the data on the CD, it's an exact copy as your CD player perceives it. Different drives or different runs with the same drive can extract slightly different data from the same disc. The differences are usually inaudible, however. Some newer drives will report the number of uncorrectable errors encountered, so you can get a sense for how accurate the extraction really is. The quality of the audio on the duplicate CD-R, given a high-quality extraction, depends mostly on how well your CD player gets along with the brand of media you're using. See the next section for some comments about avoiding clicks and pops. Some drives have trouble starting at the exact start of audio tracks. The extraction starts a few blocks forward of where it should, and ends a few blocks later, so the track may not sound quite right and the extraction program will report errors at the end of the last track. See section (4-19). One minor note: the data on audio CDs is stored in "Motorola" big-endian format, with the high byte of each 16-bit word first. AIFF files also use this format, but WAV files use "Intel" little-endian format. Make sure your software deals with the endian-flipping correctly. Byte-swapped CD audio sounds like "static". Subject: [3-3] How do I get rid of hisses and clicks on audio CDs? (1998/10/12) If you're interested in removing noise from audio captured from an analog source, such as a record player or analog cassette tape, skip to section (3-12). This section is about unexpected noise in audio from digital sources, such as tracks extracted from a CD. The single most important rule of noise removal is to figure out where the noise came from. Play the .WAV files off of your hard drive (if you're doing direct CD-to-CD copies, extract a track and listen to it). If you hear noise in the .WAV on your hard drive, the digital audio extraction isn't working very well. You either need to extract more slowly, extract from a different device, find a program that works better, or maybe just clean the dust and grime off the source CD. For more information, including a URL for the CD-DA FAQ, see section (3-2). If the problem sounds like repeated or skipped samples, rather than clicks or hissing, the problem is probably jitter during extraction. See section (2-15) for an overview. A nifty trick for comparing two .WAV files is to use the "Mix Paste" feature in Cool Edit. Extract a track twice, then use Mix Paste to copy an inverted version of one file on top of the other. The two sound files will cancel each other out wherever they are identical, and have little spikes where they are different. This can be useful for seeing if the problems are only on one channel or are happening at regular intervals. You need to make sure though that both files start at the same place though. If your CD-ROM drive doesn't always extract from the start of the block, you will need to adjust the files so they line up. Useful things to do with this include comparing two extractions from the same drive, extractions from different drives, or extractions from the CD-R you just wrote to the original .WAV file you used to write it. If you just want to see if the files are the same, use the DOS File Compare command, with the "binary" switch set: FC /B FILE1.WAV FILE2.WAV. Some CD-ROM drives may put a click a few seconds into the first track being extracted. This appears to be related to the drive spinning up. Try starting the extraction, cancelling, and then immediately restarting. The rest of this section only applies if the extracted audio sounds fine on disk, but has problems when played back from the CD-R. If you're using track-at-once recording, you may get a short click or silent "hiccup" at the start of each track. Hiccups are unavoidable, but you should be able to get rid of the click by using different software. If you're using disc-at-once recording, and are still getting a short click at the *start* of every track, then your recording software is probably writing the sound file with the headers still on it. You should either use a smarter program, or remove the header manually (see the URL for "WAVECLIP", below). If you are getting clicks in the middle of a track, they are either being added when pulling the data off the disc or when writing it. If the .WAV (AIFF on the Mac) file plays without clicks, then your CD recorder may be failing somehow during the write process. Some people who got "static" in audio recorded on an HP 4020i found that reducing the DMA transfer rate to 2MB/sec helped. One user was told by Yamaha tech support that crackling (similar to a dirty vinyl LP) was a symptom of laser misalignment. If you've been writing audio CDs for quite a while, but lately you've been getting "crackly" results from tried-and-true media, this might be the culprit. Since it requires returning the unit for repair, you should exhaust all other possibilities first. If you are getting clicks at the end of a track, it's possible that the software used to create the .WAV file put some information at the very end, which is legal but not handled correctly by some CD-R software. See section (3-12) for tips on using CoolEdit to remove the data. If you are finding that tracks extracted from CDs don't have clicks but tracks that you have recorded or edited do, chances are the data size isn't a multiple of 2352 bytes, and the last block is being filled with junk. This is common on live recordings or when large tracks are cut into smaller ones. Jeff Arnold's DAO will fill out the last block with zeros (digital silence) if there is space left over, but most of the other programs will write garbage that is audible as a short (less than 1/75th second) click. The fix is to split the track on 2352-byte block boundaries. A program called "WAVECLIP" will remove .WAV headers and footers, and will either pad out the last block or remove silence from the end of a WAV file to make it an exact multiple of 2352 bytes. The program is available from http://www.ptialaska.net/~syntec/waveclip.zip. Another choice is "StripWave", from http://www.lightlink.com/tjweber/. If you must use track-at-once, make sure you're writing it all in one session. PC-based CD players may be able to see tracks in later sessions, but the CD player in your stereo system can't. A distantly related problem can arise if you use "shuffle play" to play random tracks from a CD-R. If the audio of track N begins immediately, some CD players will slide from the end of track N-1 into the start of track N, playing a short burst of track N before seeking elsewhere. This can be avoided by putting a gap at the start of such tracks (e.g. with "INDEX 01 xx:yy:zz" in a DAO cue sheet). Subject: [3-4] How do I copy game console discs (e.g. Playstation, Dreamcast) (1999/09/12) For PCs, Jeff Arnold has a utility called CDRWIN that can do this. See section (6-1-7). For Macs, take a look at Astarte's CD-Copy (section (6-2-8)). Note that the software does NOT defeat the copy protection. (I'm told that the "copy protection" on Playstation discs is in fact a region code -- America, Europe, Japan -- printed as a barcode on the CD hub. The "MOD chip", a device attached to the Playstation that defeats one aspect of the copy protection, emulates the barcode reading process. It sends all three region codes back, enabling the game console to play discs from other regions as well as copied discs. Other people have told me that it's not a barcode, but data encoded in a particular block; yet others have insisted that it's in the ATIP region of the lead-in. Whatever the case, it doesn't get copied by a CD recorder, and claims of hacked recorder firmware that can create MOD-chip-free duplicates are false.) Instructions for copying discs and vendors who sell MOD chips can be found by searching the net. If you don't have a PC, or if your drive doesn't support disc-at-once recording, you will need to look for disc copying instructions on the net. Sega Dreamcast discs use a proprietary format, called GD-ROM, which can hold 1GB of data. This could make them difficult or impossible to copy. Persistent rumors claiming that CeQuadrat's PacketCD can copy the discs are false. GD-R (Gigabyte Disc Recordable) media has two regions, a "single-density" area near the hub and a "high-density" area farther out. A visual inspection of GD-R media suggests that the single-density area starts at about 22mm from the disc's center (same as a CD-R) and goes to 29mm. From 29mm to 31mm is a "no-mans" land that isn't recordable, and the high-density area goes from 31mm to 58mm. An image of one is available on http://www.fadden.com/cdrpics/. Incidentally, posting requests or advertisements for pirated software on one of the non-warez Usenet groups is generally regarded as a mark of extreme stupidity. Whatever your opinion of software piracy, it is against the law in much of the world. Subject: [3-5] How do I get long filenames onto a disc? (1999/09/27) There are several different ways, most of which only work with some operating systems. The next few sections discuss the various methods. See http://www.adaptec.com/tools/compatibility/cdrecfilename.html for a detailed description with some examples. Getting mixed-case filenames onto a disc is a similar problem. Burning an ISO-9660 disc with lower-case filenames isn't recommended, because some systems aren't able to access the files even though they appear in directory listings. "mkhybrid" and recent versions of "mkisofs" (1.12b1 or later), described in sections (6-1-32) and (6-1-10), respectively, are able to create CDs that have both Joliet and Rock Ridge extensions. "mkhybrid" can create discs with Joliet, Rock Ridge, and Mac HFS on the same disc, sharing the same file data. Subject: [3-5-1] ISO-9660 (1998/09/16) Level 1 ISO-9660 defines names to be the familiar 8+3 convention that MS-DOS users have suffered through for many years: eight characters for the name, a period ("full stop" for those of you in the U.K.), followed by three characters for the file type, all in upper case. The only allowed characters are A-Z, 0-9, '.', and '_'. There's also a file version number, separated from the name by a semicolon, but it's usually ignored. Files must occupy a contiguous range of sectors. This allows a file to be specified with a start block and a count. (Most disk-based filesystems require index blocks that list all the blocks used by a file.) The maximum directory depth is 8. Level 2 ISO-9660 allows far more flexibility in filenames, but isn't usable on some systems, notably MS-DOS. Level 3 ISO-9660 allows non-contiguous files, useful if the file was written in multiple packets with packet-writing software. Some of the CD creation programs will let you select how closely you want the CD to conform to the ISO-9660 standard. For example, Easy-CD Pro 95 can restrict filenames to be ISO-9660 compliant, or allow the full set of valid MS-DOS filenames. (Most systems can handle MS-DOS filenames.) Incidentally, the ISO-9660 spec requires that all files be displayed in alphabetical order, with directories first, no matter how they are recorded on the CD-ROM. You can't arrange files on the disc, because the ISO-9660 reader (e.g. MSCDEX) sorts them before displaying them. Subject: [3-5-2] Rock Ridge (1998/04/06) The Rock Ridge extensions to ISO-9660 define a way for UNIX-isms like long mixed-case filenames and symbolic links to be supported. Because it's still an ISO-9660 filesystem, the files can still be read by machines that don't support Rock Ridge; they just won't see the long forms of the names. Rock Ridge is supported by UNIX systems. DOS, Windows, and the Mac don't currently support it. Copies of the Rock Ridge standard and System Use Sharing Protocol (SUSP) can be found at ftp://ftp.ymi.com/pub/rockridge/. Pay a visit to http://makecd.core.de/Rock_Ridge_Amiga_Specific for a description of Amiga-specific extensions. Subject: [3-5-3] HFS (1998/08/10) HFS is the Hierarchical File System, used by the Macintosh. This is used in place of the ISO-9660 filesystem, making the disc unusable on systems that don't support HFS. At present, the systems that can read HFS CD-ROMS are Macs, Amigas (with AmiCDROM, available from ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/aminet/disk/cdrom/), PCs running Linux or OS/2 (with appropriate patches), the Apple IIgs, and SGI machines running Irix (they appear as AppleDouble format). Some authoring packages for the Mac and Windows allow the creation of "hybrid" CDs that have both an ISO-9660 filesystem and an HFS filesystem. Apple has defined some ISO-9660 extensions that allow Macintosh files to exist with file and creator types on ISO-9660 CD-ROMs. A description of the extensions is available as tech note FL 36 from: http://developer.apple.com/technotes/fl/fl_36.html Subject: [3-5-4] Joliet (1999/09/27) Microsoft, being Microsoft, created their own standard called "Joliet". This is currently supported by Win95 and WinNT. It's useful when doing backups from Win95 onto a CD-R, because the disc is still readable as ISO-9660 but shows the long filenames under Win95. The limit on Joliet filenames is 64 characters. The spec can be found at http://www.ms4music.com/devl/dvjoliet.htm. Recent versions of Linux (kernel >= 2.0.34 and 2.1.60) have Joliet support. Older versions can be patched; for details, see http://www-plateau.cs.berkeley.edu/people/chaffee/joliet.html. To patch Joliet support into OS/2, visit: http://service.software.ibm.com/os2ddpak/html/miscellb/os_2warp/updatedc/index.htm Some Creative CD-ROM drivers have trouble with CD-ROMs that have Joliet filenames. You may need an updated copy of sbided95.exe, available from http://www.ctlsg.creaf.com/wwwnew/tech/ftp/ftp-cd.html. Finder support for Joliet is not yet available on the Macintosh. You can see the long filenames with a PC emulator. Subject: [3-5-5] Romeo (1998/04/06) Adaptec's Easy-CD Pro software allows creation of discs in "Romeo" format. This never really caught on. Subject: [3-5-6] ISO/IEC 13346 and ISO/IEC 13490 (1998/04/06) These are new standards intended to replace ISO-9660. The UDF filesystem specification is based on ISO/IEC 13346 (which is closely related to ECMA-167). For more information about these standards, see the links in section (6-4). Subject: [3-6] How do I use a CD-i disc on a PC? (1998/06/29) Short answer: you don't, unless you have a CD-i add-on board. Even if you have a CD reader compatible with the CD-i (Green Book) standard, there are still a number of obstacles in your way. The filesystem used isn't ISO-9660, and CD-i players are based around a 680x0 CPU and have special hardware for video and audio. Longer answer: it depends on what kind of disc it is, and what you mean by "use". PhotoCD and VideoCD discs are CD-ROM/XA "Bridge Format" discs that play on CD-i players as well as dedicated players and computers. These use the ISO-9660 file system, and can be read with commonly available PhotoCD software and MPEG-1 players. DigitalVideo discs from Philips manufactured before June, 1994 are in CD-i format, not VideoCD format. If your CD-ROM drive supports raw 2352-byte sector reads, it's possible to pull tracks off of a Green Book format disc, and extract audio or MPEG video data. VCD PowerPlayer from CyberLink (http://www.cyberlink.com.tw/) can play CD-i movies directly off of a Green Book disc. Subject: [3-7] How can I extract disc and track titles from an audio CD? (1998/09/01) Typical Red Book audio CDs don't have this information. Software audio CD players like those provided by Adaptec or Microsoft require you to type in the information, which is then stored in a database on your hard drive. The discs are identified by computing a signature based on track offsets and other fields. http://www.cddb.com/ acts as an Internet database of CD info. Some newer formats, like CD Extra, allow or even require such information to be included on the CD. See Sony's pages at http://www.cdextra.com/. Some recent CD players are advertised as "CD-Text Ready". These use the CD-Text data embedded in the P-W subcode channels to display disc and track title data. See section (3-28) for more about CD-Text. Subject: [3-8] How do I write more than 74 minutes of audio or 650MB of data? (1999/03/10) CD-R's have a pre-formed spiral track, and the sector addresses are hard-coded into CD-R media, so there's no flexibility. Every disc holds a predetermined amount of data. Most discs hold slightly more than 74 minutes. How much more depends on the brand of media, batch of media, and perhaps even on the recorder used (see section (7-6) for more details on how much a CD-R can hold). In some situations you can exceed the stated capacity of the disc; see section (3-8-2) below. Since CDs are written in a spiral, the amount of data you can get on a disc is affected by how tightly spaced the "groove" is. A standard Red Book audio CD or Yellow Book CD-ROM is designed to allow at most 74 minutes of data. By using a tighter track pitch on the spiral "groove" on the glass master, manufacturers can get more data onto the disc. In theory this could make it harder for some CD readers to use the discs. There *are* 80-minute CD-R blanks, but they're more expensive, and may not work on all systems. Some sources say that the longest possible CD-R is 79 minutes, 59 seconds, 74 blocks long, because of the way that the last possible start time of the lead-out is encoded, but some recorders may allow even larger values. See the next sub-section for more about 80-minute media. The easiest way to get more data onto a disc is not to try. For audio CDs, you can leave off one or two tracks that you're not overly fond of. For data CDs you may be able to drop some images or sample data. The most common problem people encounter with data CDs is trying to copy them as a collection of files rather than doing a bulk copy of the entire disc. See also section (3-24). One user suggested using the "speed up" function of SoundForge or CoolEdit to increase the speed of extracted WAV files by 3%. This supposedly gives better results than resampling, and allows writing 77 minutes. If you have a mono recording, you could double the length of a CD by recording half the sound on the left track and half on the right. The sound would be recorded as two monaural files, and then merged into a single stereo file with a sound editor like Cool Edit. (With Cool Edit 96: load first mono file. Use "Convert Sample Type" to convert to Stereo. Select the right track, and Delete Selection. Use Mix Paste to load the right track from the second file, or just fire up a second copy of Cool Edit with the other track, and use Copy and Paste commands.) The person playing the CD back will need to use a "balance" knob to select the left or right track. One issue with this method is that the track markers apply to both tracks, so providing random access to specific sections can be tricky. If you're trying to copy a CD-ROM or VideoCD and running out of room, you may have a different problem. See sections (3-24) and (4-25). Incidentally, don't get confused when you discover you have 700MB of audio extracted from a CD that only holds 650MB. Audio sectors use 2352 bytes per sector, while standard CD-ROM data uses 2048 (the rest is for error correction). You can put roughly 747MB of audio onto a disc that only holds 650MB of data. Subject: [3-8-1] How well do 80-minute CD-R blanks work? (1999/08/12) In general, they work just fine. Reports from people who have used 80-minute CD-Rs indicate that compatibility with different CD-ROM drives is very good. However, bear in mind the following statement, which was sent by e-mail from a TDK representative: "The CD-R80 is a special product developed by TDK to meet the application needs of software developers and music studios. To achieve its 80 minute recording time, track pitch and scanning velocity specification tolerances had to be minimized, reducing the margin of error between drive and media. This means limited compatibility between some CD-Recorders and CD-ROM Readers. If you intend to use this recording length, please check with your hardware manufacturer. Use of the CD-R80 is at one's own risk. No guarantees of performance are made by TDK." The TDK discs are now "official"; see http://www.tdk.com/n_80mincd.html. Whether it's better to use 80-minute discs or "overburning" (described in the next section) is a worthy subject for debate. Both can cause problems on different CD-ROM drives, and not all recorders are capable of doing one or the other. An 80-minute disc has roughly 360,000 sectors instead of the usual 333,000. This increases the CD-ROM capacity from 650MB to 703MB. If you're making backups of your hard drive or writing valuable data, don't use either. Stick to 74-minute blanks, and only record as much as you're supposed to. CD-R media is too inexpensive these days to justify pushing the limits for a slight increase in storage. Here's a few personal notes on my experiments with TDK 80-minute "green" blanks, back in late 1997. Similar discs are now commonly available from several Internet vendors, for a small markup over 74-minute media. Back then this wasn't the case, but I was able to purchase a small quantity (three discs) from Microboards at http://www.microboards.com/. The discs were part number SCWA-ETC80A-X, priced at US$40.00 per disc in October 1997. That was about 20x the cost for an extra 8% storage. The discs were unbranded. The only difference I could see between these and other TDK green discs is that on the hub it says "CD-Recordable 6129B-80". Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3 showed 359,624 blocks (702.8MB in MODE-1) on the TDK 80-minute blanks, versus 333,010 blocks (650.8MB) available on my Mitsui gold 74-minute blanks. The first challenge was finding software that would work correctly with the discs. Neither Easy-CD Pro 95 v1.2 nor Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3.0 would allow me to do a test recording with more than 650MB of files. I ended up using mkisofs to create an image file with 341,163 blocks (666.3MB) of data, composed of two large .AVI files, and three smaller pieces of one of the other .AVI files. (With Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3.5 and later, you can choose to ignore a warning about the data size.) Using a Yamaha CDR-102 with v1.0 firmware, the first thing I tried was to burn the image file to a 74-minute blank. Easy-CD immediately rejected the disc, saying there wasn't enough space. I then put the 80-minute blank in and did a test run. Easy-CD Pro 95 had no problems burning the ISO-9660 image file, until the screen saver activated and McAfee anti-virus "screen scan" kicked in. Good thing it was a test burn; I got a buffer underrun. I killed the screen saver and virus checker and ran again, had a successful test run, and followed it with a successful burn. To verify the data, I used Easy-CD Pro 95's "compare track" feature. This failed, complaining that one track was shorter than the other. My guess is that the compare feature has some sort of track length limitation. My next attempt was to use the Linux "sum" command to make sure that the disc was readable in my Plextor 8Plex. This worked fine, and the output of "sum" matched what I got on the 4x CD-ROM drive in the Sun workstation at work. I also tried the disc in a Mac 7500 and a Dell Pentium, and had no problems with either. The next step was an 80-minute audio CD, and that's where things fell apart. Easy-CD Pro 95 v1.2 didn't work at all (!), Easy CD Creator Deluxe v3.0 again refused to allow me to create a long audio CD, and with Jeff Arnold's software (both the DOS version and CDRWIN) the test write failed after a minute or so (after the lead-in had completed?). Strangely, removing the last two tracks from the cue sheet, which reduced it to 72 minutes, allowed the test write to succeed on both 74-minute and 80-minute blanks. It appears that the Yamaha CDR-102 drive is unwilling to write that much audio data. Subject: [3-8-2] How can I exceed the stated disc capacity ("overburning")? (1999/10/10) The capacity of a CD-R is calculated to allow enough space to hold at least 74 minutes of Red Book audio data and 90 seconds of digital silence. The silent area is called the "lead-out", and is included so that a CD player will realize that it has reached the end of the disc, especially when fast-forwarding. When a recording program tells you the exact capacity of the disc, it's not including the area reserved for the lead-out. There's nothing magic about this reserved area though. With the right kind of setup -- and a willingness to accept write failures as a matter of course -- you can put data into the reserved area, and possibly into a few blocks past the end of it. This is often referred to as "overburning" a disc. How much more you can fit depends almost entirely on the media. Some brands will hold as much as 78 minutes, but it varies from batch to batch. You can use Feurio! (section (6-1-42)) to compute the maximum size of a specific disc without actually writing anything on it. You also need the right recorder and the right software. The Teac CD-R55S, Plextor PX-R412C, Yamaha 4xx/4xxx, and Memorex/Dysan CRW-1622 units have been used to write "extra long" audio discs successfully. The Philips 36xx, HP 71xx, and Ricoh 62xx units don't seem to be willing to do so. In some cases, getting the firmware revision may be important. A recorder that isn't able to do this sort of writing will usually reject the cue sheet before writing begins. To write such a disc, you need to use a program that won't refuse to exceed the disc capacity. Easy CD Creator, in an attempt to prevent you from making mistakes, will refuse to allow you to write more than you should be able to. CDRWIN will warn you that the write may fail, but will allow you to continue anyway. Nero has a preference (under Expert Features) called "enable oversize disc" that allows the longer write. One approach to determining the maximum disc length is to gather a large collection of audio tracks, and start writing. Eventually the recorder will attempt to write past the end of the disc, and the write process will fail. Now play the disc, preferrably in a player that shows the total elapsed time for the entire disc. When the music cuts off, make a note of the time. That's the absolute capacity of the disc. Most (all?) CD players will display the total disc time when you first put the disc in. This value represents how much you tried to write, not how much was actually written. If you want to impress your friends, try to write 88 minutes of music. You won't get anywhere near that far, but the CD player will show it. It should be possible to write a CD-ROM in the same manner as an audio CD, but the space would have to be calculated so that the write failure occurred when the lead-out was being written. Otherwise, some of the files that appeared to be on the disc wouldn't actually exist. Recording in DAO mode may be helpful to ensure that the lead-in gets written. Without a table of contents, the disc is useless. It's very likely however that you will be able to finalize the disc even after the write fails. Depending on the disc and your player, you may have trouble seeking out to tracks near the end of the disc. Also, your CD player may behave strangely when it walks off the end of the disc: one user said he had to open and close the player afterward to convince it that a disc was still loaded. The disc surface past the end of the area reserved for the leadout may be unreliable. Attempting to use more than 90 seconds (about 15MB of MODE-1 data) beyond the rated capacity of a disc could be asking for trouble. It's possible to perform similar tricks on 80-minute media. Experiments with TDK 80-minute discs resulted in a recorded length of 82:09. MMC recorders don't seem to like having the lead-out position any later than 88:29:74, but that shouldn't get in the way. Further commentary and instructions can be found at http://www.cdmediaworld.com/ under "OverSize / OverBurn CD-Rs", including a list of recorders that are known to work and step-by-step instructions for using popular software. Subject: [3-9] How do I put photographs onto CD-ROM? (1999/03/31) The first thing you have to do is get them onto your computer. There are three basic approaches: use a scanner to convert printed photographs, use a video digitizer to pull images off of a video tape, or use a digital camera to take pictures that can be transferred directly. There are a great many different scanners, with different resolutions and capabilities. http://www.zdnet.com/products/scanneruser/index.html is a fair place to start. Video digitizers are mentioned in section (3-16). If you're scanning off of VHS video tape, you are going to get disappointing results. Digital cameras will generally give you the best results. A mid-range digital camera will give you pictures that look as good (when printed on a photo-quality printer, which are inexpensive now) as a 35mm point-and-shoot film camera. A few links: - http://www.steves-digicams.com/ - http://www.imaging-resource.com/ - http://www.dcresource.com/ Once you have the photograph on your hard drive, you may want to touch it up a bit. You can use software to correct for over- and under-exposed snapshots, remove "red eye", and crop off bits that weren't supposed to be in the frame. Cameras and scanners should come with image manipulation software that will help you manipulate and manage the images. Adobe's PhotoShop (http://www.adobe.com/) is the standard high-end solution, and their PhotoDeluxe Home Edition may appeal to a less demanding crowd. Once you've got the images in a reasonable state, save them in a widely accepted format such as JPEG or TIFF, and write them to a CD-ROM like you would any other files. You may need to use an "Export" function rather than "Save As...", because consumer photo software authors tend to use proprietary image formats as the default. If you want to create a PhotoCD that can be played in a PhotoCD player, continue on to the next section. If you're interested in arranging the pictures into an album, see (3-9-2). Subject: [3-9-1] How do I create a PhotoCD? (1999/03/31) First off, you need to be aware that certain aspects of PhotoCD creation are proprietary to Kodak. Programs like Adaptec's Easy CD Creator will allow you to create CD-ROMs with PhotoCD image files, and you will be able to view the images with Mac or PC programs that understand the PhotoCD file format, but you won't be able to look at the disc with a PhotoCD player. http://www.kodak.com/country/US/en/corp/pressReleases/pr19950328-10.shtml has the glossy brochure information, with some Kodak contact information. The Build-It and Arrange-It software, which allow you to create "real" PhotoCDs, costs about US$450. Kodak apparently pulled the software from the market in December 1997, so it may be difficult to find. http://www.shiresoft.com/ gives you step-by-step instructions and software for creating "real" PhotoCD discs with Kodak's software. The Build-It program will only write to Kodak CD recorders, but a translator available from this web site will allow it to work with GEAR or CDRWIN. Follow the Kodak links on that page. There are some utilities that will convert images into PCD format, but they only support the uncompressed base resolutions. The higher resolutions are compressed with an algorithm proprietary to Kodak. Subject: [3-9-2] How can I set up a photo album on CD-ROM? (1999/12/18) There are programs available that will do this for you, or you can take a "do it yourself" approach. Some examples: Adaptec "Photo Relay" (part of Easy CD Creator Deluxe Edition - see section (6-1-26)). According to their web page, it "lets you organize digitized photos and videos, then create Slide Shows, Web Albums and Video Postcards that can be stored to CD and shared with others - no proprietary viewer is required by the recipient!". Cerious "Thumb's Plus" (http://www.cerious.com/). Helps you organize images and create slide shows. Free evaluation version. Firehand "Lightning" (http://www.firehand.com/lightning/). Photo albums, slide shows, screen savers. Free evaluation version. Tlonstruct "CDView Pro" (http://tlonstruct.com/). Fancy picture viewer. Free shareware download. G&A Imaging "PhotoRecall" (http://www.ga-imaging.com/). Commercial program with lots of features. InMedia "Slides & Sounds" (http://www.inmediapresents.com/slideshows.html). Create fancy presentations. Demo available. Extensis "Portfolio" (http://www.extensis.com/portfolio/). Heavy-duty software for "media asset management". Supports every file format you've ever heard of, and has support for hybrid CD recording. The do-it-yourself approach. Make an HTML page with pictures, using a program like Microsoft FrontPage to create thumbnails (the auto-thumbnail feature is *very* handy), so that when you click on the thumbnail image you get the full-sized image. Put the HTML page and all of the graphics onto a CD-ROM, and view the pictures with a web browser. For bonus points you can use "shellout" with autorun.inf (section (3-21)) to have Windows automatically launch the default web browser when the disc is inserted, and "mkhybrid" to create a disc with long filenames and correct file types for Rock Ridge, Joliet, and MacOS. Subject: [3-10] How do I make a CD that will work on a PC or a Mac? (1998/04/06) If it's just a disc full of data (like JPEG images), writing the disc in minimal ISO-9660 should work. You may have to master it without the file version number (e.g. ";1") at the end of the name. If you need the format to be more flexible, perhaps with separate executables for Macs and PCs, you'll want to build a "hybrid" CD that has two sets of files on it. Adaptec's Toast for the Mac is widely recommended for this. See section (6) for other options (search for "hybrid"). Subject: [3-11] How do I access different sessions on a multi-session CD? (1998/04/06) As always, it depends. MS-DOS lets you see the first data session. Usually. Win95 lets you see the last data session. Usally. Adaptec's Session Selector and Ahead's MultiMounter will let you choose which session you see. Some CD creation software (e.g. Adaptec Easy-CD Writer) writes a complete table of contents in each session, some of which refers back to the files from the previous session, allowing a form of incremental backup. (This will work for ISO-9660 discs, but won't work for HFS. However, this is less painful than it seems because a properly-configured Macintosh will let you mount all the sessions as individual volumes.) Adaptec's Easy-CD Pro will allow you to combine the contents of several previous sessions by creating a new session (use RCD's Load Contents option to read the file/directory info from more than one session, then write and close a new session with that directory structure). Some of it depends on the SCSI or CD-ROM driver you have installed. It's unwise to expect somebody else's system to treat multisession discs the same way yours does. Subject: [3-12] How do I transfer my records or cassettes to a CD? (1999/12/18) The tricky part in doing this -- unless you have a stand-alone audio CD recorder -- is getting the audio transferred to your computer and modifying it to suit your tastes. The act of writing a sound file onto a CD is fairly trivial with most recorders and software. If you're considering the purchase of a computer-connected recorder for transferring tapes or LPs to CD, you should worry less about the recorder and more about the quality of the digitized audio. Few, if any, people will insist that recorder A produces better quality audio CD-Rs than recorder B, but everybody has an opinion about sound cards. Start with http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/lp-cdr.htm and http://www.octave.com/library/outsidesource.html, and read through http://www.octave.com/library/audiocd.html. These go into a lot more detail than this section does. If you have questions or need a recommendation on a sound card, you might want to try: news:rec.audio.tech news:comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.tech Some highly technical benchmark evaluations of cards are available at http://www.rockpark.com/soundcards/ and http://www.pcavtech.com/. To record on your PC, connect the output of the receiver/amplifier to the "line in" on your sound card. If you want to go directly from a record player, you need to run it through a pre-amp (which both pre-amplifies the signal and equalizes it to RIAA standards). Anything labeled "preamp out" or "tape out" can be connected directly. You can use the A/D (analog-to-digital) converter built into a sound card like a SoundBlaster 16, but the sound quality will not be very good. The sound cards from Turtle Beach (Tropez, Tahiti) and CrystaLake are a step up, and a Digital Audio Labs CardD+ is about as good as it gets for internal A/D cards. If you're really serious, you should get an external A/D converter like the Symetrix 620 or the Lucid AD9624 and feed the digital output from that into the computer. Another way of accomplishing the same thing is to record to an audio DAT deck and then use the digital output on the DAT recorder; see section (3-13) for details. (Looks like the Lucid device has superseded the Symetrix one -- it's the same company. Relevant URLs are http://www.symetrixaudio.com/faq620.htm and http://www.lucidtechnology.com/welcome.htm.) A problem with some sound cards (really cheap Opti and ESS cards have been named) is that the crystal that controls the recording sample rate is off. If the card doesn't do the sampling at the correct rate, the recorded audio may end up slightly slower or faster than the original. This will become apparent when the sound is played back off of a CD or through a better sound card. When recording, try to get as much signal as possible. Normalization will bring the signal level up, but can't replace parts of the signal that were lost. Sound editing utilities, such as GoldWave or Cool Edit, can be used to equalize, normalize, and even perform noise reduction on your recordings. Adaptec's Easy CD Creator includes an application called "Spin Doctor" that performs most of the tasks needed to transfer LPs to CD. Depending on your needs, it may provide a simple solution for all your needs. There are a variety of programs that can automatically remove pops, clicks, and hissing from digitized audio. Few automated tools can do as good a job cleaning up pops and other noise as an experienced person, however. If you want to perform the transfer by hand, the following method has been suggested for PC users: - Record directly into Cool Edit, using the highest possible input level that doesn't exceed the maximum. You want to record 16-bit stereo samples at 44.1KHz. - In the "noise reduction" dialog, set FFT size to 8192, FFT precision to 10, and #of samples to 96. - Select a silent passage between songs or from the end of the record. It can have some crackling but no huge pops. Set the noise level. - Select the entire track and perform noise reduction at about 70%. - Select the entire track and normalize it. - Manually remove any big pops (easily located by zooming in to the general area and switching to "spectral view" in the edit menu) by zooming in on them and amplifying them to about 8%. You only need to select the channel (left or right) in which the offending data occurs. If it occurs across BOTH channels, you may get a better result by deleting that part of the track and reconstructing it in such a way that it remains smooth... if that's not possible, make one channel smooth and then amplify the other to 8%. Cool Edit optionally leaves a blob of data at the end of the .WAV file, which is legal in the file format but not expected by some utilities. To avoid this, go into the "Options" menu and select "Info" (for Cool Edit 96, it's under the "View" menu). There is a check box here labeled "Fill * fields automatically". Make sure the box is unchecked, and don't put any information into the fields. (For Cool Edit 96, there's a simple checkbox in the file save dialog as well.) Cool Edit can be found at http://www.syntrillium.com/. A similar product called "GoldWave" can be found at http://www.goldwave.com/. A fancy commercial product called Sound Forge is described on http://www.sonicfoundry.com/. Algorithmix, at http://www.algorithmix.com/, has a noise reduction program called SoundLaundry. DART and DART PRO are designed for audio restoration, and can be found at http://www.dartpro.com/. Another fancy (and expensive) program is at http://www.waves.com/. See also DCart at http://www.diamondcut.com/. Wave Repair, from http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~abcomp/wavrep.htm, is a WAV editor designed with analog recording and click-fixing in mind. Don't forget that CD audio is 16-bit PCM stereo samples at 44.1KHz, and will chew up disk space at roughly 176K per second. Playing back large sound files is difficult with simple-minded applications like the standard Win95 WAV player, because they try to load the entire file into memory all at once. Cool Edit 96 is able to play files back as it reads them, and works very well even over a network. (Section (4-20) has some other suggestions on this same topic.) See section (3-3) for some tips on avoiding clicks when committing the audio to CD. If, for some reason, you'd like to record "live" to the CD-R instead of recording to the hard drive first, Adaptec's Spin Doctor (part of Easy CD Creator) can do that. You can find odd bits of hardware that will play or enhance playback of older recording formats (78's, LP's, 16" Radio Transcriptions) at Nauck's Vintage Records (http://www.78rpm.com/). For those of you wondering what the deal with pre-amplification is, this little tidbit is courtesy Mike Richter: "Preemphasis has been used since the earliest days of commercial recording. In general, the high-frequency content of the music (or whatever) being recorded is low and the noise is high. Therefore, treble was boosted and lows were cut by a preemphasis curve which was removed in playback. The standard RIAA curve for turnover and rolloff (the amount and frequency for treble and bass, respectively) was not accepted universally until the 50's, and some fine preamps offered selectable values with presets for the common curves into the early transistor era." Subject: [3-13] How do I transfer an audio DAT tape to CD? (1999/12/18) Buy a card that will allow you to go from DAT to hard disk digitally. Make sure you get one that can handle the same digital standard the DAT recorder uses, i.e. S/PDIF (Sony/Phillips Digital Interface Format, sometimes referred to as "domestic") or AES/EBU ("professional"). Some of the solutions for the PC are the DigiDesign AudioMedia (see http://www.digidesign.com/), the Zefiro Acoustics ZA2 (see http://www.zefiro.com/), the AdB Digital Multiwav Pro (see http://www.adbdigital.com/), the Digital Audio Labs CardD+ (see http://www.digitalaudio.com/products.htm), or the Turtle Beach Fiji (see http://www.tbeach.com/products/fiji.htm). The CardD+ comes highly recommended. There may be newer versions of these products, so be sure to check out the web sites. Visit http://www.digitalexperience.com/cards.html for a feature comparison of many different models. An inexpensive S/PDIF card available from Computer Geeks (http://www.compgeeks.com/) was evaluated by some newsgroup readers in mid-1998. Apparently there were some problems with the physical dimensions of the card (too wide for some PC slots), the documentation is poor, and the voltage level for both input and output was TTL instead of standard S/PDIF. You're probably better off with one of the established brands unless you're sure about what you need. You should record from the DAT onto your hard drive, and then record the CD from there. If you try to record directly from DAT you'll likely end up with a lot of wasted CD-Rs due to buffer underruns or minor mistakes. You should use Disc-At-Once recording for best results. One issue you need to be aware of is that some older DAT recorders can only record at 48KHz, while CDs are recorded at 44.1KHz. If this is the case with your equipment, you will have to do a sample rate conversion. The DSP on cards like the ZA2 will do this for you, or you can use an audio editing program like CoolEdit or Sound Forge. There *are* CD-R drives that have analog inputs, and can record directly from audio sources. See section (5-12). If you use a DAT and haven't been to the DAT-heads home page, you should definitely check out http://www.atd.ucar.edu/rdp/dat-heads/. If you want to manipulate audio DATs directly from your computer, you need a DDS drive with special firmware. The SCSI DDS drives that are typically sold for backups don't have the firmware required to handle DAT tapes. Most SGI workstations can do this, and Mac users should check out http://www.demon.co.uk/gallery/StudioDAT.html. If you have an Archive Python DDS drive, check out ftp://ftp.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/pub/DATlib. Some other drives can be supported with appropriate firmware updates. See http://www.ncf.ca/~aa571/dat2wav.htm. An interesting combination of technologies is the DAT-Link from http://www.tc.com/, which connects to the digital connectors on the DAT machine (or MD, DCC, or CD player) and the SCSI interface on a computer. The device can be controlled from other computers on a network. If you're interested in mastering production audio CDs, you should take a look at http://www.sadie.com/. Subject: [3-14] How do I put audio and data on the same CD? (1998/09/12) There are two ways to do this. The first is to put the data on track 1 of the CD, and audio on the next several tracks (discs created this way are referred to as "mixed-mode" CDs). The CD-ROM drive will automatically look at track 1 and ignore all other tracks, so you'll be able to get at the data and -- depending on the operating system -- will be able to play the audio tracks. Remember that all of the tracks, both audio and data, need to be recorded in a single session. See section (3-2). The down side of this is that audio CD players may attempt to play track 1, which can be obnoxious or downright harmful to audio equipment. Most modern CD players are smart enough to ignore data tracks, so this won't usually be a problem. The other approach is to create a multisession disc with the audio tracks in the first session and the data track in the second. This is how CD Extra (the format formerly known as CD Plus) works. Audio CD players only look at the first session, and CD-ROM drives are (supposed to) start with the last session, so it all works out. Sony Music has some pages at http://www.cdextra.com/. A common question is how to write the audio in the first session without gaps between tracks, because you can't use disc-at-once recording. (If you did use DAO recording, the disc would be closed, and you wouldn't be able to write the data track). With the GoldenHawk software and a Philips recorder, you can do "session-at-once" recording to write the audio without gaps, and purportedly there is a strange hack you can do with GEAR that has the same effect with certain recorders. (With GEAR, write the audio tracks in the first session using disc-at-once recording, but with "multisession" and "leave session open" set. Don't ask me for details, and don't be surprised if it doesn't work.) What happens when you try to play one of these as audio in your CD-ROM drive? As with most things multisession, it depends on your drive. (The player that comes with Plextor CD-ROM drives does the right thing. If you're using a different drive, you're on your own.) There's actually a third way to do this that involves putting the data track into the extended pregap of the first audio track. Instead of the audio starting at minute:second:block 00:02:00, the data starts there, and the audio is written after. The pregap is adjusted accordingly. This method never gained popularity because some drives started playing at 00:02:00 regardless. Some CDs perversely put audio in the pregap. You can play it by starting to play track 1, then holding the "reverse" button until it seeks all the way to the start of the disc. Some digital audio extraction programs (e.g. "cdclip" from www.goldenhawk.com) allow you to specify block numbers instead of track numbers; these can be used to extract the "hidden" audio. For example, _Factory Showroom_ by "They Might Be Giants" looks like this: TRACK 01 AUDIO INDEX 00 00:00:00 INDEX 01 01:01:00 TRACK 02 AUDIO INDEX 00 04:52:10 INDEX 01 04:52:10 TRACK 03 AUDIO [...] Index 01 on track 01 is usually 00:02:00. Holding down the reverse button backs the time up to -1:03. For more information (mainly aimed at Macintosh users), see http://www.musicfan.com/ecd/what.html. Subject: [3-15] How do I make a bootable CD-ROM? (1999/12/19) On a Mac, this is reasonably straightforward. A CD can be bootable if it has a bootable system folder on it. Tell the recording software that you want to make the CD bootable; this usually involves clicking in a checkbox before burning the first session. Then, copy a bootable system folder onto the disc. An easy way to create an appropriate system folder is to launch the system installer, tell it you want to do a "Custom" install, choose the "Universal System" option, and then install it onto the CD source volume. Holding down the 'c' key while booting will cause the Mac to boot from an internal CD-ROM drive. Alternatively, the "Startup Disk" control panel will allow you to select a CD-ROM. The rest of the section applies only to PCs, which are more challenging. The BIOS or SCSI card on most newer machines support booting from CD-ROM, but on many older machines it's just not possible. Phoenix (the BIOS developer) has created the El Torito standard for doing this sort of thing. When the machine boots, if the BIOS recognizes a bootable image on the CD-ROM, it maps that image onto the A: floppy drive. (Depending on implementation, A: will move to B: and B: will go away.) From that point onward, it's just like booting a floppy. Not surprisingly, the way you create a bootable CD-ROM is to take an image of a bootable floppy disk and write it in a specific way onto the CD. Many of the current CD writing programs, including Easy CD Creator and CDRWIN, will do the hard work for you. You can find El Torito specifications and a "how to" guide at: http://www.ptltd.com/products/specs.html http://www.ptltd.com/products/wp.html If you like to do things the hard way, step-by-step procedures with varying levels of detail can be found here: http://www.cdpage.com/Compact_Disc_Variations/bootablecdarticle.htm http://www.ozemail.com/~rossstew/drs/bootcd.html http://nikko.simplenet.com/goldentime/bootcd01.htm http://www.fadden.com/doc/bootcd.txt http://www.os.rim.or.jp/~gigo/bootcd/index_e.html The "BOOTISO" utility may come in handy, and can be found here: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Way/2996/index.html You can learn how to make bootable Win95b/Win98 CD-ROMs here: http://www.heise.de/ct/Service/English.htm/99/11/206/ Complaints about "file is missing or corrupted" can be avoided with a freeware utility called IOPATCH, available from the site listed above at http://nikko.simplenet.com/goldentime/bootcd01.htm. When booting the PC, you may need to change the boot order in the BIOS from the typical "A, C" to "A, SCSI, C", and configure the SCSI interface to attempt to boot from CD. On some adapters, the boot-up SCSI bus scan may take an extra second or two while the interface tries to determine if a bootable CD-ROM is present. Some programs insist that bootable CD-ROMs be written in plain ISO-9660 format, not Joliet. One way around this is to write the bootable portion in the first session, and then write the rest of the data in a second session. The El Torito standard allows CD-ROMs to have more than one bootable image, but none of the existing software support that. If you're having trouble finding drivers for your CD-ROM drive, try the Win98 boot disk, or http://www.drivershq.com/. Subject: [3-16] How do I convert home movies into video on CD? (1999/04/04) This topic is largely outside the scope of this FAQ, so I'm not going to go into much depth. The Usenet newsgroup news:rec.desktop.video is more applicable. I'm not aware of an FAQ for that group, but the links found at http://www.videoguys.com/jump.htm will get you started. You need a capture device to transfer the video to your hard drive. Capturing high-quality video can eat up 2MB or more per *second* of video at full resolution (640x480x24 at 60 fields per second for NTSC) with a reasonable degree of compression, so this isn't something to be undertaken lightly. The lower your quality requirements, the lower the bandwidth requirements. If MPEG is your only interest, you might be better off with an MPEG-only card rather than a hobbyist video capture board. http://www.b-way.com/ and http://www.darvision.com/ are good places to look. The Broadway card has been given high marks for quality. Once you've captured the video, you'll probably want to edit it, at least to clip out unwanted portions or add titles. Packages for doing this, like Adobe Premiere and Ulead MediaStudio, are usually included with the capture card. These will also let you adjust the resolution, color depth, and compression quality to output the video so that it's suitable for playback on double- or quad-speed CD-ROM drives. You can convert AVI files to MPEG and vice-versa with a program from Ulead (see http://www.ulead.com/), Xing Technologies, or several other vendors. You should be able to create QuickTime or AVI movies using the compression codec of your choice from the video editing software. Once created, you can write the AVI, MPEG, or MOV (QuickTime) file to a CD-ROM like you would anything else. If you'd like to view the disc in a DVD player or other VideoCD playback device, read the next section. Note that not all DVD players are capable of reading CD-R media, so if VideoCD on CD-R playback is important to you, check the DVD player feature set before you buy. Subject: [3-16-1] How do I create a VideoCD from AVI or MPEG files? (1999/09/12) This section assumes you already have the video on your computer. If you don't know how to do that, read the previous section. If you want to try creating a White Book VideoCD, which can be viewed on a VideoCD playback device like a Philips CD-i or from a computer with appropriate hardware and software, CD-R software packages like Easy CD Creator and WinOnCD can convert AVI movies into MPEG and write them to CD in the necessary format. You can use other programs to create the MPEGs, but if the encoding parameters (frame rate, number of pixels, etc) don't match the VideoCD parameters you may have trouble getting the CD writing software to accept the movie. John Schlichther's AVI2MPG1 combines standard tools into an easy-to-use program for Win95 and NT; use it with the "-v" flag to convert an AVI file into a VideoCD-compatible stream (http://www.mnsi.net/~jschlic1/). If you're running Linux you should take a look at Bernhard Schwall's "avi2yuv" program. It converts M-JPEG movies created with popular video capture boards into a format accepted by the Berkeley MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 encoders (ftp://bmrc.berkeley.edu/pub/mpeg/). The README for avi2yuv lists the additional software packages (all of which are free and run under Linux) needed for creating MPEG movies complete with sound. Most (all?) of the utilities can also be built to run under DOS. http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/apps/graphics/convert/. "iFilmEdit", from http://www.duplexx.com/ifilmedit.html, will convert MPEG to VideoCD, and can reportedly convert a VideoCD .DAT file back into a plain MPEG file. "VCDGear", from http://resource.simplenet.com/files/files.htm, converts between .dat and .mpg. Easy CD Creator requires that an MPEG MCI driver be installed in the system (unlike CD Creator, it doesn't come with Xing's MPEG software). The popular VMPEG 1.7 doesn't quite work: ECDC can't see the audio, and you're not allowed to select the frame to view when shuffling streams around. If you have VMPEG installed as the MCI driver -- select "About ECDC" from the Help menu to check -- you need to *remove* VMPEG and then install ActiveMovie. (I removed under Win95 it by going into the Advanced section of the Multimedia control panel, expanding "Media Control Devices", selecting vmpegdll, and clicking on "Remove", but you may be able to use Add/Remove Programs instead.) Finally, you should be aware that MPEG playback is rather CPU intensive, and it's possible to create movies that don't play very well on slower machines without hardware support. The PowerPC QuickTime MPEG extension (available from http://quicktime.apple.com/) works well, as does Microsoft ActiveMovie (http://www.microsoft.com/, available as part of MSIE 3.02 and later), but most of the UNIX players won't play the audio. Software MPEG playback is becoming easier as CPUs become more powerful, and it's much more common than it once was. VideoCDs can only be read by CD-ROM drives capable of reading CD-ROM/XA discs. If your drive doesn't claim to support PhotoCD, you're probably out of luck. Microsoft's ActiveMovie and Apple's Video Player can play movies off of a VideoCD. Apple's AVP will scan the CD and present a list, but with ActiveMovie you need to look for and open the ".dat" files in the "mpegav" directory. Subject: [3-17] How can I burn several copies of the same disc simultaneously? (1998/04/06) You can if you have several CD-R drives and the right software. Two examples are CD Rep from Prassi Software (section (6-1-21)) and DiscJuggler from Padus (section (6-1-27)). Both products are SCSI multiplexors. You use your existing CD writing application (such as Easy-CD Pro 95) like you normally would, and the program sends the same commands to each of the CD-R drives. There are a number of limitations, notably that all devices must use the same command set and may need to have the same firmware revision. There may also be limits on the number of drives you can have attached at once. DiscJuggler bills itself as "the professional CD Duplicator", CD Rep as "the ultimate professional recording solution". If you're interested in either of these, you should read the web pages for both, and compare the features available. There are several hardware-based solutions to this, including CD-R units that support daisy-chaining, and control units that vary from the simple (a handful of units wired together) to the complex (robotic arms to move discs around). Most cost more than a Hyundai. See http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/duplication.html for an overview of several different hardware solutions, or visit a vendor web page like http://www.princetondiskette.com/. Subject: [3-18] Can I make copies of copies? (1998/09/17) The following was part of an e-mail message from Jeff Arnold back in mid-1997: "I do not recommend making "copies of copies" with SNAPSHOT. The reason this does not always work is because many CDROM readers do not perform error correction of the data when doing raw sectors reads. As a result, you end up with errors on the copy that may or may not be correctable. When you make a second-generation copy of the same disc, you will make a disc that has all of the errors of the first copy, plus all of the new errors from the second reading of the disc. The cumulative errors from multiple copies will result in a disc that is no longer readable." Some further explanation is needed here. The heart of the problem is the way that that the data is read from the source device. When a program does "raw" sector reads, it gets the entire 2352-byte block, which includes the CD-ROM error correction data (ECC) for the sector. Instead of applying the ECC to the sector data, the drive just hands back the entire block, including any errors that couldn't be corrected by the first C1/C2 layer of error correction (see section (2-17)). When the block is written to the CD-R, the uncorrected errors are written along with it. This problem can be avoided by using "cooked" reads and writes. Rather than create an exact duplicate of the 2352-byte source sector, cooked reads pull off the error-corrected 2048-byte sector. The CD recorder regenerates the appropriate error correction when the data is written. Ideally SNAPSHOT would be able to do the error correction in software when operating in "raw" mode, but apparently there's no readily available code that does this. It could also read each block twice, once in raw mode and once in cooked, but that would double the read time. This begs the question, why not just use cooked writes all the time? First of all, some recorders (e.g. Philips CDD2000 and HP4020i) don't support cooked writes. (Some others will do cooked but can't do raw, e.g. the Pinnacle RCD-5040.) Second, not all discs use 2048-byte MODE-1 sectors. There is no true "cooked" mode for MODE-2 data tracks; even a block length of 2336 is considered raw, so using cooked reads won't prevent generation loss. It is important to emphasize that the error correction included in the data sector is a *second* layer of protection. A clean original disc may well have no uncorrectable errors, and will yield an exact duplicate even when copying in "raw" mode. After a few generations, though, the duplicates are likely to suffer some generation loss. The original version of this quote went on to comment that Plextor and Sony CD-ROM drives were not recommended for making copies of copies. The reason they were singled out is because they are the only drives that explicitly warned about this problem in their programming manuals. It is possible that *all* CD-ROM drives behave the same way. (In fact, it is arguably the correct behavior... you want raw data, you get raw data.) The documentation for SNAPSHOT describes whether "raw" or "cooked" writes are recommended for several different CD-R drives. See the section on "USING THE /COOKED OPTION" in "snapshot.txt", found in the documentation for the DOS utilities at http://www.goldenhawk.com/. The final answer to this question is, you can safely make copies of copies, so long as the disc is a MODE-1 CD-ROM and you're using "cooked" writes. Copies made with "raw" writes may suffer generation loss because of uncorrected errors. Audio tracks don't have the second layer of ECC, and will be susceptible to the same generation loss as data discs duplicated in "raw" mode. Some drives may turn off some error-correcting features, such as dropped-sample interpolation, during digital audio extraction, or may only use them when extracting at 1x. If you want to find out what your drive is capable of, try extracting the same track from a CD several times at different speeds, then do a binary comparison on the results. PC owners can use the DOS "FC" command to do this, as described in section (3-3). Subject: [3-19] How can I compress or encrypt data on a CD-ROM? (1999/12/18) The easiest way is to use your favorite compression or encryption utility and process the files before putting them on the CD. However, this isn't transparent to the end user. CRI-X3 enables programs like DoubleSpace to work on a CD. It's intended for a publisher or for significant internal use, and the licensing is priced accordingly. See http://www.somerset.net/crix3.html. A straightforward solution is to write all of the files onto the disc as .ZIP files, and then use ZipMagic (formerly ZipFolders) to view the contents. Visit them at http://www.zipmagic.com/. PGP at http://www.nai.com/ (was http://www.pgp.com) has some good encryption software, but none of it seems directly applicable to software distribution. PGPdisk, available for the Mac, might be useful but it isn't clear whether it can be used to distribute CD-ROMs. ScramDisk, from http://www.scramdisk.clara.net/, writes files into encrypted "containers" on disk. It can be used with CD-ROMs, runs under Win95 and Win98, is free, and even includes source code. http://www.c-dilla.com/ has information on CD-Secure 2, which allows publishers to distribute network-licensed or "pay for the parts you need" products, and CD-Compress 2, which provides a way to compress data transparently on production CDs. The web page didn't have pricing, so it's probably expensive. EnCrypt-CD encrypts the blocks as they are written to CD. It's a shareware product, available from http://www.shareit.com/programs/102046.htm. Encrypted Magic Folders from http://www.pc-magic.com/ claims to transparently encrypt data as it's being used. Whether it would work from a CD-ROM isn't stated. You can install a cryptographic filesystem (called "CFS") under Linux; see http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Security-HOWTO-6.html#ss6.10. Create a crypto-fs, copy your data onto it, then use mkisofs with Rock Ridge extensions enabled to create an ISO-9660 disc image of the encrypted data. Burn the image to CD-ROM. You may be able to use E4M, from http://www.e4m.net. Subject: [3-20] Can I do backups onto CD-R? (1999/12/19) Some section (6-7) for software. Of course, it's not really necessary to use special software if you're just backing up your data files. Most CD creation programs will allow you to copy arbitrary files onto CD-ROM, and by using the Joliet standard or the UDF filesystem you can preserve long filenames. Unfortunately, if you're not using packet writing, the individual files may show up as read-only under DOS and Windows, so write permission must be re-enabled by hand when the files are restored. With packet writing applications like DirectCD or PacketCD, the correct file permissions are maintained. Side note: the files aren't written to the disc as "read only". They're simply presented that way by Microsoft operating systems. Mac OS deals with this in a nicer way, showing unlocked files on write-protected media. (DOS users can do "ATTRIB -R *.* /S". Linux users can su to root, mount the volume as MSDOS FAT, cd to the directory in question, and do "find . -print | xargs chmod +w" to enable write permission for all files in the current directory and in all subdirectories. If you've got the GNU utilities, use "find . -print0 | xargs -0 chmod +w" instead, especially if you're using the "vfat" fs. Of course, if you're a Linux user, you could just use mkisofs with the appropriate options and have Rock Ridge file permissions that match the originals.) One thing to be careful of on Windows-based PCs: most programs that put files on CD don't preserve the *short* file names that are automatically generated for files with long file names. This presents a problem because the short form is often stored in the Registry and INI files instead of the long form (try searching your Registry for "~1"). When your system is restored, it may not be able to find the files anymore. A way to work around this is to use a backup program that understands only the short filenames, and save the long ones with LFNBK. A program called DOSLFNBK at http://www8.pair.com/dmurdoch/programs/doslfnbk.htm may be more convenient than LFNBK. Subject: [3-21] How do I automatically launch something? Change the CD icon? (1999/12/19) (Some notes for Mac users appear at the very end. Most of this is for Windows users.) The "autorun" feature of Windows 95 and later allows a program to be executed right after the disc is inserted. For this to work, the system must have autorun enabled, and Auto Insert Notification ("AIN") must be on for the CD-ROM drive. See section (4-1-1) for more information on AIN and the use of "TweakUI" to modify settings. When preparing a CD for Windows, put a text file called "autorun.inf" in the root directory that contains something like this: [autorun] open=filename.exe icon=someicon.ico The CD-ROM will be shown in the "My Computer" window with the specified icon. If the disc is inserted on a system with AIN and autorun enabled, the program named will be launched. (If you manually turned auto-insert notification off, you may need to reboot before the feature is re-enabled.) Here's a more complicated example: [autorun] open = setup.exe /i icon = setup.exe, 1 shell\configure = &Configure... shell\configure\command = setup.exe /c shell\install = &Install... shell\install\command = setup.exe /i shell\readme = &Read Me shell\readme\command = notepad help\readme.txt shell\help = &Help shell\help\command = winhlp32 help\helpfile.hlp Taking it line by line, this says: - The default AutoPlay command will be "setup /i" - The icon for the CD will be icon #1 in setup.exe - Four commands will be added to the right-click pop-up menu: 'Configure...', which will run "setup /c" 'Install...', which will run "setup /i" (same as auto-run in this case) 'Read Me', which launches notepad.exe to display "help\readme.txt" 'Help', which displays the file "help\helpfile.hlp" with the Win95 help facility You should be able to open a web page with the end-user's default browser by using the "start" command, e.g.: [autorun] open=start index.htm An alternative to "start", called "shellout", is available from the "files" section on http://resource.simplenet.com/. The advantage it has over "start" is that it doesn't pop up a DOS window, but it may also be useful for some WinNT configurations where the "start" command can't be found. For more information on autorun: http://www.gui.com.au/avdf/oct95/samp_autoplay.html http://www.microsoft.com/msj/defaulttop.asp?page=/msj/0499/win32/win320499top.htm A program that will allow you to test autoplay without burning a CD: http://www.connect.net/gstrope/autotest.htm (Actually, if you SUBST a folder onto a drive letter, the autorun feature in Win95 will scan the new drive. For example, "SUBST J: \goodies\NewCD". This technique is also useful for testing out a CD-ROM you're preparing.) Some simple, configurable autorun applications (launchers and menus) are available, most as shareware: http://www.powerup.com.au/~calypso/index.htm http://www.phdcc.com/helpindex/ShellRun.htm http://www.mediachance.com/ http://www.pgd.dk/ You can use the Macintosh equivalent of Autorun (QuickTime 2.0 Autostart) to automatically launch an application or document on the Mac. The "-auto" flag of mkhybrid (6-1-32) lets you specify this. Changing the icon on the Mac can be done by using Toast to record a disc image (record by "Volume" instead of "Files and Folders"). Change the icon on the disc image file from the Command-I window in the Finder, then record it. Subject: [3-22] How can I be sure the data was written correctly? (1999/12/19) The easiest way is to compare the original with the copy. If the disc was burned from an ISO-9660 image file, programs like Easy-CD Pro 95 will do a comparison of the disc with the original. Toast for the Mac will automatically verify after writing if requested. You can also use something like CD-R Verifier from http://www.cdrom-prod.com/cd-r_verifier.html or CDCchedk from http://Fusion.zejn.si/ to check the contents of an entire CD-ROM easily. Another way is to do a recursive file-by-file comparison. Programs that compute CRCs on files and then compare them (meant primarily for virus-checking) will work. Another way is to use the UNIX "diff" utility, which is available for Win95 (along with many other similar utilities) from http://www.reedkotler.com/. If you had copied the contents of C:\MyData onto a CD-R at E:\, you would use: diff -q -r C:\MyData E: The "-q" flag tells it to report if the files differ, but not show what the differences are, and the "-r" flag says to descend into directories recursively. There are many other options. A utility called "treediff", available from the Simtel archives (http://www.simtel.com/archive/index.htm), may be helpful. http://www.funduc.com/directory_toolkit.htm has a shareware program with some relevant features. http://www.araxis.com/ has an evaluation copy of PMdiff, available for Windows and native OS/2. You can get "FileSync" from http://www.fileware.co.uk/. You can download Microsoft's WinDiff -- which, unlike some of the programs mentioned previously, understands long filenames -- from ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/services/technet/office95/wind.exe. It can also be found on the Win98 CD in \tools\reskit\file\. An alternative to windiff is xdiff, from http://www.wookie.demon.co.uk/xdiff/. Rocksoft Pty has a product called Veracity (http://www.veracity.com/) that can check the integrity of a directory tree. If you *really* want to verify your discs, try http://www.audiodev.com/. Subject: [3-23] How do I copy Audio Karaoke/CD+G discs? (1999/12/12) The following is an excerpt from the http://www.goldenhawk.com/ web site. CDRWIN is one of the few available programs that can copy CD+G discs. "To backup CD+G discs, you must have one of the following recorders... Hewlett Packard 7500 / 7570 / 8100 / 8110 / 8200 / 8210 / 9100 / 9200 Panasonic CW-7501 Plasmon CDR4240 Plextor PX-R412C (must have firmware version 1.07) Plextor PX-R820T / PX-W4220T / PX-W8220T) Sony CRX100E / CRX110E / CRX120E / CRX140E Yamaha All Models All Yamaha recorders (except the CDR100 and CDR102), the PX-R412C, and the HP8100/8110 are the only models that are capable of reading as well as writing CD+G discs. If you do not have one of these models, then you will have to purchase another CDROM device that can read CD+G discs. The following CDROM drives can read CD+G discs... Plextor 4Plex Plus Plextor 8Plex (not recommended) Plextor 12Plex Plextor 12/20Plex Plextor 14/32Plex Plextor 17/40Plex (not recommended for CD+G at this time) Sony 76S (not recommended) Sony 415 (only works well at 1x reading speed) " There may be other units that work as readers or writers. Check the documentation from the manufacturer to be sure. Shareware software for playing back CD+G discs on the PC or Macintosh is available from http://www.karaoke.com/downcdg.html. There does not appear to be any generally available software for creating CD+G discs. Subject: [3-24] How do I copy a CD-ROM with 3GB of data on it? (1998/08/29) You don't. The CD doesn't actually have that much data on it. Some CD publishers use a trick where they reference the same spot on the disc several times with overlapping files. If you try to do a file-by-file copy from the disc onto your hard drive, you'll end up with several copies of the same blocks, and more data than can fit on a CD-ROM. VideoCDs often appear to have individual files that are 700MB or more. In this case, they really *are* that big. They're written in a special format that drops error correction in favor of more space. This works fine for video data, but is definitely not recommended for ordinary data. If you want to duplicate a CD-ROM, you should either use a program meant for the purpose (Adaptec's CD Copier, Jeff Arnold's SNAPSHOT, etc), or extract the data track as a single ISO-9660 image. Some software is more capable of dealing with complex CDs than others, so if you have a particular kind of CD in mind (such as VideoCD) you should check the capabilities of the software before making a purchase. Subject: [3-25] How do I get my CD-R pressed into a real CD? (1998/04/06) There are a large number of companies that will do modest production runs of pressed CDs, but listing them is beyond the scope of this FAQ. Do a web search on "CD duplication" and "CD replication", or check out http://www.cd-webstore.com/BurningIssues.html (a licensed-access web site from the www.cd-info.com folks). Subject: [3-26] How do I make a CD without that two-second gap between tracks? (1999/07/12) Most CD recorders are capable of doing this, given the right software. The key is to use disc-at-once recording instead of track-at-once. Some programs give you a great deal of control. Golden Hawk's CDRWIN (6-1-7) will let you specify the gap size for each track, down to zero, and set the location of the track and index marks. You can put each track in a separate file or have the entire recording in a single file. Other programs, like ECDC (6-1-26), are easier to use but less flexible. You will almost certainly need to use disc-at-once recording. Most drives insist on inserting a two-second gap between tracks when track-at-once recording is used, and those that don't will at best leave an instant of silence between tracks. You can eliminate the gaps from a TAO recording by putting the entire CD into one track, but then you lose the ability to seek immediately to the start of a song. Most PC software supports both TAO and DAO recording modes. On the Mac, Adaptec's popular Toast software can't do DAO recording of audio CDs, but CharisMac's Discribe (6-1-29) and Adaptec's Jam (6-1-34) can. If you want to break up a long recording into several WAV files (one per track), it's important to split tracks on precise 2352-byte boundaries. If you don't, you'll get tiny periods of silence or noise, lasting less than 1/75th of a second, that may be clearly audible depending on the context. A handy Windows utility called "CDWAV", available from Mike Richter's web page at http://resource.simplenet.com/files/cdwav.zip, is good at splitting large WAV files into smaller ones, and can do so on block boundaries. If you want to mix WAV tracks together, take a look at Multiquence, http://www.goldwave.com/multiquence/index.html. Subject: [3-27] How can I record RealAudio, MIDI, and MP3 on CD? (1999/12/18) The first step is to convert from whatever format the sound is in to WAV or AIFF. In some cases (e.g. MP3), many of the popular CD recording programs will do the conversion for you. Converting directly to 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo will save you a conversion step later. Once it's in WAV or (on the Mac) AIFF format, you can record it as you would any other audio. Be sure to play it back once in its converted form to make sure that the conversion was successful. For a tutorial on converting CD-DA to MP3 and vice-versa, see http://www.cdpage.com/Compact_Disc_Consulting/Tutorial/mp3.html. The "getting started" guide at http://help.mp3.com/help/ may also be helpful. There may or may not be a converter for the format you're interested in. Here are some links to try: MIDI - http://www.advicom.net/~diac/mr-home.html (MIDI Renderer) - http://www.polyhedric.com/software/ (MIDInight Express) - http://www.eden.com/~mitchell/ (Audio Compositor) - http://www.ptialaska.net/~syntec/pages/midiwave.htm (MIDIwave) - http://www.dartpro.com/ (DART CD-Recorder) MPEG audio (a/k/a MP2 and MP3) - http://www.mpeg.org/~tristan/MPEG/mp3.html (various) - http://www.winamp.com/ (Winamp) - http://www.mp3.com/ (various) - (Feurio, WinOnCD, Nero, and perhaps others will record from MP3 on the fly) RealAudio - http://www.2bsys.com/Ra2Wav/index.htm (Ra2Wav) General (sound driver that writes to disk) - http://www.HighCriteria.com/ (Total Recorder) You can't write MPEG, AC3, or other compressed audio formats to a CD-DA disc and expect to play it back in your car stereo. CD players only understand uncompressed audio. http://www.sonicspot.com/multimediaconverters.html has a collection of converters for different formats. If you *really* want to be able to play MP3-compressed songs while driving down the freeway, check out http://utter.chaos.org.uk/~altman/mp3mobile/. Subject: [3-28] How do I add CD-Text information? (1999/09/27) CD-Text is a standard that allows disc and track information to be embedded on an audio CD. The data can be read by some CD players, providing a way to have disc information available without having to enter it manually or look it up in a database. Adding CD-Text to the discs you record requires a compatible recorder and capable software. Support was scarce in mid-1999, but is more common now. The currently available software supports writing of album title, artist names, and track titles, and can copy discs with CD-Text data already on them. Storing lyrics within the tracks is possible but not widely supported. Not all CD players and CD-ROM drives can read CD-Text. If this feature is important to you, check the specifications before you buy. Subject: [3-29] Can I distribute a web site on a CD-ROM? (1999/02/06) You need to include the content and a browser on the CD. Some products that might be helpful are: GEAR - WebGrabber: http://www.gearcdr.com/ Softword Technology - Browse and View: http://www.pc-shareware.com/browser.htm Enreach - I-View http://www.enreach.com/products/iview/iview.htm Faico - NavRoad http://www.offlinebrowser.com/ or http://www.faico.com/ Verity - CD-Web Publisher http://www.verity.com/ See http://www.phdcc.com/helpindex/cdroms.html for some suggestions on putting web pages on CD-ROM. Subject: [3-30] How do I clean my CD recorder? (1999/02/14) In general, you don't. The only reason you'd need to clean a recorder or (for that matter) a CD-ROM drive is if you went and stuck your finger on the lens. Cleaning kits and well-intentioned Q-tips are unnecessary and potentially dangerous. If you have an overwhelming desire to clear the dust out of your recorder, and can't or don't want to send it to a service center, use gentle(!) bursts of compressed air. [ I've never had to clean a lens in *any* CD player, including a flip-up top-loading boom box that I've had since mid-1990. I can *see* the dust inside, and I can see the lens, but it has no problem playing discs. I can't imagine how a recorder that's only a year or two old is going to collect enough dust to fail. ] The Repair FAQ at http://www.repairfaq.org/ has a section about CD-ROM drives that seems relevant. Find the "Compact Disc Players and CDROM Drives" section, and skip down to section 4. Subject: [3-31] Is it better to record at slower speeds? (1999/08/23) It depends on your recorder, media, and who you talk to. For example, some informal testing with the venerable Yamaha CDR-100 determined that it worked best at 4x speed with media certified for 4x writes. 1x worked almost as well, but 2x would occasionally produce discs with unrecoverable errors. With audio CDs, the results are more subjective. Some people have asserted that you should always write at 1x, others have stated that 2x may actually be better. It depends on the recorder, media, player, and your ears. Try it both ways and listen. See section (4-18) for some notes on how you can write the same set of bits to two CDs and still have audible differences. CD-R media is written by heating up tiny sections of the disc. When the disc spins faster, the laser has less time to shine on a particular spot, so the laser has to be controlled differently. Different formulations of media may require a different "write strategy" at certain speeds, and each recorder may adjust its write strategy differently to accommodate those speeds. This can potentially result in combinations of recorder and media that work perfectly at one speed but fail miserably at another. Put simply, there's more to writing at high speed than just spinning faster. There is no One True Answer to this question. Do what works best for you. See http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/History/Commentary/Parker/stcroix.html for commentary about "write strategy" selection and different media types. See the graphs at http://www.digido.com/meadows.html for an examination of BLER (BLock Error Rate) with different recorders, different media, and different recording speeds. A few of the graphs show the same recorder and same media at different speeds, and in some cases the BLER increased at higher speeds, while in others it decreased. Subject: [3-32] Where do I get drivers for my CD recorder? (1998/04/06) In general, you don't need them. Software that burns CD-Rs has the necessary drivers built in. If you want to use your recorder as a CD-ROM drive, you may need drivers for it. See section (5-8). Subject: [3-33] Can I copy discs without breaking the law? (1998/04/06) (This section only applies to people in the USA. International copyright laws apply in most other countries, but there may be local variations.) You are allowed to make an archival backup of software, but the same doesn't necessarily hold true for music. The Home Rights Recording Act will allow you to duplicate music under certain circumstances. A discussion of the topic, including details on past and pending legislation, can be found on the Home Recording Rights Coalition web site at http://www.hrrc.org/. The text of the Home Rights Recording Act can also be found here. The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the music industry, has a web site at http://www.riaa.com/. An article entitled, "Copying Music to CD: The Right, the Wrong, and the Law" is at http://www.emediapro.net/EM1998/starrett2.html. http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/bad_laws/dat_tax.html has some relevant information and pointers. http://www.bmi.com/ and http://www.ascap.com/ have yet more perspectives on legislation. Subject: [3-34] Can CD-Rs recorded at 2x be read faster than 2x? (1999/09/22) Of course. The only possible basis in fact for the, "if it was recorded at 2x, you can't read it faster than 2x" rumors is that some drives have trouble reading CD-R media. Discs that are hard to read when spinning at 12x may become easier to read when spinning at 4x. It has also been noted that some recorders will write more legible discs at certain speeds (e.g. the Yamaha CDR-100, which works better at 1x or 4x than it does at 2x). None of this should lead anyone to conclude, however, that the write speed and read speed are tied directly together. The reader, writer, and media all have a role in determining how quickly a CD-R can spin and be readable. It's also the case that discs written at high speed (say 8x) can be read by drives *slower* than 8x. So if you're distributing discs to people with old 4x CD-ROM drives, you don't have to worry about them not being able to read at 8x. Of course, if the CD-ROM is poorly constructed, or the writer is producing marginal discs at high speeds, you might see evidence to the contrary, but there is no technical barrier to reading discs recorded at 8x or 12x on a slower drive. Subject: [3-35] How do I make my CD-ROM work on the Mac, WinNT, and UNIX? (1999/06/05) This is a tricky one because of issues with long filenames and file attributes. Mac CD-ROMs are typically burned with an HFS filesystem, not ISO-9660, and WinNT uses a different scheme for long filenames (Joliet) than UNIX does (Rock Ridge). Some variants of UNIX will recognize the Joliet names, but neither Windows nor the Mac understands Rock Ridge. You might be able to use an HFS CD-ROM on a platform other than the Mac, but if you're distributing software, it's not wise to assume that your customers will be able to do the same. The easiest way to create a disc that will work on all platforms is to use plain level 1 ISO-9660, with 8+3 filenames and no special file attributes. If you need to include Mac applications as well as data, this gets harder. There is an Apple-defined extension to ISO-9660 that allows the Mac file and creator types to be present on an ISO-9660 filesystem. This allows most of the features of the Mac filesystem on an otherwise plain ISO-9660 disc. It's not clear how many of the software products in section (6-1) take advantage of this, but "mkhybrid" (section (6-1-32)) seems to. Section (3-5-3) has a URL to an Apple tech note with implementation details. A common way to construct a disc for the Mac and PC is as a "hybrid" disc that has both an ISO-9660 filesystem and an HFS filesystem. To save space, the data itself is shared by both sections of the disc. This is possible because the ISO-9660 directory entries use an absolute block offset on the disc, so they can point at data residing in the HFS filesystem. There are various applications that will do HFS/ISO-9660 hybrids. Adaptec's Toast for the Mac and "mkhybrid" for the PC are two examples. Search for "hybrid" in the list of software in section (6-1) for more examples. The issue of Joliet vs. Rock Ridge can also be solved, by including both kinds of extensions on the same disc. The "mkhybrid" program can include Joliet, Rock Ridge, and HFS all on the same disc. You can even have files appear on one kind but not the other, and rename files on the fly, allowing you to have a "readme.txt" with different contents for Mac, UNIX, and Windows. Subject: [3-36] How do I put "hidden tracks" and negative indices on audio CDs? (1999/03/06) With a little searching you can find an audio CD that will cause your CD player to show a negative track time when one track finishes and the next begins. The negative sections are usually filled with silence, but some rare discs will have material in them. If you seek directly to the track, you don't see (or hear) the negative-time section. The trick here is also described in section (3-14). The start position of an audio track listed in the TOC (Table of Contents) doesn't have to point to the actual start of the track. When using CDRWIN-style cue sheets, the actual start of the track is at "index 00", and the place where the player seeks to is "index 01". The distance between the actual start of the track and the TOC-specified start is called the pre-gap. The Red Book standard requires that index 01 be at least two seconds (150 sectors) from the start of the CD. You can specify additional index markers, but most CD players will simply ignore them. Index 01 is the only value written into the TOC. Some CD-ROM games have tried to use the index markers as a form of copy protection, because they won't get copied automatically by many programs. If you want to create your own discs with "hidden tracks", you need a program that gives you full control over where the index markers go (CDRWIN is one such program). Combine two (or more) tracks with an audio editor into a single file. Specify the file as a single track in the cue sheet, and set "index 01" to a point right after the "hidden" song finishes. There are other ways to approach this, but this is probably the most straightforward. Subject: [3-37] Do I need to worry about viruses? (1998/09/11) Absolutely. Infected CD-ROMs are every bit as nasty as infected floppies, if not worse: you can't disinfect the source media. It is prudent to scan your files before creating a CD-ROM for distribution, and it's not a bad idea to scan the CD-ROM afterward (in case somebody has cleverly infected your CD writing software). The dangers of boot sector viruses on bootable CD-ROMs are probably low. Because the boot sector is created directly by the recording software, and can't be modified after it has been written, the opportunity for infection is small. Subject: [3-38] How do I cover up a bad audio track on a CD-R? (1998/09/11) You don't. With a CD-ROM you could use multisession writes to hide unwanted data, but you can't create multisession audio CDs. (Well, you can create them, but nothing outside of a CD-ROM drive will be able to play the tracks outside the first session.) On CD-RW media, it might be possible to overwrite an individual track. You would need software that supported this capability. Erasing the disc and starting over is probably easier. Subject: [3-39] How do I duplicate this hard-to-copy game? (1998/10/22) Requests for information on how to copy games like "Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines" occasionally sprout up on the newsgroups. Generally the publisher has employed some form of copy protection that prevents the disc from being duplicated easily. Most publishers are well aware that there is no such thing is an unbreakable copy protection scheme. It is possible though to implement a method effective enough to slow the tide. If you don't believe that, start counting posts the next time a popular game with decent protection is released. If you're looking for information, the most appropriate places to search are "warez" newsgroups and web sites. Searching the net for tips is a good way to get started. Be forewarned that any "cracks" you download will very likely also be viruses, and that if you give away or accept a copy of the disc from someone else you are probably breaking the law (and a virus is what you deserve). The point of this FAQ is not to aid and abet the illegal distribution of copyrighted works. There are plenty of news groups and web sites devoted to the subject, so please don't waste bandwidth in "legitimate" forums asking for cracks. Subject: [3-40] How do I erase or format a disc? (1999/04/11) If you're using CD-R media, and you're not using a packet writing program like DirectCD, you can stop reading now. You don't need to prepare CD-R discs for conventional recording, and you can't erase them no matter how hard you try. If you want to erase a CD-RW disc, use the software that came with your CD-ReWritable drive. Somewhere in the army of applications and mountain of menus is the command you're looking for. If you're going to be using packet writing, a little formatting will be necessary. The application should offer to do this automatically the first time you insert a blank disc. The fixed-packet formatting that DirectCD does for CD-RW discs takes about 50 minutes on a 2x rewritable drive. The difference between "erase" and "quick erase" is that the former erases the entire disc, while the latter just stomps on the Table of Contents (TOC). It's like erasing the directory off of a floppy disk. The file data is still there, but since there's nothing pointing to it, the disc appears empty. (Some people have asked if it's possible to recover data from a quick-erased disc. The general answer is, "don't count on it".) The difference between "format" and "fast format" (such as is offered on the HP8100/Sony CRX100) is of a different nature. Both format the entire disc, and both operate at the same speed, but the "fast" format allows you to use the drive before formatting has completed. After a few minutes, you are allowed to access the drive while the formatting process continues in the background. Subject: [3-41] How do I equalize the volume for tracks from different sources? (1999/04/15) A common problem when creating an audio CD compiled from many different sources is that the sound is at different volume levels. This can be slight or, after you've cranked up the volume to hear the first track, very much the opposite of slight. There are actually two issues that determine how loud the music sounds. The first is the signal amplitude. Put simply, if you open a WAV file, this is how close to maximum the squiggly line gets. You can adjust the WAV file so that the highest amplitude is at maximum with the "normalize" function of a sound editor. Some programs, such as Adaptec's Spin Doctor, may even do this for you automatically. The second issue is the dynamic range compression. This differs from data rate compression in that it doesn't make the WAV file smaller. Instead, it makes the quiet parts louder and the loud parts quieter. A CD-DA has a dynamic range of 96dB. If a symphony is recorded with a range of more than 100dB, it has to be compressed to fit on a CD-DA. In practice, you don't want whispers to be inaudible and shouts to be deafening, so the audio is often squeezed into a narrower range. To make a CD that sounds like it has equal volume across all tracks, you need to have the average sound level uniform across all tracks and have the peak volume be about the same on all tracks. One program that does essentially this is Audiograbber v1.40 and later, available as shareware from http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/. (As of v1.41, you went into "Normalize Settings" and hit the "Advanced" button.) The tool is a little clumsy for serious audio mastering, but should do fine for preparing a "mix" CD that you'll be listening to in your car. If you aren't dissuaded yet, http://www.digido.com/compression.html has an excellent article on compression (intended primarily for the budding recording artist, but a good general reference nonetheless). Cool Edit 96, available as shareware from http://www.syntrillium.com/, can do different kinds of compression, and is fun to play with. Sidebar: "dB" is the abbreviation for "decibel", a signal strength ratio measured on a logarithmic scale. Every time you add 6 dB, the signal level doubles. Detailed information is available from the Acoustics FAQ at http://www.Point-and-Click.com/Campanella_Acoustics/faq/faq.htm. Subject: [3-42] How do I make a bit-for-bit copy of a disc? (1999/05/17) A commonly posed question from the newsgroups: "what software can do bit-for-bit copies?" There isn't any. If it helps to have a (convenient albeit somewhat inaccurate) mental image, picture a long string of bits arranged in a spiral. There are bits at the start of the spiral that you can't copy (the lead-in area), there are bits outside the spiral that you can usually copy if you request them ("raw" MODE-1 CD-ROM ECC and sector goop), and there are bits *under* the spiral that are blurry and hard to see (the subcode data). Making a "bit-for-bit" copy of a disc would require reading the data at the lowest possible level, something that no production CD-ROM drive is capable of doing. Even if it were possible, there aren't any CD recorders that can write that sort of data. Because of these limitations, you have to read a sector of data as a sector of data, not as a collection of frames scattered over half the circumference of the disc. You can read the sector in "raw" mode, scan for index markers, and try to extract CD+G data tucked into the R-W subcodes, but there's a good chance that you won't quite synchronize everything up when you write it back. Bear in mind that CD-ROM drives and CD recorders were designed for people who want to read and write data, not decipher arcane standards documents and perform their own error correction. Creating exact one-off copies was not a major consideration of the original design. In general, however, you don't *need* a "bit-perfect" duplicate of the original. If what you're copying is a simple MODE-1 CD-ROM, you can make an "identical" copy by reading the sectors off the original and writing them to a duplicate. For most situations this is good enough: you have copied the bits that matter. On the other hand, if it's a copy-protected CD-ROM with index markers in strange places, you have to use software and hardware that can see the "blurry bits" reliably and copy them. See also section (3-1-1), (3-18), and (3-39). Subject: [3-43] How do I put punctuation or lower case in CD-ROM volume labels? (1999/06/05) The name of a CD-ROM is determined by the CD-ROM volume label. This determines how the disc shows up on the Mac or Windows. The ISO-9660 standard limits the characters in the volume name to the same set of characters allowed in a filename, namely A-Z, 0-9, '.', and '_'. Some programs enforce strict adherence to the standard, while others are more relaxed. For example, if you wanted to create a disc with Nero that had a hyphen in the volume name, you would go into the "file options" and change the Character Set to "ASCII". Nero will then allow a broader range of characters. Other programs may or may not have similar features. Remember that standards are guidelines, not laws enforced by threat of punishment. You are welcome to create discs that deviate from the standard in any way you choose. The only price you will pay is that, if you stray too far from the standard, your disc may not be readable by everyone. For the specific case of a volume label, deviations are pretty harmless. Subject: [4] Problems (1999/09/12) Problems that arise when burning a CD-R. Some general suggestions: - RTFM (Read The Fine Manual). Sometimes it's *supposed* to work that way. If you didn't receive a manual with the product, it may be in text or Acrobat form on a CD-ROM. - Check your software version. You may need a newer version of the software for correct operation with your hardware (yes, even if you received the software with the recorder). Most, if not all, CD recorder software publishers have web sites with updates. - Update the software. Even if the software is new enough to be compatible, there's some chance that your bug has already been fixed. - Check your ASPI layer. Use ASPICHK, available from Adaptec at http://www.adaptec.com/support/faqs/aspilayer.html. If you own an Adaptec product, ASPI updates are available from there as well. - If you've tweaked your BIOS to the limit and are overclocking everything, reset it to defaults and see if your problems clear up. You can always tweak it back. Subject: [4-1] What does "buffer underrun" mean? (1998/09/05) It means you have an attractive new coaster for your table. The CD writing process can't be interrupted in mid-session. To prevent this from happening, the makers of CD recorders put a write buffer in the drive, usually 512K or 1MB. Data read from the hard drive, tape, or another CD is stored in the buffer, and pulled out as needed by the recorder. If the recorder requests data from the write buffer, but there's none there, it's called a buffer underrun. The disc is still spinning, but there's no data to write, so the recording process aborts. You can still use the disc with multisession CD-ROM drives by closing the session and starting another, assuming there's enough space left on the CD, and assuming your pre-mastering software didn't choose to finalize the disc for you. Advice for preventing buffer underruns is scattered throughout this FAQ. A brief summary: - Use a fast, AV-friendly hard drive (i.e. one that doesn't do slow thermal recalibrations). Most drives being sold today fall into this category. You don't need a screaming AV-optimized drive. - Record at a slow speed - it takes longer to empty the buffer when recording at 1x. - Don't do anything else with the computer while recording. Don't record from a file server. - Defragment your HD, especially if you're doing on-the-fly recording. - Record from a disc image file rather than on-the-fly. - Depending on your setup, putting the recorder and your hard drive on separate SCSI controllers may be necessary. - Keep your CD-R cool. Sometimes the drives fail when they overheat. Also watch out for things like anti-virus programs that wake up, virtual memory settings that cause swapping, screen savers that activate during the CD creation process, unusual network activity, and background downloads of data or faxes. One way to check is to run the HD defragmenter in Win95. If it restarts every few seconds, it's because something is hitting the drive. A utility included with Microsoft Office, called "FindFast", will occasionally start up and scan your hard drives. Disabling this by deleting the shortcut in the Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp folder may be necessary. If you're using Windows, see the sub-sections on Auto-Insert Notification and VCACHE settings, below. http://www.adaptec.com/support/faqs/bufunder.html has a comprehensive collection of buffer underrun info. http://www.adaptec.com/support/configuration/cdrec.html is interesting reading for users with CD-Rs attached to Adaptec SCSI cards. They're pretty far on the conservative side, but if you're having trouble this may help you. An article by Dana Parker entitled "CD-R on the Safe Side: Seven Rules of Successful CD Recording" in the April 1997 issue of Emedia Professional (http://www.emediapro.net/EMtocs/emtocapr.html) listed the Seven Habits of Successful CD-R Users: 1. Defragment Your Disk 2. Use a Partition for Staging Input 3. Create a Real Image 4. Test before writing 5. Stabilize Your System for CD-R 6. Shut Down Other Applications 7. After the Burn: Label and Test Subject: [4-1-1] What's the deal with Windows Auto-Insert Notification (AIN)? (1999/09/12) Some of the Windows-based recording software recommend turning off Auto-Insert Notification. Having this on can interfere with closing sessions or even just inserting discs into the drive. Most of the recent software will disable it automatically, but some of the older products require you to disable it manually. You can do so under Win95/Win98 by opening the "System" icon in the Control Panel, and selecting "Device Manager". For each item under CD-ROM, select the device, click on the "Settings" tab, and make sure the "Auto Insert Notification" checkbox is unchecked. [With a vanilla Win95 setup I got SCSI errors when AIN was off for my CD-R but on for my CD-ROM, even if the CD-ROM drive wasn't in use at the time.] If you're using WinNT, you can turn it off with the "TweakUI" program available in PowerToys (available from the Microsoft web site at http://www.microsoft.com/), or by modifying a registry key with Regedit32 (0=disabled, 1=enabled): HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Services \ Cdrom \ Autorun If your software automatically turns AIN off, and you can't figure out how to turn it back on, the TweakUI program may be able to help. Check the "Paranoia" settings. (Incidentally, if installing the Power Toys screws up your icons, select "Rebuild Icons" from the "Repair" menu.) Sidebar: the trouble with Auto Insert Notification is that it periodically attempts to find a valid disc in the CD recorder. A blank disc isn't very interesting to Windows, so nothing happens. When the table of contents is written to the disc, it suddenly becomes interesting; and if Autorun or Autoplay are enabled, enough activity is generated by Windows' attempts to read the disc that the write fails. Because it only affects CDs with actual data being written to them, a test write won't end in failure. It can be very frustrating to have 100% success with test writes and 100% failures with actual writes! With disc-at-once recording, the process will abort very near the start of recording, probably leaving an empty but useless disc. With track-at-once recording, it will fail at the end, and you may still be able to finalize the disc. Audio CDs will most likely work fine even if interrupted at the end of the write process. IMPORTANT: if you are using DirectCD for Windows, you must have AIN turned *on*, or some things won't work quite right. The most obvious failure mode is that long filenames aren't shown, but some reports indicate that data on the disc can get trashed as well. This can make life interesting if you're also using a conventional writing application, unless the application is good about turning AIN off before writing. The other Windows applications currently sold by Adaptec (notably Easy CD Creator) will automatically disable Auto-Insert Notification when appropriate and re-enable it afterward, so you don't have to worry about AIN at all. Subject: [4-1-2] What's all this about Win95 VCACHE settings? (1999/10/28) One problem with Win95 is that by default the size of the file cache is unrestricted. This means that all available memory will eventually get filled up with file data, which will cause the virtual memory system to start swapping out pages from executing applications. When something needs to be executed from a page that has been swapped out, it takes time to pull it back in off the disk. While this is happening, the CD recorder's buffer could drain completely. The procedure is simple: (1) Open the file SYSTEM.INI with a text editor. This file is usually C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI. (2) Find the section labeled "[vcache]". (3) Add the following lines *after* the "[vcache]" line: MinFileCache = 512 MaxFileCache = 4096 (4) Save the changes to the file, and reboot. The above values are recommended for a 16MB system. A common rule of thumb is to set "maxfilecache" to 25% of your RAM, up to a maximum setting of 16MB. Because of (actual or perceived) bugs in Win95, some people recommend setting "minfilecache" to the same value. The [vcache] change has reportedly cured severe buffer underrun problems with some versions of CDRWIN and removed popping noises during digital audio extraction with Easy CD Creator. It's a good thing to do to any PC running Win95. It's not necessary for WinNT. It's not clear whether this will help with Win98, but it doesn't seem to hurt. If you are uncomfortable tweaking your SYSTEM.INI file, try CacheMan at http://www.outertech.com/english/index.html. It allows you to modify the above settings, and a few more besides. Subject: [4-2] I can't get long Win95 filenames to work right (1998/04/06) Typical symptoms can be described like this: - Works fine in Win95 Explorer - Under DOS the directories are visible, but instead of "dirname1" you get "dirname57". Attempting to read them results in errors. - Typing 'cd dirname~102' may fail while 'cd "Long File Names without the ~"' will work. The problem occurs when certain CD-R writing programs are used to create the discs. The short and long forms of the filenames are sorted differently, so some of the files can't be found. Using newer software (e.g. Easy CD Creator 3 instead of Easy-CD Pro) should produce better results. Subject: [4-3] I can't read the multisession CD I just made (1998/04/06) The SCSI driver needs to believe that the CD-ROM drive can handle multisession discs. Most likely you will need to update your SCSI drivers before this will work. (This problem was reported with an HP4020i and a Buslogic BT946C controller; if you have an HP drive you should get the c4324hlp.vxd driver from the HP web site. See section 6 for the address.) One possible cause of this problem is writing a multisession disc in MODE-1 format. Some older CD-ROM drives incorrectly assume that a MODE-1 disc can't be multisession, so they don't look for additional sessions unless it's written in MODE-2 (CD-ROM/XA) format. Also, if the final session on the CD isn't closed, standard CD players may become confused (the NEC 6Xi certainly does under Win95). This doesn't mean that the *disc* must be closed, just that the *session* must be closed. (Actually, the NEC 6Xi doesn't like open discs either... sigh.) A note on one of the Ricoh pages indicates that the Ricoh 1420C is unable to read sessions smaller than 3 minutes (about 26MB) until firmware 1.6x. Subject: [4-4] Write process keeps failing N minutes in (1998/04/06) There's a couple of possibilities. One is that your data source can't keep up with the CD-R; try using disc-at-once writing from a disc image with the speed set to 1x. If it seems to be getting worse over time, you may just need to defragment your hard drive. If that fails, a number of people have discovered that the problem is a faulty CD-R unit (similar behavior has been reported on Sony and HP units, which have different mechanisms). You should try 1x writing from a fast source and with different sets of data before contacting the manufacturer, since they will likely tell you to do exactly that anyway. Be sure that there aren't environmental factors creating difficulties. CD-R units are usually built to handle small shocks, but having a set of speakers playing loud music on the same table as a CD-R may cause it to skip, resulting in a failed write. Sonic booms, heavy construction equipment, and nuclear detonations may have similar effects. It's also possible that you simply have a bad batch of media. Try a different type and brand of disc. Some distributors (e.g. dataDisc) will exchange media that's provably defective. Be careful with Advanced Power Management functions on some PCs. If the keyboard and IDE devices are completely idle, the system may decide that nothing is going on and switch to a low-power mode. Ditto for screen savers that kick in after the system has been idle for a certain period. Subject: [4-5] Why did my CD-R eject between the "test" and "write" passes? (1998/04/06) Most CD recorders need to clear their memory between the "test" pass and the "write" pass. For some recorders, the only command that does this is "eject". If the recorder has a tray it just goes out and back in, but if it uses a caddy manual intervention is needed. Some CD-R packages allow you to start the real write pass a few seconds after the test pass has succeeded. They may not disable this even though they know that the disc will have to be ejected. Make sure the option is set to "wait until told to continue." Subject: [4-6] My CD-ROM drive doesn't like *any* CD-R discs (1998/04/06) A very simple test is to take a CD that DOES work, copy it, and try both (this ensures that your problems aren't being caused by, for example, a drive that doesn't support multisession CDs). Sometimes the firmware can be at issue. In one specific case, a Goldstar GCD580B CD-ROM drive was able to read CD-Rs under Win95 but not MS-DOS 6.22. Upgrading the firmware from v1.01 to v1.24 solved the problem. If it fails with different kinds of media, the CD-ROM drive either doesn't like discs written with your recorder, or doesn't like CD-R media at all. In one case, returning the CD-ROM for an identical unit resolved the problems. While there are stringent specifications for discs, there are no such specifications for CD players and CD-ROM drives. They just have to play the discs. If the disc and the drive are both marginal, you lose. Subject: [4-7] How do I avoid having a ";1" on my ISO-9660 discs? (1998/04/06) The ISO-9660 standard says the version number (a semicolon followed by a number at the end of every filename) has to be there. Most operating systems simply ignore it, but until recently the Mac didn't, causing some problems. (For the Mac, look at "ISO 9660 File Access" in the System:Extensions folder with Command-I. If the version shown is 5.0 or greater, your system should handle the version numbers just fine. If not, you should update your system software.) If you can't find a way to work around it, "mkisofs" has an option to omit the version number when constructing an ISO-9660 image. Subject: [4-8] I keep getting SCSI timeout errors (1998/04/06) http://www.adaptec.com/support/configuration/cdrec.html has some advice on SCSI configuration. Basically, check your cabling and termination (see section (4-17) for more advice there), turn off features you don't need, and make sure Auto Insert Notification is off (see section (4-1-1)). Subject: [4-9] I'm having trouble writing a complete disc (1999/04/29) (This is for failures other than buffer underruns. For those, see section (4-1) and perhaps section (4-4).) If it's failing right as the disc is being finalized, and you're recording in track-at-once mode, try recording in disc-at-once mode instead. It has been suggested that some recorder+media combinations have trouble reading the PMA (Program Memory Area, where a copy of the TOC is kept until the disc is finalized) at the end of a write. See section (2-19) for the low-down on disc finalization. When in doubt, check your ASPI layer. Find out why at http://resource.simplenet.com/primer/aspi.htm. One user with an ATAPI recorder found that disabling DMA (from the Win98 peripheral properties) made things better. This was happening frequently with the HP4020i running off an AdvanSys SCSI card under Win311 (i.e. WfWG). The solution here was to remove IFSHLP.SYS from the CONFIG.SYS. (IFSHLP.SYS is somehow involved with 32-bit file access and network support, so you may have to disable both of these before disabling IFSHLP. You may have better luck under Win95.) Another user with the same setup found that doing power-up diagnostics and device reset right before burning the CD helped. Subject: [4-10] What's the CDD2000 Write Append Error / spring problem? (1998/07/26) This seems to happen on Philips CDD2000-based units, such as the HP4020i, usually a short while after the warranty runs out. The most common cause is a spring that weakens with age, but it might also be due to lubrication breakdown. After a while, the recorder starts failing when trying to write beyond a certain point on the disc. The ways of dealing with this range from minor system changes to the placement of chicken entrails on selected components. Reducing the DMA rate on the AdvanSys SCSI card (for the HP4020i) may help, buying better SCSI cables and checking for proper termination may make a difference, or even powering off and on again right before the burn. For some users, however, the problem is mechanical rather than spiritual. One user was told by Philips tech support that if error 50h (write append) occurs, it means the drive has to be returned to the repair center. Other users have been told that the error can occur when attempting to write an empty directory or zero-length file. Under Easy-CD Pro '95, this is reported as error 171-00-50-00 (see the Adaptec web site for a complete list of error codes). If the fault is caused by the worn spring, it may be possible to fix the problem by replacing the spring. This will definitely void your warranty, and you shouldn't even think about trying this unless the only alternative is to throw the drive away. Jonathan Oei posted some details about the process (search for comp.publish.cdrom.hardware, subject "CDD2000 & Spring Fix", on http://www.dejanews.com/), and a detailed description of the procedure can be found on http://www.fadden.com/doc/fix-hp4020i.txt. This procedure requires some special tools (mini torx drivers and really fine jeweller's pliers), and involves disassembling much of the drive. If you open up the drive and remove the circuit boards, you will see that the laser writing assembly is moved by a DC stepper motor. The motor has a plastic drive gear that is meshed with a plastic "rack" on the laser. The spring in question is a piece of wire that pushes the rack against the drive gear, so when it weakens the gear slips and the write fails. Replacing the 0.012" wire with a 0.02" diameter wire solves the problem. The high temperature in the drive may contribute to the breakdown of the lubricants that allow the laser head to travel. You may be able to prevent the situation by installing a fan. This question is also covered in the HP4020i FAQ, available at http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/HP-FAQ.html. Subject: [4-11] Getting errors reading the first (data) track on mixed-mode CD (1998/08/16) There's a 150-sector postgap at the end of the data track. Most programs deal with this automatically, some older ones don't. If you're getting errors, try subtracting 150 from the total number of sectors to read for that track. Subject: [4-12] My recorder ejects blank discs immediately (1998/04/06) There are a few of possibilities, some software and some hardware. It may be that the system is looking at the disc, not finding a TOC (table of contents), and ejecting it as useless. One way to tell the difference between the operating system rejecting the CD and the drive rejecting the CD is to unplug the SCSI or IDE cable from the back of the CD recorder before inserting the disc. If the problem is the operating system, you probably need to disable certain features. Under Win95, disable auto insertion for all CD-ROM devices (see section (4-1)). One user found that reinstalling Win95 helped. On the Mac, you may just need more recent drivers. On a Solaris system, remove the recorder (probably the "cdrom" entry) from /etc/vold.conf. If that doesn't work, make sure the CD-R drive is perfectly level. Apparently some units are sensitive to being tilted at an angle. Some users have had trouble when a CD-R has been on for a while and has overheated, so if you only have trouble when the machine has been powered on for a while, try putting a small fan above the unit to blow air over it. With some drives, improper SCSI termination can cause this behavior. For the Yamaha CDR-200/CDR-400, this may be a sign that the drive has broken down and needs to be replaced. See section (5-1-1). If nothing helps, there's a strong possibility that the drive is mis- aligned and needs to be serviced. This has been known to happen to drives during shipping. One user reported problems when using the wrong type of caddy. It has to be a Sony-type caddy, which is the kind most commonly found in stores. Subject: [4-13] I'm getting complaints about power calibration (1999/02/04) The power range of the laser in a CD-R is between 4 and 8 milliwatts. CD-R discs have a section outside the standard recording area called the Program Calibration Area (PCA), which is used to adjust the laser for the brand of media you're using. The error indicates that the CD-R drive is having trouble calibrating the power setting. Try different brands of media, and if that doesn't work you should have the drive checked. Some versions of the firmware for the Philips CDD2000 (and HP 4020i) will report a power calibration error if you try to do a 1x write after a 4x read. It's also good to verify, if your CD recorder is an internal unit, that your power supply has enough capacity to run everything. Subject: [4-14] My Adaptec 2940 pauses after finding my recorder (1998/04/06) This was observed with a Yamaha CDR-100. The solution is to go into the Adaptec BIOS (hit Ctrl-A during boot), and disable the "support removable disks under BIOS as fixed disks" option and the "boot from CD-ROM" option. Subject: [4-15] I can't see all the files on the CD-R (1998/04/06) There's a couple of possibilities: either they aren't there, or they're there but you can't see them. Looking at the disc from different machines (e.g. Mac and PC) should give you some idea. Out-of-date versions of MSCDEX have been known to "forget" certain files when browsing a disc. If you're using DOS or are using the "real mode" drivers from within Win95, make sure you're using the most recent version of MSCDEX. Old versions of certain CD creation programs would occasionally omit things when asked to burn a large number of files. These problems haven't been reported for some time, however. If you were burning a multi-session CD, read the next section. Subject: [4-16] My multi-session disc only has data from the last session (1998/06/14) A common mistake when burning a multisession CD is to forget to link the files from the previous session into the current one. This results in a CD where you can see the new files but none of the old, unless you have a program that lets you choose which session you look at. If you're using Easy-CD Pro for Win31, CD Creator, or Adaptec Easy CD Creator 3, you can load the contents of all the previous sessions, and burn a new session that has all the files you want. This feature isn't available in Easy-CD Pro 95, which only allows you to link to one previous session. The files themselves aren't lost forever though: most packages will allow you to extract a track as an ISO-9660 image, and you can use WinImage to pull individual files out of it. If all else fails, CD-R Diagnostic (section (6-2-6)) claims to be able to recover data from "lost" sessions. One caution: without something like Adaptec's Session Selector, you may not see the last session on the disc anyway. Some CD-ROM drives stop looking for sessions after a certain point. Subject: [4-17] I'm getting SCSI errors (1998/07/26) Good SCSI cables and correct termination are absolutely essential. SCSI bus errors can cause buffer underruns or corrupted data (especially since some vendors ship drives with parity checking disabled). Bertel Schmitt wrote an excellent article on the ins and outs of proper cabling and termination. The article can be found in text form at http://www.fadden.com/doc/scsi-trm.txt. Granite Digital, a company that makes high-quality cables and terminators, can be found at http://www.scsipro.com/. If you're using an HP 4020i with the AdvanSys SCSI card, reducing the DMA transfer rate may help. Subject: [4-18] Why doesn't the copy of an audio CD sound the same? (1998/04/06) There are actually two questions here, so I've split them into separate sections. The most common problem is that the audio extracted to the hard drive doesn't quite match the original. Subject: [4-18-1] Why doesn't the audio data on the copy match the original? (1998/04/06) Most problems are due to poor digital audio extraction from the source media. Some CD-ROM drives will return slightly different data every time an audio track is read. Others, like the Plextor line (e.g. 4Plex, 8Plex, and 12Plex, but not 6Plex) will return the same data every time so long as the source media is clean. The most fundamental problem is that, if the CD is dirty, the error correction may not be able to correct all of the errors. Some drives will interpolate the missing samples, some won't. Another problem most CD-ROM drives face is "jitter". See section (2-15) for details. See also section (3-3) on avoiding clicks in extracted audio, and section (5-5) on which CD-ROM drives are recommended. Subject: [4-18-2] The audio data matches exactly, why do they sound different? (1998/06/14) [ I have yet to see an authoritative answer to this. ] Suppose you extract the audio track from the copy, and it's an exact binary match of the track you wrote from your hard drive, but the CDs don't sound quite the same. What then? Most people don't notice any difference between originals and duplicates. Some people notice subtle differences, some people notice huge differences. Some say CD-R is better, some say worse. While it's true that "bits are bits", there *are* reasons why CD-Rs may sound different even when the data matches exactly. The manual for the CDD-2000 reportedly states that the drive uses 4x oversampling when playing back pressed CDs, but switches to 1x for CD-R. This affects the quality of the D/A conversion, and can make an audible difference. It has been suggested that the D/A conversion process in the CD player is more susceptible to "jitter" when reading CD-Rs, because the clocking of the bits isn't as precise. A quality CD player will compensate for this automatically. (Note: this kind of jitter is different from the DAE kind of jitter described in section (2-15).) About halfway down on the page at http://www.digido.com/jitteressay.html are some comments about the quality of playback being dependent on how a CD-R is recorded. Others have asserted that *any* two CDs, pressed or otherwise, will sound slightly different. Some people believe that audio CDs should be recorded at 1x, while others have asserted that, for various technical reasons, 2x is better. Certain kinds of media may work best at specific speeds. An extremely technical introduction to CD reading is available at http://www.tc.umn.edu/~erick205/Papers/paper.html. This may shed some light on why reading audio CDs is difficult. If you are finding noticeable differences, try different media, a different player, and a different recorder. There is some evidence that different brands of media and recorders may work better for audio, but in the end it's a highly subjective matter. Some people say CD-Rs sound worse, some people say they sound better. Subject: [4-19] Digital audio extraction of a track is slightly off (1998/04/06) Some recorders don't correctly extract digital audio if the pregap of the first track isn't exactly two seconds. A bug in the firmware causes the drive to start extracting slightly past the start of the track, and stop extracting slightly past the end. This can result in an audible glitch if the music starts at the exact start of the track, and can cause the drive to fail with an error when extracting the last track on the CD. CDs that start at 00:02:32 (0 minutes, 2 seconds, and 32 blocks) are surprisingly common. The problem can be worked around manually, by looking at the output of the Jeff Arnold's (freeware) TOC program (available from http://www.goldenhawk.com/) and supplying "/start=" and "/end=" parameters that adjust backward by the number of blocks in excess of two seconds. For example, if the first track started at 00:02:32, you would subtract 32 from the starting and ending Logical Block Addresses. A better solution is to use a CD-ROM drive that doesn't have this problem (and most likely can extract audio more quickly than the CD-R can). The Yamaha CDR-100/102 and the Philips CDD2600 are known to have this problem, though it may get fixed by a firmware update. The Ricoh 6200S reportedly does not return the disc's table of contents correctly for these sorts of discs. Subject: [4-20] I can't play extracted audio files by double-clicking in Win95 (1998/04/06) The default audio player in Win95 tries to load the entire file into memory. When an extracted track is 40 or 50MB, and you don't have that much RAM, Win95's virtual memory system starts writing pieces out to disk. The disk thrashes, and you get nowhere. There are several ways around this. If you right-click on the file and select "properties", you will see a "preview" tab. This will play it directly from disk. Another way is to use a different program. One possibility is the Media Player, which is optionally installed with Win95. You can make it the default WAV file player by selecting View/Options from Win95 explorer, clicking on the "File Types" tab, and choosing "Wave Sound". Double-click on Play and change the program name from "sndrec32.exe" to "mplayer.exe", leaving the "/play" and "/close" flags intact. You can also use a program like CoolEdit, which will let you preview WAV files from the Open File dialog. Subject: [4-21] I can't read an ISO-finalized packet-written disc (1998/04/06) This problem is often experienced by HP7100/7110 users. HP chose to ship packet-writing software with their drives rather than conventional premastering software, leaving users with discs that couldn't be read on a fair number of systems. (The HP7200 is the same drive, shipped with updated firmware and a more complete set of software.) The following is an excerpt from an Adaptec readme.txt file. It talks about DirectCD, but the problem is inherent in all packet writing solutions: "When the disc is in the native format used by DirectCD, you will only be able to read the disc on a CD-R device running DirectCD. This is a direct result of the technology used when writing to a CD-R disc. In order to make the disc readable on a standard CD-ROM DirectCD must write certain data to the disc. This provides compatibility with many of the current drives on the market today. Unfortunately, there are still a number of CD-ROM drives that cannot read the packet written media that DirectCD produces. If you experience problems in this area, you should go to System in Control Panel, select Performance, File System, CD-ROM and set the Access Pattern to "No Read-Ahead". If you still experience problems after making this adjustment, it is likely that the CD- ROM drive itself is having problems reading packet written media. It should also be noted that there is an industry initiative called MultiRead that addresses these issues and has the support of all the major vendors of CD-ROM and CD-R/RW devices. This initiative will eliminate the above problems and should be available on all new drives." If you want to share data between systems, and the remote system isn't guaranteed to have a MultiRead CD-ROM drive, you should write the disc with conventional software. Subject: [4-22] I'm finding corrupted files on the CD-ROMs I write (1999/08/13) There have been a fair number of people who have burned a CD-ROM only to discover that, while they can read text files, run applications, and look at graphics, they can't extract from .ZIP archives or run compressed applications (e.g. some "Setup.EXE"s under Win95). A common complaint is a dialog with "the file is not a valid win32 application". The problem they're seeing isn't just corruption of .ZIP files though. Most kinds of files have a lot of redundancy in them. If a single bit is lost out of a long text file, the chances of it being noticed are very slight. For an application, the chances of it causing a failure depend on where in the file the error falls. For a compressed file, though, every bit is significant, and in a .ZIP archive the CRC has a very high probability of detecting errors. (CRC is cyclic redudancy check. Most file archivers compute a 32-bit CRC on the uncompressed input and store it in the archive. When you extract the files, the CRC is checked to ensure that nothing has been damaged.) Eliminating these errors could be as simple as replacing a bad SCSI cable. One way to narrow the possibilities down is to try the disc in different readers on different machines. If the same error shows up in the same place, the error was introduced during writing rather than while reading the data back. Another thing to try is to burn the same disc twice. If the data written to the CD-Rs doesn't match the original, but they do match each other, then the errors are happening in the same place every time, rather than at random, so the trouble might be with a driver or firmware instead of a flaky cable or bad RAM. If a file appears to be getting corrupted on the CD-R, try copying it back to the hard drive and then comparing it to the original. If possible, see if the file is missing large chunks or just has sporadic damage throughout. You can use the DOS "fc" command (e.g. "FC /B FILE1 FILE2") or one of the fancier applications listed in section (3-22). If you can identify the problem as being with the reader or the writer you may be able to focus on just one part of your system. If the trouble appears to be with your writer, and you can't get it to work, try to move it to somebody else's system and see if it works from there. It's possible, though unlikely, that the CD recorder is flaky. Whatever the case, the place to start is to check all cables, connections, SCSI termination, L2 cache, and RAM. One user with an otherwise properly functioning system was able to fix the CD-R corruption problems by correcting the RAM timings in the BIOS setup. A couple of others found that their problems went away when they disabled the L2 cache on the motherboard. Sometimes adding a new device will make cables (especially longer ones) turn flaky. Sometimes the flakiness only affects one device. Swapping the cables is inexpensive, easy, and very likely to root out the cause of your problems. Section (4-17) has some tips on SCSI stuff. One last thing: make sure the original files are valid before you go on a wild goose chase! Subject: [4-23] Having trouble playing an audio CD in a home or car player (1999/10/19) There are a few possibilities. First and foremost is media compatibility. Not all players get along with all brands of CD-R media. You need to find a combination of recorder, media, and player that get along. Read section (7-2) to learn more. A CD-R media identifier (like the one listed in section (6-2-9)) can help you be sure that you're trying discs from different manufacturers. If you're trying to use CD-RW media, your odds are even worse. CD-RW discs simply won't play on most CD players. Another common problem is failing to close the disc at the end of writing. You can't play an audio CD on a common CD player until the session has been closed. You may be able to play it back with the CD recorder though. Also, don't forget that you have to write all of the audio data into the first session of a multisession CD. CD players don't know how to find the later sessions, so tracks written there won't get played. Sometimes the CD player will have no problem playing the tracks, but will have a great deal of difficulty seeking between tracks or moving fast-forward. Using a different brand of media or a different CD player may produce better results. Some media works better at 1x, 2x, or 4x than it does at other speeds. You may find that slowing down or speeding up the recorder helps. Finally, remember that you have to write the disc in CD-DA format! If you just write a bunch of .WAV files to a disc in CD-ROM format, it's not going to work in your home stereo. Subject: [4-24] Having trouble using a CD-ROM on a different machine (1999/07/18) As with audio CDs, discussed in the previous section, there are several possibilities. The media compatibility issues mentioned above apply to CD-ROM as well. If you're using CD-RW media rather than CD-R media, you have to be sure that the CD-ROM drive in question is MultiRead compliant. Some older drives are able to read CD-RW media, but most are not. If the disc was written using a packet writing application like DirectCD, some CD-ROMs will stumble on packet boundaries. Refer to section (4-21) for information and a possible workaround. If a packet-written disc was closed in ISO-9660 Level 3 format, it won't be usable on systems that don't support ISO-9660 level 3 (e.g. DOS). If the disc was *not* closed as ISO-9660, and is still in UDF, you will need a UDF driver; see sections (6-3) and (6-4) for an overview and pointers to free drivers. Subject: [4-25] I can't copy a VideoCD (1998/08/29) If you put a VideoCD (White Book) into your CD-ROM drive, you will see a bunch of files and directories like you would on any other CD-ROM. In fact, with the appropriate software installed, on some platforms you can double-click on a file to play the video. In practice, however, the video files are stored on separate tracks, using CD-ROM/XA MODE-2 FORM-2. This allows more data to be stored on a VideoCD, at the price of less error correction. If the video is short enough, you may be able to copy the disc as a collection of files, but some players may be unable to play back selections if the original disc had more than one track. You need to use a program like Adaptec's CD Copier or GoldenHawk's CDRWIN to copy the disc track-by-track, preserving the mode of the original. If your drive only supports track-at-once recording, you may have trouble copying VideoCDs because the starting address gets shifted when the drive writes a gap between tracks. NTI's CD-Copy (section 6-1-12) gives you the option of dropping the last part of the previous track to preserve the start position of the next track. Note that MODE-2 FORM-2 holds 2324 bytes of data per sector, so instead of a total capacity of around 650MB, you can put closer to 740MB on a disc. If you don't record the VideoCD data files in the correct format, you will find yourself running out of room. (The extra space is gained by throwing out error correction codes that aren't necessary for video data. Writing ordinary data in this format is not recommended.) Subject: [4-26] The test write succeeds, but the actual write fails (1998/10/23) Most often this is a problem with auto-insert notification being enabled when it shouldn't be. See the discussion in section (4-1). One person supposedly fixed a similar problem by replacing the power supply in their computer. Apparently the 200W supply wasn't enough to handle everything that was connected to it, and the extra power drain from the write laser was causing failures. If you're using track-at-once recording, and the actual write is failing when the disc is 100% complete and the TOC is being written, you may be able to solve your problems by using a different brand of media. See the notes in section (4-9). Subject: [4-27] I can no longer erase a particular CD-RW disc (1999/10/10) It's possible that the disc has developed a region that can't be erased. More likely is that the software or firmware is acting up. If you're using Easy CD Creator, insert a good CD-RW disc, and start the Erase process. Just before you hit the final "OK" button to start the erase, swap the troubled blank disc in place of the good one. If this succeeds, you probably ought to run it through the erase procedure one additional time before using it. Super Blank, from http://www.ping.be/kris-schoofs/, reportedly accomplishes the same thing without requiring a disc swap. If this doesn't work, there is a report that a UV EPROM eraser will do the trick. Experiments have shown that leaving the disc out in direct sunlight for a couple of hours may also help. The resulting disc won't be fully erased, but it may be "blank enough" that you can then use Super Blank to finish the job. If nothing at all works, make a careful examination of the write surface of the disc. It's possible the disc is physically damaged and can't be used. Subject: [4-28] Trouble formatting CD-RW discs with DirectCD for Windows 2.0a (1999/07/15) This was sent to me by Jac Goudsmit: "When Adaptec DirectCD refuses to format a CD-RW for packet-writing, it's possible that the disc is not completely blank. This may happen because you chose the "quick" option when you last erased it. The quick-erase option only erases the lead-in area to make the hardware and software think the disc is empty. This is fine if you're going to use the disc for "normal" writing as a CD-ROM, audio disc or whatever. The packet-writing formatter in DirectCD 2.0a however (apparently) requires the disc to be totally empty, so you really have to do a full erase if the disc contained data previously. BUT: there's another problem: after you do a full erase and shut down the program you erase with (e.g. EasyCD Pro or Easy CD Creator) it's possible that the DirectCD program won't recognize the disc as valid media, and you still won't be able to format it, until you restart the computer. Unfortunately this means that if you want to start using a previously recorded CD-RW for packet writing, you'll have to wait a total time of at least an hour and a half for the erase and format to complete..." It has also been reported that some virus scanners, notably TBAV, can interfere with the format process and should be disabled. Subject: [4-29] I can't write CD-Rs after installing Windows 98 (1998/07/07) There are people successfully writing discs with Windows 98, so it *can* be done. If you're using Easy CD Creator 3, try uninstalling it, rebooting, and then reinstalling it. This seems to fix the problems for the people reporting them. Doing the same for other software may have similar beneficial effects. Apparently ECDC3 installs its own versions of some system drivers, which get overwritten when Win98 is installed. Uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers puts the ECDC3-friendly versions back. Make sure your ASPI (Advanced SCSI Programmer's Interface) layer is up to date, even if you have an IDE recorder. You can find the "ASPICHK" utility and some notes about how to examine your system on http://www.adaptec.com/support/faqs/aspilayer.html. You should be at v4.57 or later. Subject: [4-30] I can't use the copy of a CD-ROM after installing Windows 98 (1998/09/14) This problem has been recognized by Microsoft. The resolution is posted on http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q186/2/97.asp. The basic problem is that, after upgrading to Windows 98, copies of some CD-ROMs (usually copy-protected games) will refuse to run, insisting that you insert the original disc. Microsoft has recommended two methods for resolving this issue. The first is to simply use the original disc. The second recommendation is to make a new copy of the disc under Win98. Why this works is unclear, and the Microsoft support pages aren't much help. They only say that the behavior is not caused by a bug, but rather "design changes in Windows 98". (It appears that using Win98 to write a new session onto an existing disc will also cure the problem, but if you aren't in the habit of leaving the session open on copies of game discs, this won't help you much.) One possibility is that Win98 returns a value for the volume label that is closer to what is actually stored (perhaps there was some sort of character set conversion or truncation going on in Win95). Copy protected games often check the volume label as a way of obstructing inexperienced software pirates. Subject: [4-31] The disc I was writing with DirectCD is now unreadable (1999/02/06) Start with http://resource.simplenet.com/primer/udf.htm to get an understanding of what DirectCD is doing. A popular way to screw up DirectCD's UDF handling is to remove the disc without letting the software finish up. You can accomplish this by rebooting while it's working, attempting to disable it by doing something other than uninstalling it (see (6-3-1)), or by turning off auto-insert notification. If you have DirectCD 2.x, you may be able to recover the data with the included Scan Disc utility. CD-R Diagnostic (6-2-6) may also be able to recover data. CD Recovery Services, at http://www.cdrecovery.com/, may be able to help. Rule of thumb: don't delete data off your hard drive until the disc is finalized and verified readable. Too many bad things can happen when writing to a disc. Subject: [4-32] I'm getting a message about 100 form transitions (1999/12/19) When attempting to copy certain discs, Easy CD Creator (as of v3.x) will say something like: "The current track contains more than 100 form transitions. Easy CD Creator cannot handle more than 100 form transitions on a single track. The disc cannot be copied." This appears to be a form of copy protection, where a disc uses both FORM-1 and FORM-2 on a CDROM/XA MODE-2 disc. One user reported that this only happens when trying to copy a Playstation game by first copying the tracks to the hard drive. If you make a copy directly from one disc to the other, the errors won't occur. Subject: [4-33] My system hangs when I insert a blank disc (1999/10/10) You may have a bad installation of a CD recording program like DirectCD. When you insert a blank disc, the software tries to identify it to give you the opportunity to format it for packet writing. If you have packet software like DirectCD or PacketCD installed, try uninstalling it and see if the problem goes away. In some cases you might need to get rid of windows\system\iosubsys\scsi1hlp.vxd manually. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: [5] Hardware (1999/07/18) The numbers after the model name (e.g. "CDR-102 (4x2/512K)") refer to the read and write speeds of the unit and the size of the write buffer. "4x2" would be a double-speed writer that's also a quad-speed reader. If it just says "?x2", the write speed is double-speed and the read speed isn't known (but presumably is at least 2x). Buffer sizes written with a '+', e.g. "2MB+", indicate that the buffer can be expanded further. If the recorder can write to CD-RW media, the specification will include a third value, e.g. "6x4x2/1MB" would be a drive that reads at 6x, writes to CD-R media at 4x, and writes to CD-RW media at 2x. Some manufacturers present the speed ratings in a different order, e.g. write/rewrite/read. There is no standard approach. (NOTE: the notation used in the FAQ prior to July 1999 was different.) Many units are repackaged versions of other manufacturer's devices, sometimes with slight changes in the firmware. Value-added retailers have been known to switch to a different manufacturer's drive without notice, so don't assume that everything here is accurate. All CD-R drives are SCSI unless explicitly labeled as IDE, USB, FireWire, or parallel-port. Many of the models listed have been discontinued in favor of newer models, and some of them have yet to be released, so you will probably not be able to find all of the models listed here for sale. An excellent summary of CD-R features can be found on http://makecd.core.de/auto/Compatibility_toc.html. If you're new to SCSI, take a look at the comp.periphs.scsi FAQ, http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/scsi-faq/. It covers both novice and advanced questions. A wealth of information on Enhanced IDE and other storage technologies is available from http://thef-nym.sci.kun.nl/~pieterh/storage.html and http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/pc-hardware-faq/enhanced-IDE/top.html. Subject: [5-1] Which CD recorder should I buy? (1999/12/09) There are no absolutely perfect recorders, but some drives are better than others. The best are listed below, and the risky propositions are identified with "CAVEAT EMPTOR" warnings in the individual sections. In cases where a unit is built by company A and repackaged by company B, the warnings are listed with the original manufacturer (company A). Based on the experience of users posting to the comp.publish.cdrom.hardware Usenet newsgroup, the currently-selling models worth buying are: - Plextor PX-R820T - Plextor PX-W8220T - Sony CRX100E (often as HP 8100i) - Sony CRX120E (often as HP 8200i) - Sony 948S - Yamaha CRW-4416 - Ricoh MP7040A - JVC XR-W4080 (also as Creative CDR4224) - Teac CD-R56S - Panasonic CW-7501/CW-7502/CW-7582 (often as Matsushita or Compro 7502) - Sanyo CRD-R800S (often as Smart & Friendly CD Rocket 8020) - Goldstar CED-8042B Some older models that would be worth buying are: - Plextor PX-R412C - Ricoh MP-6200/MP-6200I/MP-6201S (also as Philips OmniWriter/26 and /26A) - Yamaha CDR-100/CDR-102 (also as S&F 4000/S&F 1004) - Sony 920S/940S (also as S&F 1002/2004) - Teac CD-R55S - Teac CD-R50S (a/k/a Teac 4x4) - Philips CDD3600 (also as HP 7100/7200) - Yamaha CRW-4001/CRW-4260 (also as Smart & Friendly 426) and CRW-2260 - Wearnes CDRW-622 (also as Memorex CRW-1622 and Dysan CRW-1622) - Ricoh RS-1420C (also as Turtle Beach 2040R) - Philips CDD2600 (also as HP 6020i, but w/o packet writing) - Philips CDD522 (also as Kodak PCD225) These have largely positive responses, but either haven't been around long enough or just aren't mentioned often enough to make a specific recommendation: - Sony CRX140E (often as HP 9100/9200) - Yamaha CRW-6416S - Yamaha CRW-8424S - Philips CDRW404 - Plextor PX-W124TS These are discussed in the next few sections. Stand-alone audio recorders are discussed in section (5-12). See also the (somewhat Adaptec-specific but still useful) "CD RECORDABLE SUPPORT" section from "ftp://ftp.adaptec.com/pub/BBS/dos/ezlist.txt". The model numbers are important! Sometimes the older or newer models from the same manufacturer aren't as good. The units listed were considered independently from the software that they were bundled with, and it may be necessary to buy additional software to get the full value from the drive. If you have specific needs, you should verify with the manufacturer that the drive will do what you want. All computer-based recorders can create audio CDs and CD-ROMs, but some have additional features and some are just plain better at it. Many of the devices are simply OEM versions of another company's recorder. It's unwise to assume that the units are equivalent, however: in many cases the firmware has been changed, and may not work as well as related models. External drives are preferred to internal drives because of heat problems, though this is less of a concern for newer models. External models can also be moved between machines, and even between platforms. Most if not all SCSI models will work on both Macs and PCs. I'm not currently listing stand-alone recorders like the "CD Blaster" or "CD Dupe-It", which are boxes with a CPU, CD-R, and hard drive that can duplicate CDs without tying up a full machine. Most of these low-end CD production boxes are off-the-shelf hardware and software packaged into a single unit, so listing them separately doesn't make much sense. Besides, they're not of much interest to the average user. Interested users can find some relevant URLs in (5-19). Subject: [5-1-1] Yamaha (1999/12/19) See http://www.yamahayst.com/ See http://www.yamahacdrwinfo.com/ (was http://www.datac.net/yamaha.htm) Models are: CDR-100 (4x4/512K) CDR-102 (4x2/512K) CDR-200 (6x2/1MB) CDR-400 (6x4/2MB; 'c' is caddy, 't' is tray, 'x' is external) CDR-401 (6x4/2MB;IDE) CRW-4001 (6x4x2/2MB;IDE) CRW-4260 (6x4x2/2MB) CRW-2260 (6x2x2/1MB) CRW-2216E (16x2x2/2MB;IDE) CRW-4416 (16x4x4/2MB; S)CSI and E)IDE) CRW-6416S (16x6x4/2MB) CRW-8424S (24x8x4/4MB) It has been reported that the CDR-102 is the same mechanism as the CDR-100, but with the 4x writing feature disabled. There is no known way to convert it into a 4x writer. Similar speculation has been made about the CDR-200 and CDR-400, and in fact some people have claimed success. Learn all about R621 at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/7023/index.html (or http://home.t-online.de/home/christoph.dittenberger if you prefer German). It may also be possible to convert a 2260 into a 4260 with the same method, as well as the 2216 into a 4416. Yamaha CDR-100 and CDR-102 units have problems doing digital audio extraction on some discs. See section (4-19). Yamaha CDR-100s with firmware version 1.08 may experience problems when recording audio (e.g. a click at the end of tracks recorded with the "copy prohibit" flag set to "off"). Upgrading to version 1.10 is recommended. Since the CDR-100 and CDR-102 units don't have flash ROM (and apparently the upgrade involves more than just changing a ROM chip), the drive needs to be sent back to the dealer for the upgrade. The CDR-100 reportedly works best when writing in 4x mode, and may produce poor results when used to write at 2x or 1x. The current firmware versions for the older Yamaha drives is v1.12 for the CDR-100 and v1.01 for the CDR-102. The change was to "allow mastering in Blue Book specs". If you aren't having problems, don't get the upgrade. The Yamaha CDR-400 is somewhere around 1.0g. The CDR-400 is flash upgradeable, and supports packet writing. The tray on the CDR-400 has been described as "flimsy". The tray eject moves quickly for the first half and then slows considerably; this is normal. The CRW-4001/CRW-4260 runs rather hot. External units or extra cooling fans are recommended. Upgrades for the CDR-200/CDR-400 and some .PDF documentation for all drives are available from ftp://ftp.yamahayst.com/pub/. Technical support info can be found on http://www.yamahayst.com/techsup/. CAVEAT EMPTOR - Yamaha CDR-200/CDR-400. Reports of units breaking down after a few months have been persistent. It appears that, unless the units are kept well-cooled, they will start rejecting discs after a month or two of use. The drives work very well otherwise, and one customer was told that the CDR-400AT model was a sturdier version. Subject: [5-1-2] Sony (1999/12/18) See http://www.ita.sel.sony.com/products/storage/ See http://www.sony-cp.com/_E/Products/Storage/CD-R/Index.html Models are: CDW-900E (2x2/3MB) CDU920S (2x2/1MB) CDU940S (4x2/1MB) CDU926S (6x2/512K) CDU928E (8x2/512K;IDE) CDU948S (8x4/2MB) CRX100E/CH (24x4x2/1MB;IDE) and CRX100E/X (6x4x2/1MB;USB) CRX120E (24x4x4/2MB;IDE) CRX120? (24x4x4/2MB;FireWire) CRX140E/CH (32x8x4/4MB;IDE) The CDW-900E has a separate connector that allows multiple "slave" drives to be daisy-chained, allowing multiple CD-Rs to be written in parallel. The Spressa 9211 is a 920 in an external case, the 9411 is a 940 in an external case, and the 9611 is a 926. The 940S drive is actually a 924S; the 940S designation refers to the complete bundle (software, cables, etc). Looks like each unit can be referenced by three different numbers. Some people have criticized the CRX100E for being unable to write more than about 78 minutes on an oversized (e.g. 80-minute) blank, and being unable to "overburn" a disc without resorting to swap tricks. For many people these capabilities aren't important, but for others they are. Sony drives have a special "recover" feature, accessible from programs like Easy-CD Pro '95. This allows recovery of the CD-R media after certain classes of failed writes. All Sony drives can do packet writing. Firmware for some models can be hard to find. A good place to start searching is http://www.ahead.de/en/firmware.htm. CAVEAT EMPTOR - CDU926 and CDU928. Believe it or not, the CDU926 and CDU928 don't support disc-at-once recording (see section (2-9) for a description). Instead they use "variable-gap track-at-once", which allows TAO audio recordings with barely perceptible gaps between tracks. Some popular software packages aren't as useful when disc-at-once isn't available, so people considering these drives should carefully consider how they plan to use them. (The older 920 and 924, and newer 948 units DO support DAO.) Subject: [5-1-3] Smart & Friendly (1999/12/19) See http://www.smartandfriendly.com/ Models are: CDR1002 (2x2/1MB, based on the Sony CDU920S) CDR1004 (4x2/512K, based on the Yamaha CDR-102) CDR2004 (4x2/1MB, based on the Sony 940S) CDR2006 "Pro" (6x2/512K, based on the Sony 926S) CDR2006 "Plus" (6x2/1MB, based on the JVC XR-W2020) CDR4000 (4x4/512K, based on the Yamaha CDR-100) CDR4006 (6x4/2MB, based on the Yamaha CDR-400) CD-RW226 "Plus" (6x2x2/1MB, based on the JVC XR-W2042) CD-RW426 (6x4x2/2MB;IDE, based on the Yamaha CRW-4001/4260) CD SpeedWriter 4012 (12x4/1MB, based on the Teac CD-R55S) CD SpeedRacer (16x4x4/2MB, based on the Yamaha CRW-4416S?) CD Racer 2x2x24 (24x2x2/2MB;IDE, based on the JVC XR-W2080) CD SpeedWriter Plus (24x4x2/2MB;IDE (SCSI for ext), based on the JVC XR-W4080) CD TurboWriter (24x6/2MB, based on the Teac CD-R56S) CD Rocket 8020 (20x8/2MB, based on the Sanyo/Caravelle CRD-R800S) CD Rocket RW (20x8x2/2MB, based on ??) CD TurboWriter RW (24x6x4/2MB, based on Ricoh 7060A?) CD Rocket Mach 12 (32x12x4/4MB, based on ??) All models are recorders built by major manufacturers, repackaged and supported by Smart & Friendly. Subject: [5-1-4] Philips (1999/12/18) See http://www.pcstuff.philips.com/ See http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/6893/ (2600/3600) See http://www.honiton5.freeserve.co.uk/ (3600) Models are: CDD522 (2x2/2MB) CDD2000 (4x2/1MB) CDD2600 (6x2/1MB) Omniwriter/26 (6x2x2/1MB) CDD3600 (6x2x2/1MB) and CDD3610 (IDE) CDD3801 (24x2x2/1MB;IDE) CDD4201 (24x4x4/2MB;IDE, ?based on?) CDRW200 (24x2x2/2MB;IDE, based on JVC XR-W2080) CDRW400 (16x4x4/2MB;IDE, based on Yamaha 4416E) CDRW404 (32x4x4/2MB;IDE) The CDD521 (2x2/256K) is an ancient model; if you use one, the firmware upgrade is strongly recommended (but nearly impossible to find these days). Some information that may be of use to CDD521 owners can be found at http://www.fadden.com/doc/cdd521faq.txt. The Omniwriter/26 and /26A appear to be repackaged Ricoh 6200 and 6200I OEMs. In Europe, the 3600 is packaged in a kit as the PCA350RW, the 3610 as the PCA362RW, and the 3610 with a parallel-port interface comes as the PCA363RW. The CDRW400 might be packaged as the PCA460RW. The CDD522 does not support reading of subcode-Q data. The CDD521, CDD522, and Kodak-labeled PCD225 have a sensor that can read the barcode data from the inner ring on a CD. See the HP section for comments about the CDD2000 firmware. The firmware is kept in flash ROM, so it can be updated with software obtainable over the net. You should be at version 1.25 or later for best results. Digital audio extraction may not work correctly at higher than 2x on the CDD2600, especially near the end of the disc. Philips has acknowledged that audio CDs and packet-written CDs may not read correctly at 6x, but many users have had problems at 4x as well. It may also suffer from the block offset problem described in section (4-19). The CDD2600 supports packet writing, but is NOT flash upgradeable. The CDD2600 may share the HP 6020i's difficulties with pressed CD-ROMs that have a small amount of data on them. The initial release (firmware v1.0) of the 3610 was unable to create audio discs reliably using disc-at-once recording. Firmware v2.02 fixed this and some other problems. Philips' drives, notably the CDD2600, have been shown to hang on some Amigas if SCSI disconnect is enabled and you try to read the session information from a multisession CD. Philips does not believe this problem happens on PCs, and consequently has declined to investigate further. If you are experiencing hangs when examining multisession CDs, try turning SCSI disconnect off for the CD recorder. Drivers are available for the CDD2000 from: http://www.philips.com/sv/pcaddon/cdr/ Firmware updates are available here: http://www.km.philips.com/osc/cd-rw/download/index.html CAVEAT EMPTOR - CDD2000. Some users of Philips CDD2000 and derivative units (like the HP4020i) have reported that the drives went bad over a short period of time, often 1 to 3 months. While these cases represent the minority of users, reports have been persistent. People with the technical skills (and bravery) required to replace a spring and/or lubricate inside the unit have reported good results (see section (4-10) for details). If you buy a CDD2000-based unit -- of which there are many -- be sure the dealer or manufacturer is aware of this problem and is willing to fix or exchange the drive should it arise. A class-action lawsuit has been filed against Philips. Information is available at http://www.shortbusters.com/. A copy of the complaint is at http://www.shortbusters.com/lawsuits/philips/complain.html. Subject: [5-1-5] Hewlett-Packard (HP) (1999/12/19) See http://www.hpcdwriter.com/ See http://www.hp.com/storage/cdwriter/index.html See http://www.hp.com/isgsupport/cdr/ Models are: 4020i (4x2/1MB, based on the Philips CDD2000) (#C4324) 6020 (6x2/1MB, based on Philips CDD2600; i)nt, e)xt, p)arallel) (#C4325) 7100i/e (6x2x2/1MB;IDE, based on Philips CDD3610; 'i' is IDE (#C4353A), 'e' is parallel (#C4358A)) 7500i/e (24x2x2/2MB;IDE, based on JVC XR-W2080; parallel 'e' model is 6x2x2) 8100i (24x4x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Sony CRX100E) 8200i/e (24x4x4/2MB;IDE, based on a Sony CRX120E; 'e' is 6x-read USB) 9100i (32x8x4/4MB;IDE, based on Sony CRX140E) 9200i (32x8x4/4MB;SCSI, based on Sony CRX140E) The 7110 is identical to the 7100, but comes with an extra piece of software and is only available in the USA. The 7200 is a 7100 with updated firmware (2.x) and Easy CD Creator included. The 8110 is the same as the 8100 but with a bunch of extra software; ditto for 8210 vs 8200. The 6020ep appears to be the external SCSI drive with a parallel-to-SCSI converter. It's usable as a SCSI device as well. The 71XXe drives are 71XXi drives with a parallel-to-IDE converter. The 7500 series is often packaged as 7550 or 7570 (though these are now listed as having only 1MB of buffer, so it's not clear what's going on). They appear to be selling the 8200e as an external USB and the 8250i as an internal IDE, but it's the same drive. The initial release of the 7100/7110 was unable to create audio discs reliably with disc-at-once recording. The 2.02 firmware upgrade fixes the problem. Some people have criticized the 8100i (same as Sony CRX100E) for being unable to write more than about 78 minutes on an oversized (e.g. 80-minute) blank. For many people this capability is unimportant. If you are having trouble getting the 7100e to work with your parallel port, see http://www.hp.com/isgsupport/cdr/tech/7100/par95.html for some important configuration advice. If your BIOS is configured to use address 03BCh, you should change it to 0378h or 0278h. It appears that discs written with a 7110 can't be read on a Toshiba XM6002B. Other models of CD-ROM drives, including other Toshiba models, work fine. CD-Rs written on other CD recorders work fine with the Toshiba. The 3.01 firmware upgrade fixes this. The HP 4020i got off to a rough start because of buggy firmware and problems with the AdvanSys SCSI controller shipped with the drive. Four firmware upgrades have been made available so far (v1.20, v1.25, v1.26, and v1.27), and most but not all problems with the firmware have been eliminated. HP recommends that users with the v1.20 or later firmware who aren't having problems should NOT get the upgrade. Contact HP tech support for more information. The comments about digital audio extraction problems and the CDD2600 apply to the 6020i as well. Unlike the CDD2600, the 6020 apparently does not support packet writing. The firmware is not flash upgradeable. (As it happens, the SCSI ID string *can* be changed, and it *is* possible to make the unit think it's a CDD2600. A representative from Adaptec has warned that the procedure could cause problems later on, however.) The 6020 with v1.07 firmware also has trouble reading some pressed CD-ROM discs, notably single-track CD-ROMs with less than 27MB of data. An unofficial HP 4020i FAQ maintained by Greg Volk can be found at http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/HP-FAQ.html. Drivers, software, and firmware upgrades are available from ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/information_storage/surestore/cd-writer/. The 7100/7110 firmware upgrade is available here: http://www.hp.com/isgsupport/cdr/70index.html IMPORTANT - 7100/7110. The 7100/7110 drew a lot of fire because it shipped with DirectCD (packet-writing software), a CD Copier, and an audio CD creator. It didn't include premastering software for data CDs. Because packet-written CDs can't be read on all operating systems or all CD-ROM drives, the inability to create plain Level 1 ISO-9660 discs was a problem for some users. People who buy this drive should expect to buy additional software. The software bundled with the 7200 was more wisely chosen. CAVEAT EMPTOR - 4020i. See the notes on the CDD2000 in the previous section. Also, the AdvanSys controller continues to cause problems for some users, which is made worse by HP's refusal to support people who try to use a different card. The best approach seems to be to try the card and stick with it if it works, otherwise buy an Adaptec board (e.g. the 1522A) and use it with that. There may be a newer rev of the AdvanSys board. A few 4020 users have reported that, after getting lots of "-24 - Target aborted" errors with jarnold's software, they successfully resolved their problems by getting a new drive from HP. A class-action lawsuit has been filed against HP (for the HP4020i and HP6020i) by the same people who filed the suit against Philips. See the end of section (5-1-4) for links. Subject: [5-1-6] Plasmon (1998/11/27) See http://www.plasmon.com/products/cdformat.htm See http://tech.plasmon.co.uk/ Models are: RF4100 (2x2/1MB+, based on the Philips CDD522 but with different firmware) CDR4220 (4x2/1MB, based on the Philips CDD2000) CDR4240 (4x2/1MB, based on the Panasonic CW-7501) CDR-4400 (4x2/512K, based on the Yamaha CDR-100) CDR480 (8x4/1MB, based on the Panasonic CW-7502) The RF4102 is an RF4100 with more memory. The RF4100 does not support disc-at-once recording. Subject: [5-1-7] Kodak (1999/04/11) See http://www.kodak.com/ [ no CD recorder info? ] Models are: PCD200 (?x2/256K) PCD225 (2x2/2MB, based on the Philips CDD522) PCD240 (4x2/1MB, based on the Philips CDD2000) PCD600 (?x6/2MB+) 4801 (??;IDE, based on the Mitsumi 4801??) The Philips CDD522, Kodak PCD225, and Kodak PCD600 will interface with the Kodak Disc Transporter, which supports unattended duplication of up to 75 CD-Rs, making it a useful combo for CD-R production. Subject: [5-1-8] JVC (1999/05/30) See http://www.jvcinfo.com/ See http://www.smartstorage.com/ See http://www.e-cs.com/skx/jvc/xrw2010.htm Models are: XR-W1001 (1x1/64K) XR-W2001 (2x2/1MB) XR-W2010 (4x2/1MB) XRS-201 (2x2/1MB) XR-W2020 (6x2/1MB) XR-W2042 (6x2x2/1MB) [on the JVC web site, no model number?] (12x4/1MB;IDE) XR-W2080 (24x2x2/2MB;IDE) XR-W4080 (24x4x2/2MB;IDE) The drives are sometimes sold with model numbers that have 2 added, so XR-W2010 might appear as XR-W2012, XR-W2020 as XR-W2022, and XR-W2080 as XR-W2082. The XR-W2626 appears to be an XR-W2020. The drives often come bundled with JVC "Personal Archiver" or "RomMaker" software. The XR-W2010 and XR-W2020 also come with "FloppyCD" packet-writing software. JVC only provides support for drives purchased directly from them, but firmware updates can be found at http://www.jvcinfo.com/service/firmware.htm. If you don't buy a JVC drive from JVC, make sure your vendor provides a warranty. If you are getting "servo tracking error", "seek error", or "track following error" messages with an XR-W2010 or XR-W2020, your drive may need to be opened up and lubricated. (Step-by-step instructions for doing so used to be available on a web site, but appear to have vanished.) If you're not quite up to that, try turning the drive off and leaving it off until right before you're ready to burn. Some units have trouble when they get warm. Several users have reported difficulty installing the XR-W2020, but the troubles appear to stem from the SCSI card bundled with the drive rather than the drive itself. CAVEAT EMPTOR - XR-W2010. Firmware version 1.51 has some serious flaws that can cause problems when using the drive as either a writer or a reader. The v2.05 update fixed most of the problems, but some conflicts with 3rd-party software remained, so the update was withdrawn. Until these problems are fixed, this drive should only be used with the JVC software, and should not be used as a reader. Power-cycling the unit (i.e. powering it off and back on) immediately before a write may cure some problems. For examples and some tests, see http://www.fadden.com/doc/jvc-prob.txt. While there are a large number of people who are using these drives without problems, one person affiliated with a CD-R software company referred to the XR-W2010 as their "#1 tech support nightmare". CAVEAT EMPTOR - XR-W2020. The mechanism appears to have the same problems with lubrication as the XR-W2010. After several months of successful use, the unit will start returning "tracking error" messages. Subject: [5-1-9] Pinnacle (1998/06/05) See http://www.pinnaclemicro.com/producta1.htm Models are: RCD-202 (?x1/64K, based on the JVC XR-W1001) RCD-1000 (2x2/1MB, based on the JVC XR-W2001) RCD-5020 (2x2/1MB) RCD-5040 (4x2/1MB, based on the JVC XR-W2010) RCD-4X4 (4x4/1MB, based on the Teac CD-R50S) RCDW226 (6x2x2/1MB) The -1000, -5020, and -5040 models are flash ROM upgradeable. RCD-1000 units shipped after Sept 1995 can do audio extraction if they have firmware v2.35 or later. An upgrade is available from their BBS. If you are getting "servo tracking error", "seek error", or "track following error" with a 5040, see the notes in the JVC XR-W2010 section. CAVEAT EMPTOR - all drives. Pinnacle customer support is reported to be almost nonexistent, except for some recent tech support via e-mail. Many owners of the RCD-5040 are perfectly happy with their drives (see the caveat on the JVC XR-W2010), but most of the stories about Pinnacle's product support are negative. Pinnacle earned a bad reputation after shipping drives with buggy firmware, a poorly ventilated enclosure, and bad customer support. Some owners of the RCD-1000 have gotten the unit to work, others have given up in despair. Subject: [5-1-10] Ricoh (1999/10/10) See http://www.ricohdms.com/ See http://www.ricoh.com/ See http://www.ricohcorp.com/ See http://www.ricohcpg.com/product_index.html See http://www.ctours.com/ricoh [ was www.microse.com then www.dataweb.nl ] See http://www.arrakis-ttm.com/cdr/tommp6200.html Models are: RS-9200CD (?x1/1.2MB) RO-1060C/RS-1060C (2x2/512K) RS-1420C (4x2/512K+) MP-6200 (6x2x2/1MB; 'S' is SCSI, 'A' or 'I' is IDE) MP-7040 (20x4x4/2MB; 'S' is SCSI, 'A' is IDE) MP-8040SE (20x4x4/2MB; portable) MP-7060 (24x6x4/2MB; 'S' is SCSI, 'A' is IDE) The MP-6200 uses a tray, the MP-6201 uses caddies and has a 2MB buffer. The RS1060C does not support disc-at-once recording, reading of digital audio, or subcode-Q data. (One user reported that his RO1060C *could* read digital audio, but the drive took a little convincing. Another user says that it has always been supported, but not documented, so it can be done with the right software, e.g. CDDA v1.5.) The RS-1060C is the RO-1060C in an external case. The RS-1420C is flash upgradeable (though it can be a little tricky since there are different variants of the drive, and each requires a different ROM image). It does not support packet writing. Most of the commercial versions come with a 2MB buffer (the last digit of the firmware version will be 0, 1, or 2, indicating 512K, 1MB, and 2MB, respectively). The firmware on the flash-upgradeable MP-6200 should either be at v2.20 or later. Version 1.0 had several problems, version 2.0 didn't get along so well with DirectCD 2.0, and version 2.03 had some DAE issues. Firmware upgrades are available from Tom Varghese's page listed above (arrakis-ttm.com) and http://www.ricoh.co.jp/cd-r/cgi/e-/version.html. Subject: [5-1-11] Pioneer (1998/04/06) See http://www.pioneerusa.com/cds.html [ mass replication ] See http://www.pioneerproduct.com/prdsoft/cdr/index.html [ PDR-05 ] See http://www.pioneer.co.jp/ [ if you can read Japanese ] Models are: DW-S114X (4x4/1MB) The PDR-05 is an audio CD-R recorder, described in section (5-12). Does not support disc-at-once recording. Mainly sold in large jukebox systems. Subject: [5-1-12] Olympus (1998/04/06) See http://www.olympusamerica.com/digital/products/CDR2x4/CDR2x4.html See http://www.olympusamerica.com/digital/products/cdr2x6/cdr2x6.html Models are: CDS615E (2x2/1MB, based on the Sony CDU920S) CDS620E (4x2/1MB, based on the Sony CDU924S) CD-R2x6 (6x2/512K, based on the Sony CDU926S??) The CD-R2 is the CDS615E in an external case. The CD-R2x4 might be the external version of the CDS620E. The CD-R2x6 probably has a name like CDS640E, but it's not listed as such on their web site. Subject: [5-1-13] Optima (1998/04/06) See http://www.optimatech.com/CDR.html See http://www.optimatech.com/CDRW.html Models are: DisKovery 650 CD-R (2x2/1MB, based on the Sony CDU920S) DisKovery 1300 CD-R (6x2/512K, based on the Sony CDU960S?) Optima CDWriter (6x4x2/2MB, based on ??) Subject: [5-1-14] Mitsumi (1999/09/12) See http://www.mitsumi.com/ Models are: CR-2200CS (2x2/4MB, based partly on the Philips CDD2000) CR-2201CS (same as CR-2200CS but with 2x2/1MB) CR-2401TS (4x2/1MB, based on the Philips CDD2000) CR-2600TE (6x2/1MB;IDE) CR-2801TE (8x2/512K;IDE) CR-4801TE (8x4/2MB;IDE) CR-4802TE (8x4x2/2MB;IDE) and CR-4802TU (USB) In all unit designations, 'C' means caddy, and 'T' means tray, 'S' is SCSI, and 'E' is EIDE. The devices based on the CDD2000 are flash upgradeable (you should be able to use Philips CDD2000 images). CAVEAT EMPTOR - CR-2600TE and CR-2801TE. These drives do not support disc-at-once recording. Like the Sony 926 and 928 units, they claim to support track-at-once with nearly imperceptible gaps instead. Ahead's Nero can reportedly do this with the CR-2801TE. The CR-4801TE with firmware 2.01 and later supports DAO recording. Earlier versions do not. If your recording software doesn't believe that the drive is capable of DAO, you may need to update the software to a version that is aware of the changes in the firmware update. Later drives, such as the 4802TE, do support DAO. Subject: [5-1-15] DynaTek Automation Systems (1998/12/20) [ DynaTek has reportedly gone out of business ] See http://raider.dynatek.ca/optcstor/cdm.htm See http://www.dynatek.co.uk/ Models are: CDM200 (2x2/1MB) CDM240J (4x2/512K, based on the JVC XR-W2010) CDM400 (4x4/512K, based on the Yamaha CDR-100) CDE260R (6x2x2/1MB, based on the Ricoh 6200S) Older CDM240 units were based on the Yamaha CDR-102. Since the Yamaha CDR-100 is no longer being made, chances are the CDM400 is now a different unit as well. They also sell the CDM4000, which is a stand-alone CD burner. Subject: [5-1-16] Microboards of America (1998/06/14) See http://www.microboards.com/ Models are: PlayWrite 2000 (2x2/1MB, based on the Sony CDU920S) PlayWrite 2040 (4x2/512K+) PlayWrite 4000 (4x4/512K, based on the Yamaha CDR-100) PlayWrite 4001RW (6x4x2/2MB;IDE, based on the Yamaha CDR4001t) PlayWrite 2060R (6x2x2/1MB, based on the Ricoh 6200S) Subject: [5-1-17] Micro Design International (1998/04/06) See http://www.mdi.com/mdinofr/products/cdwriter.htm Model is the Express Writer. There are no apparent model numbers. They used to sell the "old one" (2x2/1MB, based on a Pinnacle (i.e. JVC) drive), more recently they sold the "new one" (4x2/?). Subject: [5-1-18] MicroNet Technology (1998/04/06) See http://www.micronet.com/HTDOCS/products.html#cdr Models are: MasterCD Plus 4x4 (4x4/512K, based on the Yamaha CDR-100) MasterCD Plus 4x6 (6x4/2MB, based on the Yamaha CDR-400) MasterCD Plus 4x12 (12x4/1MB, based on the Teac CD-R55S) Subject: [5-1-19] Procom Technology (1998/04/06) See http://www.procom.com/homepage/wbhrcdrs.html Models are: PCDR-4X (4x4/512K, based on the Yamaha CDR-100) Subject: [5-1-20] Grundig (1998/04/06) See http://www.grundig.com/ [mostly in German] Models are: CDR100IPW (4x2/1MB, based on the Philips CDD2000) Subject: [5-1-21] Plextor (1999/12/19) See http://www.plextor.com/ Models are: PX-R24CS (4x2/512K, a cousin of the Ricoh 1420C) PX-R412C (12x4/2MB) PX-R820T (20x8/4MB) PX-W4220T (20x4x2/2MB) PX-W8220T (20x8x2/4MB) PX-W124TS (32x12x4/4MB) For all units, 'C' indicates caddy, 'T' indicates tray, 'i' means internal, 'e' means external. All units are flash upgradeable. All units except the PX-R24CS support packet writing. Users having trouble with the PX-R412C should try turning synchronous transfer off for that drive. Subject: [5-1-22] Panasonic (1999/10/21) See http://www.panasonic.com/ [ no CD-R info? ] See http://www.acscdr.com/4x8x.htm Models are: CW-7501 (4x2/1MB) CW-7502 (8x4/1MB) CW-7582 (8x4/1MB;IDE) Panasonic is part of Matsushita, so the units may also be sold under the Matsushita label. All units are flash-upgradeable. The CW-7501 should be at 2.0 or greater, and the CW-7502 should be at vX.10 or later (1.10, 3.10, or 4.10 depending on which recorder variant you have; check your current version). Upgrades are available from http://www.acscompro.com/ (click on "Support"). NOTE: there is a known conflict with the Diamond FirePort 40 and the Panasonic CW-7502 CD-R drive. You should upgrade the 7502 firmware to the latest (www.acscompro.com/support/s_cdr.htm), upgrade your FirePort 40 drivers (http://www.diamondmm.com/products/drivers/fireport.html), and add "DisableAutoReqSense=1;do_SCAM=0;" to the FirePort driver (go into the Win95 device settings, select the host adapter, click on Properties, and select the Settings tab). This problem may affect other NCR/Symbios Logic-based SCSI cards as well. Falling back to the original (1.01) NCR SCSI drivers that come with Win95 should fix the problem. Subject: [5-1-23] Teac (1999/09/12) See http://www.teac.com/dsp/cdrec/cdrec.html See http://www.teac.co.jp/dspd/product/cdr.htm Models are: CD-R50S (4x4/1MB) CD-R55S (12x4/1MB) CD-R56S (24x6/2MB) 8x24 (24x8/4MB) Apparently the CD-R50S needs to be at firmware 1.0E or later to do quad-speed writing reliably. Power calibration is done via a lookup table rather than adjusted dynamically, so a flash upgrade may be required before some brands of media will work. The CD-R50S and CD-R55S appear to use the same command set as the JVC XR-W2010. Upgrades for the CD-R50S and CD-R55S are at ftp://nemus.teac.de/. You can also go to http://www.teac.co.jp/dspd/download/firmware/cd-r55s/updater.html for a nice HTML page about the CD-R55S upgrade. Subject: [5-1-24] Wearnes (1998/08/07) See http://www.wpinet.com.sg/ See http://mars.asiabiz.com.sg/~whwang/ Models are: CDR-432 (4x2/1MB, based on the Philips CDD2000) CD-R 622 (6x2/1MB;IDE) CD-R 632P (6x2/1MB, based on the Philips CDD2600) CDRW-622 (6x2x2/1MB;IDE) The CDRW-622 supports packet writing, and is flash upgradeable. Subject: [5-1-25] Turtle Beach (1998/04/06) See http://www.tbeach.com/products/tbs2040r.htm Models are: 2040R (4x2/512K, based on the Ricoh RS-1420C) Many users have had trouble installing the AdvanSys SCSI card that is bundled with this unit. Most of the problems can be corrected by enabling PnP installation, which is disabled by default. Subject: [5-1-26] Creative Labs (1999/12/19) See http://www.creaf.com/ Models are: CDR2000 (2x2/512K, based on the Ricoh RS1060C) CDR2224 (24x2x2/2MB;IDE, based on JVC XR-W2080?) CDR4210 (4x2/1MB, based on the Panasonic CW-7501) CDR4224 (24x4x2/2MB;IDE, based on a JVC XR-W4080) CDR?? "CD Studio" (24x4x4/2MB;IDE, based on ??) CDR6424 (24x6x4/2MB;IDE, based on Ricoh 7060A) CDR8432 (32x8x4/2MB;IDE, based on Sony CRX140E??) Subject: [5-1-27] Taiyo Yuden (1998/04/06) See ? Models are: EW-50 (4x2/?) Subject: [5-1-28] Memorex (1999/09/17) See http://www.memorex.com/html/mp_peripherals.html See http://www.memorexlive.com/support/ Models are: CR-622 (6x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Wearnes CD-R 622) CRW-1622 (6x2x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Wearnes CDRW-622) CRW-2642 (6x4x2/2MB;IDE, based on the Yamaha CRW-4260??) CDRW-2216 (16x2x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Yamaha CRW-2216E) CRW-4224 (24x4x2/2MB;IDE, based on JVC XR-W4080?) Subject: [5-1-29] Hi-Val (1999/02/07) See http://www.hival.com/ Hi-Val doesn't build CD recorders. They repackage and provide support for recorders built by others. The actual model you get will vary (Wearnes, Ricoh, Philips, JVC, Mitsumi, and others have been reported). Subject: [5-1-30] Dysan (1999/02/07) See http://www.hanny-magnetics-europe.com/products/ Models are: CR-622 (6x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Wearnes CD-R 622) CRW-1420C (6x2/512K, based on the Ricoh 1420C??) CRW-1622 (6x2x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Wearnes CDRW-622) CDRW-2216 (16x2x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Yamaha CRW-2216E) The CR-622 does not support disc-at-once recording. The CRW-1622 often came bundled with NTI's software, but the version included didn't work correctly. Upgrading to a more recent version of the software (http://www.ntius.com/) resolved the problems. Subject: [5-1-31] Traxdata (1999/12/18) See http://www.traxdata.com/ Models are: CDR4120 (12x4/1MB, based on the Teac CD-R55S) CDRW2260 "Pro" (6x2x2/1MB, based on the Yamaha CRW-2260) CDRW2260 "Plus" (6x2x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Philips CDD-3610?) CDRW-4260 "Pro" (6x4x2/2MB, based on the Yamaha CRW-4260) CDRW-2224 "Plus" (24x2x2/?MB;???, based on ??) CDRW-4424 "Plus" (24x4x4/?MB;???, based on the Goldstar CED-8042B??) The CDRW2260 "Pro" may also use a Philips CDD-3600? Subject: [5-1-32] Acer (1998/07/18) See http://www.acerperipherals.com/ Models are: CDW6206A (6x2x2/512K;IDE) CDW4432A (32x4x4;IDE) The 6206A is flash upgradeable. Subject: [5-1-33] Waitec (1998/06/14) See http://www.waitec.com/ Models are: WT4046 (6x4x2/2MB; "EI" model is IDE) WT2036 (6x2x2/1MB; "EI" model is IDE) WT412 (12x4/1MB) WT48 (8x4/1MB) Subject: [5-1-34] BTC (1998/11/18) See http://www.btc-corp.com/ Models are: BCE62IE (6x2x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Philips CDD3610??) The BCE62IPE is the BCE62IE with a parallel-port IDE converter. Subject: [5-1-35] Caravelle (Sanyo) (1999/07/18) See http://www.sanyo.com/ [ no CD-R info? ] Models are: CRD-R800S (20x8/2MB) Firmware v1.10 or later is highly recommended for the CRD-R800S. Subject: [5-1-36] Micro Solutions (1999/02/26) See http://www.micro-solutions.com/ Models are: 190100 (6x2x2/1MB;Parallel, based on the Ricoh MP-6200) 190120/190126 (6x4x2/?MB;Parallel, based on the Yamaha CRW-4261) 190127 (8x4x2/2MB;Parallel, based on the Mitsumi CD-4802TE) All products are standard recorders combined with Micro Solution's parallel-port interface. Subject: [5-1-37] Pacific Digital (1999/07/18) See http://www.1pdc.com/ Models are: 224ei (24x2x2/2MB;IDE, based on the JVC XR-W2080) 226ei (6x2x2/1MB;IDE, based on the Philips CDD3610??) 428ei (8x4x2/2MB;IDE, based on the Mitsumi CR-4802TE) 428USB (8x4x2/2MB;USB, based on the Mitsumi CR-4802TU) 416si (16x4x4/2MB, based on CRW-4416S?) Subject: [5-1-38] Iomega (1999/07/18) See http://www.iomega.com/ Models are: ZipCD (24x4x4/2MB;IDE, based on the Goldstar CED-8042B??) Guess they finally realized that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Subject: [5-1-39] Goldstar (1999/12/19) See http://www.lge.co.kr/ Models are: CED-8041B (24x4x2/2MB;IDE) CED-8042B (24x4x4/2MB;IDE) These *might* be based on the Sony 100/120 models. There are indications that, at the very least, the firmware is different (the Goldstar units reportedly can "overburn" discs, while the mentioned Sony units can't). There's supposed to be a 32x4x4 too, but it's not on the web site yet. Subject: [5-1-40] AOpen (1999/12/19) See http://www.aopenusa.com/ Models are: CR1420C (4x2/512K, based on the Ricoh RS-1420C?) CRW620 (6x2/1MB, based on ??) CRW622 (6x2/1MB;IDE, based on Wearnes CD-R 622??) CRW9420 (20x4x4/2MB;IDE, based on Ricoh MP-7040A?) CRW9624 (24x6x4/2MB;IDE, based on Ricoh MP-7060A?) Rumor has it there's a 32/8/4 recorder available soon. Subject: [5-2] How long do CD recorders last? (1998/04/06) The MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) on these drives is typically 50,000 to 100,000 hours, and they come with a 1 year warranty. Compare that to hard drives rated at between 500,000 and 1,000,000 hours with a 3 or 5 year warranty and that should give you some idea. Most of the drives available today weren't meant for mass production of CD-Rs; notable exceptions are the venerable Philips CDD 522, Kodak PCD 600, and Sony CDW-900E. Incidentally, MTBF is not an estimate of how long the drive will last. Rather, it's an estimate of the failure rate of the drives during the expected lifetime of the device. Once you exceed the expected lifetime, which is often on the order of a couple of years, the anticipated failure rate increases. If you have new drives with an MTBF of 25,000 hours, and you run 1000 units for 100 hours, you can expect to see four of them fail. It does NOT mean you can expect them to run for 2.8 years and then all fail at once. Subject: [5-3] What kind of PC is recommended? (1999/10/04) If you're about to buy a computer system and are seriously thinking about buying a CD-R, here are some things to keep in mind. (See the next section if you're interested in Mac hardware instead of an IBM PC.) CPU: buy a mid-range Pentium-class machine or better. In general it's a good idea to buy a fast machine, since systems tend to be outdated after a year and obsolete after three or four. A '486 is a *minimum* configuration for a CD-R system; a Pentium gives you some breathing room. Pentium II and above is more power than you need, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Motherboard: get one with PCI slots. Not only can PCI cards move data more quickly, they're much easier to configure. IDE: whatever comes on your motherboard will work. See section (5-15) for configuration notes and a warning about certain bus-mastering drivers. SCSI: the SCSI interface remains a popular choice for CD recorders and CD-ROM drives. Whether it's built into the motherboard or on a separate card, make sure the host adapter supports ASPI and ASPI for Windows (see section (5-7)). Wide SCSI is useful if you're buying a fast (recent 7200rpm or greater) hard drive, but CD recorders do fine on 8-bit Fast SCSI. Bus-mastering SCSI cards are preferred over non-bus-mastering cards, because they can move data to and from system memory directly, without the CPU's involvement, making things faster. Parallel: some vendors are selling parallel-port CD-R drives. You should have an EPP-enabled parallel port (if you have a Pentium or later, chances are you have one). Sound: the Creative Labs SB16 and AWE32 boards are widely supported and very popular, but if you're thinking seriously about recording sound through it, you'll want to consider alternatives. See sections (3-12) and (3-13) for other options. Hard drive: needs to be reasonably fast, and large enough to hold whatever data you plan to put on a CD. IDE hard drives work fine. See section (5-6) for more details. Video card and monitor: depends on what you want to do. A PCI-based video card is practically a requirement these days, and 17" monitors are inexpensive now. If you're planning on creating multimedia products, scale up. CD-ROM: SCSI and IDE both work, but some drives work better than others. See section (5-5). Subject: [5-4] What kind of Mac is recommended? (1999/09/27) Any Mac of Quadra 700 or higher capability with a reasonably fast disk should be suitable for 2x writing. All PowerMac-class machines, and probably most Mac clones, should work fine. PowerBook users should proceed with caution on machines earlier than the 3400 and G3 models. Any of the SCSI or (for appropriately equipped machines) USB recorders should work. Verify with the vendor of the software you plan to use that the drive you have in mind is supported. You may be able to use the internal IDE connector on some Macintoshes as well. Creating a disc image and then writing from it is safer than on-the-fly recording. If your pre-mastering software has to assemble files and build an ISO-9660 filesystem on the fly, you need a decent PowerMac. Using the "simulated cut" feature available on Toast and other software is also prudent, at least until you get a feel for the system. Make sure you turn off file sharing before you start a burn, or things will fail if it tries to read a file that's already open. You may also have trouble writing from the boot/system volume, since it will always have files open. The good news for Mac owners is that the hardware and software configuration for CD-R usually goes rather smoothly. For an atypical not-so-smooth example, see http://socsci.colorado.edu/~resnicka/cdburn.html. Subject: [5-5] Which standard CD-ROM drives work well with CD-R? (1999/09/12) Besides the obvious question - can it read CD-R discs that you create - there's also the question of how well the drive works as the source device when copying discs. To be more specific: - Does the drive support digital audio extraction? - Does the drive hog the SCSI bus, obstructing writes to the CD-R? - Does the drive support multisession discs? Plextor SCSI models generally work well. The Plextor 6Plex and higher can extract digital audio at high speeds, and come with a set of utilities that are actually useful. The 8Plex and more recent models are often recommended. The 12Plex can extract audio at about 9x, and the 12/20 will extract at up to 20x. The error correction on the 12/20 seems to slip a little above 8x though, so unless the disc is very clean you should extract at a slower speed. Many hard drives have trouble streaming data at that speed anyway. The CD-DA FAQ (http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~psyche/cdda/) lists some drives that work well for DAE, as does http://www.mp3.com/cdrom.html. You can see speed and quality test results on http://come.to/cdspeed. Older NEC models tend to hog the SCSI bus. Older NEC, Mitsumi, and Acer models (e.g. NEC 3x and Acer 8x) may have trouble reading CD-Rs. There is one hard and fast rule for direct CD-to-CD duplication: the source drive must be faster than the target drive (e.g. source 4x if target is 2x, source 6x if target is 4x). A performance test on some mid-range models can be found at: http://www.pcmag.com/features/cdrom/cd-test.htm A quick summary of features for several models can be found at: http://www.fwb.com/ts/cdt/cdt_support.html Subject: [5-6] What kind of HD should I use with CD-R? Must it be AV-rated? (1998/07/26) There is a fair amount of confusion over what exactly is an "AV drive". A brief discussion is presented here; for more information see Bertel Schmitt's article at http://www.fadden.com/doc/avdrive.txt. The most important issue is thermal recalibration. Your basic hard drive will pause for up to half a second (or even up to a full second, depending on who you believe) every so often to adjust the head positioning to the current operating temperature. For most applications this goes unnoticed, but when recording a CD-R you must write the current track to completion without interruption. AV drives deal with the problem in a way that doesn't disrupt the disk activity. A drive that does a quick thermal recalibration is acceptable if the system is otherwise fast enough or the buffer in the CD-R unit or in the recording software is large enough (early drives had only 64KB, while current drives have 512KB or 1MB, making it much less of an issue). You need to be sure that the recorder's write buffer won't empty during the recal period, or you'll end up with a buffer underrun. If your recorder's buffer is less than 512KB, or you're planning to record at 4x or greater, you should seriously consider an AV drive. Otherwise, it probably won't matter. Also, don't believe everything you hear from a salesman -- verify with the manufacturer that the drive model is AV-rated. What separates a Seagate Barracuda from a Seagate Barracuda AV is that the latter is tuned for AV performance. This is simply a software change that affects cache allocation algorithms, error correction, and other SCSI parameters that may will give better performance for transfers of large blocks of contiguous data. These sorts of optimizations are more important for digital video (which runs at a few MB/sec) than CD recording (which is only 600K/sec at 4x). If you think AV optimizations will help you, you should take a look at "Dr. SCSI" at http://www.scsitools.com/. It will help you do the same optimizations that the AV drive sellers do, for a price that's about equal to the difference between a standard drive and an AV drive. It's not necessary to use a SCSI hard drive. In most cases IDE will work just fine. On a separate but related issue, all reports from people burning CDs from Win95 OSR2 FAT-32 filesystems have been positive. Subject: [5-7] What SCSI adapter should I use with a CD recorder? (1999/10/20) Some systems have SCSI built in, some don't. This section is intended for PC users who want to add SCSI devices. Owners of SCSI-less Macintoshes should use an interface recommended by Apple. Using different SCSI adapters for the HD and the CD recorder used to be recommended, but should not be necessary with non-ISA adapters. If your recorder hogs the SCSI bus, though, the HD may not be able to keep the write buffer full. Under some operating systems, particularly OS/2, devices that support SCSI disconnect will work better than those that don't. In general, the faster the better. PCI or the (now uncommon) VLB is better than ISA, and the board should support (and have enabled) SCSI disconnect. It is not necessary to use Wide or Ultra SCSI for a CD recorder; the speed requirements for all existing recorders are easily met by "narrow" Fast SCSI. If you think you may be buying a speedy SCSI hard drive or other device in the near future, though, you may want to buy a card that supports faster protocols. You should enable synchronous transfers for devices that support it. Most CD recorders should. If the device doesn't work with it on, turn it off and try again. The adapter MUST support the ASPI standard (ASPI provides an interface between software and the SCSI controller) for both DOS and Windows. For some tips on cabling and termination, see Bertel Schmitt's article at http://www.fadden.com/doc/scsi-trm.txt. The next few sections detail the more popular SCSI cards. There are many others, e.g: Advansys - http://www.advansys.com/ DTC - http://www.datatechnology.com/ CSC - http://www.corpsys.com/ Subject: [5-7-1] Adaptec - 1510/1522A/1540/1542CF (1998/04/06) See http://www.adaptec.com/ These are all ISA controllers, good for putting a CD recorder on, not so good for putting a hard drive or fast CD-ROM drive on. If you have an IDE-based system and just want a SCSI card for driving your CD recorder and maybe a scanner or tape drive, any of these (as well as any of the variations of these) will work fine. Subject: [5-7-2] Adaptec - 2840/2910/2920/2930/2940 (1999/10/20) See http://www.adaptec.com/ See http://www.adaptec.com/products/datasheets/specs/ The Adaptec 2940 (PCI) is a popular choice -- if not *the* most popular choice -- though some users have reported problems with the Adaptec 2840 (VLB). See the README that comes with Adaptec EZ-SCSI v4.0 and later for some important performance tests you can do with SCSIBench. The 2930 is also a good choice for CD recording. If you're having trouble writing CD-Rs with the 2940UW, go into the configuration menu (hit Ctrl-A while booting) and make sure the drive is set for 10MB/sec with Wide Negotiation disabled. A few notes on the 2910, 2920, 2930, and 2940 cards: 2910 Bus-mastering, no BIOS, Fast SCSI-2. 2920A/B Not bus-mastering, has BIOS, Fast SCSI-2. 2920C Bus-mastering, has BIOS, Fast SCSI-2. 2930/U/U2 Less expensive than 2940, but similar features. 2940/W/U/UW/U2/U2W Bus-mastering, has BIOS, fast/ultra/wide/whatever depending on model. Booting from a CD-ROM requires that the card have a BIOS that supports booting from CD-ROM, and that the PC also supports booting from CD-ROM. The 2940U2W has four connectors (internal 68pin Ultra2-LVD, internal 68pin Ultra2, internal 50-pin, external 68-pin Ultra2) and comes with a special 50-pin cable that ends in a 50-pin (HD) external plate. So you can have both 50-pin and 68-pin external connectors, as well as 50-pin and 68-pin internal connectors. On previous cards, you could only use two connectors at a time, but on this card you can use all five at once. Subject: [5-7-3] ASUS - SC-200/SC-875 (1998/05/16) See http://www.asus.com.tw/ The ASUS SC-200 is one example of an NCR/Symbios Logic 810-based card (in this case, the NCR 53C810). Such cards offer solid performance at a reasonable price, and may be a better choice than the Adaptec cards for many users. (Be sure to examine these types of cards closely though; the least expensive among them are only meant to work with a motherboard BIOS that supports SCSI.) The ASUS SC-875, based on the 53C875 chip, offers Wide SCSI connectors as well. Subject: [5-7-4] Diamond - FirePort 20/40/40dual (1998/05/16) See http://www.diamondmm.com/ High-performance SCSI cards based around Symbios Logic SCSI controller chips. Both cards offer high performance and compete directly with the Adaptec 2940 series. The FirePort 20 and 40 are based on the SYM53C875, and the FirePort 40 Dual is based on the SYM53C876. A list of compatibility-tested hardware is available from the web site. Subject: [5-7-5] Adaptec - 1350/1460/1480 (1999/12/18) See http://www.adaptec.com/ The "SlimSCSI" 1460 and 1480 are PCMCIA SCSI adapters for use in laptops and other portable devices. The 1460 requires a PC card slot and supports SCSI-2, while the 1480 requires a CardBus slot and supports UltraSCSI devices. The "MiniSCSI" 1350 allows you to connect SCSI devices to your parallel port. If you use this you will be limited to parallel-port speeds, so you may not be able to record at more than 2x. Subject: [5-8] Can I use a CD recorder as a general-purpose reader? (1999/02/18) You can, but it's not clear that you'd want to. The seek times tend to be slower than a standard CD-ROM drive because the head assembly is heavier. There's also not much need for rapid seeks when writing a disc, so there's little reason for manufacturers to try to optimize this. Some users have reported jerky video playback on a CD-R drive. (Some of the recent models actually have pretty good access time figures, so this may be changing.) The MTBF on CD-R units tends to be low, so it may be wise to use a different drive for general use to preserve the life of the CD-R, especially if you have a tray model. If you're using Win95, some older CD recorders don't show up as readers without additional drivers, or (for SCSI drives) show up as 8 separate LUNs. (LUNs are Logical UNits, useful for distinguishing between different items loaded in a CD jukebox.) The reason why some older recorders don't show up by default is that they're classified as "type 4" SCSI-2 devices, which is used to indicate write-once devices. Standard CD-ROM drives are "type 5". HP and Philips supply drivers for their older units, Corel used to supply several drivers for with their CD Creator product, and the Sony 920S works as-is. If you have an Adaptec CD recording product, you can get a patch from Adaptec at ftp://ftp.adaptec.com/pub/BBS/win95/cdr4up.exe that will allow many type 4 drives, including the Yamaha CDR-100/102 and JVC XR-W2010, to appear as CD-ROM drives. If you don't have the drivers, you can still get the recorder to work by loading the real-mode drivers like this (example is for an Adaptec 2940): In Config.sys: DEVICEHIGH=C:\SCSI\ASPI8DOS.SYS /D DEVICEHIGH=C:\SCSI\ASPICD.SYS /D:ASPICD0 In Autoexec.bat: LH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:ASPICD0 /M:12 Incidentally, to *remove* the Adaptec cdr4up driver, you should remove the file "CDR4VSD.VXD" from \Windows\System\Iosubsys, and reboot. For IDE recorders, you need a more specific driver. The manufacturer's web page likely has a link. See also http://www.drivershq.com/. Subject: [5-9] To caddy or not to caddy? (1998/04/06) This is a general CD-ROM question rather than a CD-R question, but since some of the newer recorders are available in either configuration it seems worthwhile to address it here. The advantage of a tray is convenience. If you want to put a CD in the drive, you can just drop it in, instead of buying a pile of caddies and hunting for a free one. The advantage of a caddy is durability. CDs are less likely to be scratched if they're put into a caddy and left there (VERY important if you have children), and the internal mechanism is less likely to collect dust. The tray units usually have a worse MTBF rating, because they have more moving parts. There have been reports that, at 12x and higher, some CDs will cause loud vibrations in tray models, but work fine in caddy models. Not everyone has had this problem though. It used to be the case that you had to get a caddy drive if you wanted to mount it sideways, but many tray models have tabs that will hold the CD in place. Having to use the tabs does reduce the convenience normally offered by a tray model though. Which you should choose depends on your needs and circumstances. If you are planning to write to a disc several times (multisession, packet writing, or anything with CD-RW), you are better off with the disc in a caddy. Subject: [5-10] Can I burn CDs from a Jaz drive? Tape drive? (1998/04/06) With a little extra care, yes. For a Jaz drive, defragmenting the drive right before starting a burn seems to be the key to success. It's also very important to ensure that nothing else is trying to access the drive while the write is underway. One user reported being able to write at 1x from a DDS tape drive using Seagate's Direct Tape Access, but this isn't recommended. Copying the data to a hard drive and doing the burn from there is much more likely to succeed. There are no known instances of successful CD-R burns using punched card readers as the source device. Doing a test run is strongly recommended when using any of these devices. Subject: [5-11] What is "Running OPC"? (1998/04/06) OPC stands for Optimum Power Control. Most CD-R units do a power calibration test before writing to adjust the laser power to the correct strength. Different brands of media require slightly different power levels. Running OPC goes a step farther by actively monitoring the write process and adjusting the laser power as needed. If the writer encounters dust or fingerprints, the laser power can be increased to burn through the obstacles. This is especially useful for discs that are moved around between recording sessions, such as CD-RW discs or multisession CD-Rs. For more information, see http://www2.osta.org/osta/html/opc.html. Subject: [5-12] What's the story with stand-alone audio CD recorders? (1999/10/09) Audio CD-R/CD-RW recorders are similar to computer CD-Rs, except that they're intended to be part of a recording system rather than attached to a Mac or PC. They have audio inputs and front-panel controls like you'd find on a tape deck. They are usually more expensive than CD-Rs meant for computers. Some CD-Rs have both audio and SCSI-II interfaces. There are two classes of audio CD-R, consumer and professional. The units targeted at consumers require special audio blanks, and employ SCMS (Serial Copy Management System, section (2-25)) to prevent making copies from a copy. The audio blanks used to be 4x to 5x the cost of computer CD-R blanks and only held 60 minutes of audio, but 74-minute "Consumer Audio" blanks are now available for moderately more than regular CD-R blanks. The "professional" units use regular CD-R blanks and don't obey SCMS, and generally have a wider set of features and input/output connectors. If you already have a computer, it's probably cheaper to buy a computer CD-R and a good sound card or digital transfer card (see sections (3-12) and (3-13) for more info). The ability to edit the sound on a computer before writing a CD can be very useful. However, there are some advantages to using an audio CD-R (not all features are present on all models): - much easier to configure the hardware, and no software to learn - the A/D converter is probably better than most PC sound cards - automatic DAT start_id to CD index mark conversion - sample rate conversion for 32K - 48K DATs - analog inputs - pause button - buffer underruns are unlikely Of course, since you're recording the music "live", it has to happen at 1x, and any skips or pauses in the audio input will show up on the duplicate. Depending on your situation, this may not be a problem. You can't copy data CD-ROMs with an audio-only recorder. (Incidentally, the difference in price for the audio CD-R blanks is due to licensing agreements and volume. The manufacturer pays a royalty to a studio consortium under the assumption that everything recorded to an audio CD-R is pirated material. The technology is identical; the "audio" discs just have a mark that says a royalty has been paid.) It is theoretically possible to convince a "consumer" audio CD recorder to accept regular blanks, but in practice this would require replacing the firmware chip. If somebody has figured out how to do this, they've been quiet about it. With the Philips 870/880 units manufactured prior to November 1998, it's possible to trick the recorder by manually ejecting and replacing the disc right before recording. (I don't know how to make regular blanks work on any of the other units. If you do, let me know; it's a popular question.) Examples of "consumer" audio CD-R units are the Pioneer PDR-04 and PDR-05 (http://www.pioneerproduct.com/prdsoft/cdr/index.html). Marantz makes professional-grade CD-R units, e.g. the CDR615 and CDR620. See http://www-us.philips.com/marantz/product/professional/cdrecorder/. Philips sells the CDR870 and CDR880 (based on the CDD3600), which support both CD-R and CD-RW media. http://www-us.sv.philips.com/sound/cr.html. If you're interested in the Philips CDR765, a consumer-grade dual CD deck, see a detailed article at http://www.gallagher.com/music/cdr.htm and some notes at http://members.tripod.com/~charleswolff/cdr765.html. HHB sells a "professional" unit, the CDR880. http://www.hhb.co.uk/. Subject: [5-13] What's firmware? How and why should I upgrade my recorder? (1999/06/28) In computer terms, hardware is the stuff you can hit with a baseball bat, and software is the stuff you can only swear at. Firmware is software that lives on your hardware. In more concrete terms, the firmware on your CD recorder is what controls the operation of the device, and handles everything from decoding CD-ROM sectors to writing the disc table of contents. Sometimes there are bugs or missing features that are added by updates. Firmware upgrades have been used to add features like disc-at-once recording and fix bugs like reversed left and right audio channels. Sometimes the upgrade will inadvertently add bugs, causing the recorder to work improperly. Firmware can be stored in an umodifiable form, such as a ROM chip, or in a rewritable form, such as "flash" ROM. In the former case, firmware upgrades are accomplished by physically removing a chip from inside the device, and replacing it with a new one. Devices with "flashable" firmware, on the other hand, can be upgraded by downloading a new set of firmware over the Internet. You have to be careful when upgrading the firmware on a drive yourself. If it requires physical replacement, you run the risk of breaking pins off of the chip. Flash upgrades won't result in physical damage, but in some cases a failed upgrade can render the device unusable. Always follow the instructions exactly, and NEVER do an upgrade with anything that didn't come from the manufacturer or a trusted source. Suppose you want to upgrade your recorder. The first step is to remember famous words of wisdom: if it ain't broke, don't fix it! The second step is to figure out if your firmware is upgradeable. The manual should tell you. Most drives are, but some exceptions are noted for specific drives in the subsections under (5-1). The third step is to determine what version of firmware you currently have. Some SCSI cards on PC or UNIX systems will display a list of attached devices when the system boots. There's usually a column with a version number in it. On a PC running Win95, go into the Device Manager (either from the Control Panels or by asking for Properties on My Computer), and find the CD-ROM drives in the device tree. Select the CD-R drive, hit the "Properties" button, and then click on the "Settings" Tab of the window that opens. Look for "Firmware Revision". Mac users with Toast can hit Command-R to display the information. If your software doesn't have such a feature, you will need to run SCSI Tools to check the identification string. The fourth step is to find the upgrade file. Usually the manufacturer's web site will have them. If not, try a repository like http://www.ahead.de/en/firmware.htm. The fifth step is to apply the upgrade. This can be trivial or fairly challenging, depending on the device. Be sure to read the instructions *carefully* before applying the upgrade -- if it fails, the recorder could be rendered inoperable. Subject: [5-14] How well do ATAPI (IDE), parallel-port, and USB recorders work? (1999/07/18) By all accounts, they work just fine. Some people have argued that IDE CD-Rs are easier to install than SCSI. The only significant limitation at this time is that a wider variety of software is available for SCSI drives, but that's changing. There were some concerns about whether or not a CD-to-CD copy would be reliable if the source CD-ROM drive and target CD-R drive are both IDE. The concern was that the increased CPU and bus utilization associated with IDE would cause buffer underruns. So far, all reports indicate that the concerns were unfounded. Parallel-port drives require an ECP/EPP parallel port, which most (all?) machines have. Some BIOSs allow you to switch between ECP/EPP and "standard" mode; if you're having trouble, be sure it's set correctly. Some people who have bought off-the-shelf parallel-to-IDE converters have found that writing at 4x doesn't work very well. This may account for why all drives that ship with parallel port support are 2x writers. USB recorders work fine at 4x when connected directly to the computer. You may need to reduce speed to 2x if you use a hub. Some people have reported that their systems were crashing until they turned auto-insert notification off (see section (4-1-1)). Subject: [5-15] How should I configure my system for an ATAPI CD recorder? (1999/10/19) For a non-bus-mastering system, you want the hard drives and CD-ROM drives on different channels, or the slow CD-ROM drive will affect the performance of the hard drive. A typical configuration looks like this: primary: master: first hard drive slave: second hard drive secondary: master: CD-ROM drive slave: CD-R/CD-RW drive It doesn't seem to matter whether the CD-ROM or CD recorder is the master. Having both on the same channel doesn't necessarily impede CD-to-CD copying (though you're still better off writing from the hard drive). Keep the cables as short as you can. Sometimes the longer (60cm) cables will work fine with one drive but start having integrity problems when two devices are attached. If you are able to record successfully with bus-mastering and DMA enabled for your ATAPI devices, your system may benefit from a different configuration: primary: master: first hard drive slave: CD-R/CD-RW drive secondary: master: second hard drive slave: CD-ROM drive This can improve overall performance by allowing each hard drive to run on a separate channel. With bus-mastering and DMA enabled, the system doesn't have to wait for requests to complete, so there is little performance degradation when the CD-ROM or CD-R drives are in use. NOTE: the Intel PIIX Bus Mastering IDE driver may interfere with the ability to use a CD recorder. The typical symptom is a system hang when writing or test-writing to a disc. The latest version of the Intel driver (which includes an uninstaller) can be found at http://developer.intel.com/design/chipsets/drivers/busmastr/. The Adaptec page http://www.adaptec.com/support/configuration/cdrecide.html also describes the problem. NOTE: The VIA Bus Mastering IDE drivers are similarly afflicted. See http://www.via.com.tw/support/faq.htm. Win95/Win98 users can resolve the bus-mastering IDE driver problems by installing Win98 Second Edition (a/k/a Win98SE) after removing any manufacturer-supplied bus-mastering drivers. The ASPI (Advanced SCSI Programmer's Interface) layer is used during CD recording, even for IDE recorders. Take a look at Adaptec's FAQ on the subject, and grab a copy of ASPICHK while you're at it from http://www.adaptec.com/support/faqs/aspilayer.html. The original Win95A/B WinASPI may have problems with IDE recorders. Subject: [5-16] How important is CD-RW? (1999/06/25) It depends on what you're doing. With the cost of CD-R discs dropping through the floor, there's less of an incentive to burn a test disc first. At prices around US$1.00 per disc, the extra time needed to do two full burns isn't worthwhile unless you're really tight for money. Besides, CD-RW discs aren't readable on many older CD-ROM and audio CD players. The manual for Easy CD Creator Deluxe says that CD-RW discs are "more cost effective for near-line data storage requirements than CD-R." The definition of near-line storage puts it somewhere between online storage and offline storage. On the other hand, if you're expecting to use packet writing to treat the disc as a big floppy, it may be useful. You should consider other forms of media for such purposes though, such as Jaz drives, which are faster and hold more, but are slightly harder to find readers for (but only slightly: CD-RW discs aren't readable on all drives, and packet-written discs may not be readable under some operating systems). Software developers who need to create test CDs frequently will find CD-RW invaluable. CD-Rewritable drives can write to both CD-R and CD-RW media, so you're not going to miss out on anything if you buy a drive that supports CD-RW. If you don't mind spending the extra money for CD-RW, it may come in handy, but if you're concerned about the cost of the recorder, chances are you won't miss CD-RW if you don't have it. Subject: [5-17] What is an "MMC Compliant" recorder? (1999/02/21) Historically, each manufacturer of CD recorders used a different command set, and perhaps even altered the commands with each new recorder. This has placed a significant burden on CD-R software authors, who have to write new drivers for each new device. MMC (Multi Media Command) compliant recorders use a common command set. Programs that can write to one MMC-compliant recorder should be able to write to all others, and consumers should be able to use their choice of software without the long delays usually associated with the introduction of new hardware. The reality is not so kind, unfortunately, due to firmware bugs or deliberate deviations from the standard. Do not assume that a particular piece of software will work with your recorder simply because it works for other MMC-compliant devices. The spec sheets for recorders usually indicate whether or not the drive is MMC compliant. Draft proposals for the MMC-1 and MMC-2 standards can be obtained from ftp://ftp.symbios.com/pub/standards/io/. Subject: [5-18] What should I use to record from a UNIX system? (1999/12/19) The choice of what hardware to buy is dictated by software availability. Find the software you want to use (common choices include "cdrecord", listed in section (6-1-20), GEAR in section (6-1-3), and CDR Publisher in section (6-1-9)). All support a variety of recorders, primarily SCSI devices. Consult the software manufacturer's web site for any specific recommendations. It's possible to get IDE recorders working under Linux, by installing an "ide-scsi" module that makes the recorder work more or less like a SCSI device. This is similar to what the Windows ASPI layer does for IDE devices. See the CD-Writing-HOWTO for more details. The Sun CD FAQ at http://saturn.tlug.org/suncdfaq/index.html has some helpful tips on using CD recorders and creating bootable CD-ROMs for Solaris machines. Subject: [5-19] What do I need to record from a laptop? (1999/12/18) You need a way to connect the recorder to the laptop. After that, it's really no different from a desktop. You can connect the recorder via USB (if you have a USB connector), SCSI (if you have a port or want to buy a PCMCIA SCSI card like the Adaptec 1460), or parallel port. SCSI is the fastest, but PCMCIA SCSI adapters tend to be expensive. USB is a good choice, and should be available on most recent laptops. Parallel port works fine, but you will probably be limited to recording at 2x. Subject: [5-20] I need to make *lots* of copies (1999/12/09) If the software options described in section (3-17) are insufficient, you may want to buy dedicated hardware. You can learn about the types of equipment available at http://www.octave.com/library/cdduplicating.html. Subject: [5-21] How do I connect two drives to one sound card in a PC? (1999/12/19) The purchase of a CD recorder results in what used to be an unusual situation: a machine with two CD-ROM drives in it. This results in a number of interesting phenomena, usually having to do with poorly-written software that can't figure out which CD-ROM drive it's supposed to use. CD-ROM drives are typically connected to the sound card via a small cable (a couple of wires twisted together, ending in small molex connectors). This allows audio CDs to be placed in the CD-ROM drive and played through the speakers attached to the sound card. Some people, upon discovering that they have two CD-ROM drives and can use both simultaneously, want to connect both drives to the sound card's input. This is where the trouble starts. Sound cards often only have one input. The immediate temptation is to buy or construct a Y-cable, but this won't always work. The trouble is that Y-cables only work when you have a single signal and more than one listener, like a stereo that sends its output to two sets of headphones. The situation with two CD-ROM drives is of two outputs and one listener. Connecting two outputs together is, in general, a bad idea. Remember that electricity isn't like water: it does not come out of the output and flow downhill. The voltage at any point on the wire (ignoring minor distortions) is going to be exactly the same. So if you have a device that's trying to set it to one level, and another device that's trying to set it to another level, the two devices are going to fight, and the results aren't going to be what you want. In some cases, if a device is inactive, it will allow its output to "float". The other device can set the voltage to whatever level it wants. So long as you only use one device at a time, all is well. Many devices, however, force the output to ground level when not in use. This generally manifests as a volume level that is almost inaudibly quiet. Devices that combine multiple audio inputs into something reasonable are called "mixers". Buying one and embedding it into your PC case is probably not the best solution. One possible option, if you're handy with the soldering iron, is to rig up a mechanical switch that selects which signal gets passed to the sound card. So long as you weren't planning to play two audio CDs simultaneously, this should work well. Some sound cards have multiple connectors on them, suggesting that the card itself could handle multiple inputs. More often than not, these connectors are not electrically isolated, so even though they're not sharing the same cable they will still cause the devices to compete. If the sound card isn't advertised as allowing multiple independent inputs, don't assume it can. Subject: [6] Software (1998/05/16) DOS, Win31, Win95, and WinNT all work well, though some recorders are more difficult to configure for Win95 and WinNT than others. Mac System 7.x works well, as should 8.x. UNIX variants (notably FreeBSD and Linux) work, but there aren't as many people using them to create CD-Rs as there are on other platforms. If you're interested in burning CDs with long Win95 filenames, be sure to get a software package that supports Joliet (see section (3-5-4)). Otherwise all filenames get mashed down to 8+3. EMedia Professional has an index of CD-R hardware and software versions, with a different category featured each month. Take a look at http://www.emediapro.net/AprEM/news4.html#index for an example. Subject: [6-1] Which software should I use? (1999/04/11) Generally speaking, you get what you pay for; the more expensive software has more features. However, this isn't always the case, and the software with more features isn't necessarily more reliable. There's little standardization among CD-R drive manufacturers, so not all devices are supported by all programs. If you're new to CD-R, on the PC start with Easy CD Creator 3 Deluxe. If you just want to "back up" discs, or you want a lot of flexbility when creating audio CDs, go with CDRWIN. On the Mac, go with Toast or (if disc-at-once recording is important to you) Discribe. If you want to write to a disc like a floppy, try DirectCD (listed with the packet writing software in section (6-3)). Amiga users should check out MasterISO (6-1-11), and UNIX users probably ought to start with cdrecord (6-1-20) or GEAR (6-1-3). Most of the software listed below is for PC running Windows. Use the search feature of your newsreader or web browser to look for "Mac" or "UNIX" if that's what you're interested in. Subject: [6-1-1] Adaptec - Easy-CD, Easy-CD Pro, and Easy-CD Pro MM ("ECD") (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95, NT) See http://www.adaptec.com/cdrec/ The software was developed by a company called Incat, which was purchased by Adaptec in 1995. Easy-CD Pro has been superseded by Adaptec's Easy CD Creator. Easy-CD Pro 95 v1.2 seems to have trouble writing umlauts and other non-ASCII characters in Joliet mode. Romeo format will work, but the files will only be accessible from Win95 and WinNT. Subject: [6-1-2] Adaptec - CD-Creator ("CDC") (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95, NT3.x) See http://www.corel.com/ See http://www.corel.com/support/web/pages/downfile.htm [upgrades] See http://www.adaptec.com/support/overview/cdc1n2.html The software was developed by Corel, and published by them until it was purchased by Adaptec in mid-1996. CD Creator has been superseded by Adaptec's Easy CD Creator. The package includes drivers that allow several popular CD-R drives to be used as general-purpose CD readers under Win95. It can also create VideoCD and PhotoCD discs. Version 2.x is a considerable improvement over version 1.x. Versions older than 2.01.079 had some problems inserting "knacks" into audio CDs. Subject: [6-1-3] Gear Multimedia - GEAR (1999/02/06) Platforms supported: DOS, Windows (3.1, 95, NT), OS/2, UNIX, Mac See http://www.gearcdr.com/ This was sold by Elektroson until early 1999. This is bundled with some drives. Does not support Joliet (important for long Win95 filenames). Versions older than 4.0 should be upgraded. A number of bugs have been fixed (e.g. one user found that v3.3 left clicks on audio CDs, another was unable to use it with Adaptec EZ-SCSI v4.0d or later). Subject: [6-1-4] Adaptec - Toast (1999/03/04) Platforms supported: Mac See http://www.adaptec.com/cdrec/ The software was developed by Miles GmbH and published by Astarte until Miles was purchased by Adaptec in early 1997. This program is recommended for making Mac/PC hybrids, and is the most popular package for the Mac. It supports HFS, ISO-9660, and Joliet, but does not do disc-at-once recording. At one time it was sold by an OEM as "CD-It All". The "Toast DVD" upgrade enables creation of DVD-Video and DVD-ROM. Software updates are available on the web site. Subject: [6-1-5] CeQuadrat - WinOnCD (1999/09/12) Platforms supported: Windows See http://www.cequadrat.com/ (CeQuadrat was purchased by Adaptec in July 1999.) WinOnCD is the full version. WinOnCD ToGo is a "lite" version that comes bundled with some drives. Can create VideoCD discs and bootable CD-ROMs. Subject: [6-1-6] Young Minds, Inc. - SimpliCD (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows See http://www.ymi.com/ See also "CD Studio" for UNIX and WinNT on the web site, and some specialized solutions for things like recording over Novell networks and working with CD-R jukeboxes. Subject: [6-1-7] Golden Hawk Technology (Jeff Arnold) - CDRWIN (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: DOS, Windows (95, NT) See http://www.goldenhawk.com/ See http://www.cd-brennen.de/ (german distributor) (CDRWIN is the name of the Win95 version. I don't believe the DOS versions have an official name.) Contains sophisticated CD-ROM duplication programs, track-at-once and disc-at-once utilities for sound and data, and other goodies. Some of the DOS-based software is free, the rest is relatively inexpensive. This comes highly recommended for creating audio CDs, because it gives you a great deal of control over the creation process. Updates for the software are available on the net. The "vcache" tweak from section (4-1-2) is strongly recommended for users of CDRWIN to avoid buffer underruns. If you use a Yamaha 200/400 and get "Logical Unit Not Ready" errors, try disabling the data caching. A cue sheet editor is available in section (6-2-7). Subject: [6-1-8] Optical Media International - QuickTOPiX CD (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95, NT), Mac See http://www.microtest.com/html/optical_media.html [ product has been discontinued ] Subject: [6-1-9] Creative Digital Research - CDR Publisher (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95, NT), UNIX See http://www.cdr1.com/ (a/k/a http://www.hycd.com/) Can create Mac/PC/UNIX hybrid CDs (i.e. CDs that work on all three platforms), as well as bootable CDs for PCs and UNIX. If you need a CD that works (and looks good) on Win95, MacOS, and UNIX, this is the program for you. The Solaris version should be available through Sun's Catalyst program; see http://www.sun.com/sunsoft/catlink/cdr/cdrpub.htm. Subject: [6-1-10] mkisofs (1998/05/16) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT), UNIX Sources at ftp://tsx-11.mit.edu/pub/linux/packages/mkisofs/mkisofs-1.11.tar.gz This allows creation of a prototype ISO-9660 filesystem on disk or tape, which can then be copied to a CDR. It supports the Rock Ridge extensions, and can be configured to ignore certain facets of the ISO standard (like maximum directory depth). Newer versions support multisession and bootable discs. This can be used in conjunction with "cdwrite" or "cdrecord" to write discs under UNIX. For other platforms, chances are good that your favorite CD recording application is able to write ISO-9660 images. Poke around on http://members.bellatlantic.net/~smithrod/rhjol.html for a link to the Win32 executable. See http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/CD-Writing-HOWTO for a "HOWTO" guide on writing CDs under Linux. See http://lidar.ssec.wisc.edu/~forrest/ for a copy of "cdwrite" patched for use with SGI, and ftp://viz.tamu.edu/pub/sgi/hardware/cdrom/cd-writers for the FAQ on SGI CD writing. Early releases of the next version of mkisofs can create images with both Joliet and Rock Ridge extensions. Subject: [6-1-11] Asimware Innovations - MasterISO (1999/04/11) Platforms supported: Amiga See http://www.asimware.com/ (demo available) Full-featured CD-R mastering package for the Amiga. Subject: [6-1-12] Newtech Infosystems, Inc. (NTI) - CD-Maker and CD-Copy (1999/04/11) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.ntius.com/ (demo available) CD creation and duplication software. Reportedly works very well on otherwise difficult discs. They also make "CDR Explorer", free CD-R creation software that works like Win95 Explorer. It's available at their web site. If you get "illegal request, invalid block address" complaints reading from an ATAPI CD-ROM drive, you may need to change "BCD=0,0" to "BCD=1,1" in the file cdmkr32.ini in your Windows directory. (One symptom is that the track on the CD will show up considerably larger than it should.) Subject: [6-1-13] Cirrus Technology/Unite - CDMaker (1998/09/05) Platforms supported: OS/2 See http://www.cirunite.com/ (demo available) Drag-and-drop CD creation, written specifically for OS/2. Allows creation of CDs with an HPFS (OS/2) filesystem. [ product has been discontinued? ] Subject: [6-1-14] Hohner Midia - Red Roaster (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows See http://hohnermidia.com/proaudio.html Windows-based CD-R software that has some nice features for creating audio discs, including the ability to edit the P-Q subcode data. The "rrdemo.zip" on the web site is actually a demo of Samplitude Master from SEK´D Software. Samplitude Master is a fancy audio editing program that - among other things - allows you to create ISO-9660 images suitable for writing to a CD-R, but the demo package doesn't include software to do the actual writing (the full package includes PoINT CDaudio). Subject: [6-1-15] Dataware Technologies - CD Author (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: DOS See http://www.dataware.com/site/prodserv/cd_rom.htm See http://www.dataware.de/untern/index.html CD creation software aimed at the corporate user. Comes with libraries for creating custom applications. Subject: [6-1-16] CreamWare - Triple DAT (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95) See http://www.creamware.com/ A hardware and software combo for professional-quality sound editing, this now includes an audio CD creation tool. Subject: [6-1-17] MicroTech - MasterMaker (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: DOS See http://www.microtech.com/product/mmaker/ Pre-mastering software that supports the Rock Ridge extensions. The free demo creates ISO-9660 disc images. Subject: [6-1-18] Angela Schmidt & Patrick Ohly - MakeCD (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Amiga See http://makecd.core.de/ CD-R creation software that supports the "AS" extensions (which preserve the Amiga protection bits and file comments). You need AmiCDFS, CacheCDFS, AsimCDFS, or something similar to make use of the "AS" extensions. AmiCDFS is available from http://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/aminet/dirs/disk_cdrom.html. Look for amicdfs*.lha, where '*' is a version number. Subject: [6-1-19] Optical Media International - Audiotracer (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Mac See http://www.microtest.com/html/optical_media.html [ product has been discontinued ] Subject: [6-1-20] Jörg Schilling - cdrecord (1999/05/03) Platforms supported: UNIX (several), Windows (95, NT), Mac, OS/2, BeOS, VMS See http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/cdrecord.html A collection of freeware software and drivers for burning CDs under an impressive variety of operating systems. Source code is available. See the web site for an up-to-date list of features and supported systems. Works best in conjunction with mkisofs (which should be available from the same site). X-CD-Roast may also come in handy; see section (6-1-40). Supports DVD-R as well. Subject: [6-1-21] Prassi Software - CD Rep and CD Right (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.prassi.com/ CD mastering bundled with SCSI Rep, which allows you to write to more than one SCSI CD-R at once. See also section (3-17). A review can be found at http://www.emediapro.net/awards/award8.html. Subject: [6-1-22] Nero Software - SubIgnition (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95) See http://www.home.aone.net.au/nero/ (free beta version available) Full-featured audio CD creation. Subject: [6-1-23] Dieter Baron and Armin Obersteiner - CD Tools (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Amiga See http://www.giga.or.at/nih/cdtools.html Free CD writing tools, with source code. Subject: [6-1-24] PoINT - CDwrite (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95) See http://www.pointsoft.de/ Full-featured CD recording. Subject: [6-1-25] PoINT - CDaudio Plus (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95) See http://www.pointsoft.de/ Creates audio CDs, with full control over P/Q subcodes. Subject: [6-1-26] Adaptec - Easy CD Creator Deluxe ("ECDC") (1999/12/19) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.adaptec.com/cdrec/ Adaptec's all-singing, all-dancing combination of Easy CD Pro and CD Creator. Combines the best features of both and costs less, including the ability to create PhotoCDs, VideoCDs, and jewel case inserts. Also includes some new features, including an application called "Spin Doctor" that helps convert from old LPs to CD. The write buffer management is reported to be so robust that some testers were able to defragment their hard drive while writing a CD. ECDC up to v3.5a has a "two-second truncation" problem, where extracted audio tracks end up missing two seconds. This doesn't happen for every system or every disc, but is 100% reproducible in situations where it arises. Version 3.01d fixed the problem for some users but not others. See also http://www.adaptec.com/support/faqs/ecdc35adae.html. One other note: CD Copier Deluxe in ECDC v3.x does *not* do disc-at-once recording when copying from disc-to-disc (the web site is right, the manual is wrong), but ECDC itself does. If you want to make a disc-to-disc copy with disc-at-once recording, you should set up ECDC to copy the disc without buffering to the hard drive. ECDC will refuse to use DAO if your writer doesn't support it reliably or the source drive is too slow. Recent versions of ECDC can be used to write to 80-minute discs. Don't use the wizard, and ignore the complaints about being six minutes over the maximum. Subject: [6-1-27] Padus - DiscJuggler (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.padus.com/ (demo available) Allows you to write to more than one SCSI CD-R at a time. See also section (3-17). Subject: [6-1-28] Ahead Software - Nero (1999/03/01) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95, NT) See http://www.ahead.de/ (demo available) Full-featured CD creation and duplication. Fairly popular among the Internet community. Supports the "variable-gap track-at-once" feature of drives like the Sony 926S and Mitsumi CR-2801TE when creating CDs (but not when copying them?). Comes with "MultiMounter", which appears to be similar to Adaptec's "Session Selector". NOTE: Nero may not work correctly if DirectCD is installed. You may need to uninstall DirectCD to get Nero to work. Subject: [6-1-29] CharisMac Engineering - Discribe (1999/02/26) Platforms supported: Mac See http://www.charismac.com/Products/Discribe/index.html CD creation for the Mac. Supports creation of hybrid CDs and disc-at-once recording. This is a popular alternative to Toast for the Mac. Subject: [6-1-30] István Dósa - DFY$VMSCD (1998/04/06) Platform supported: VMS (VAX, Alpha) See http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/vms.html Construct CD-ROMs under VMS. Subject: [6-1-31] RSJ Software - RSJ CD Writer (1999/12/18) Platforms supported: Windows (NT, OS/2) See http://www.rsj.de/ CD writing with support for ISO-9660, Joliet, and Rock Ridge extensions. Uses a buffering scheme to allow drive-letter access without packet writing. Subject: [6-1-32] James Pearson - mkhybrid (1998/08/10) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT), UNIX See http://www.ge.ucl.ac.uk/~jcpearso/mkhybrid.html This is a mkisofs variant that creates discs in ISO-9660 format with Joliet, Rock Ridge, and HFS extensions. HFS files can be encoded as an HFS "hybrid" or using Apple's ISO-9660 extensions. Subject: [6-1-33] JVC - Personal Archiver Plus (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95, NT), Mac See http://www.jvcinfo.com/archiver.html See http://www.jvc-victor.co.jp/english/cdr/cdrext-e.html JVC's CD-R software, frequently bundled with JVC recorders. Includes "CD-R Extensions" packet-writing software for Win31/Win95 (also known as "FloppyCD"?). Subject: [6-1-34] Adaptec - Jam (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Mac See http://www.adaptec.com/cdrec/ An updated version of Astarte's "CD-DA" package, intended for creating professional audio CDs. Subject: [6-1-35] VOB - CD-Wizard (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (95) See http://www.vob.de/ Standard recording software plus a fancy disc copier and some other goodies. Claims to be able to copy a variety of discs, including some copy-protected CD-ROMs. Subject: [6-1-36] Sonic Foundry - CD Architect (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.sonicfoundry.com/ Fancy audio CD creation, including PQ editing and cross-fades. Can be used as a SoundForge plug-in. Subject: [6-1-37] Eberhard Heuser-Hofmann - CDWRITE (1998/05/10) Platforms supported: VMS (VAX, Alpha) See http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/9999/vmscdwri.html Get ftp://v36.chemie.uni-konstanz.de/cdwrite/ Construct and write CD-ROMs from VMS. Subject: [6-1-38] CeQuadrat - JustAudio! (1998/06/14) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.cequadrat.com/ Audio CD creation. Includes de-noise program for data digitized from tapes or records, and a layout tool for creating booklets, inlay cards, or labels. Subject: [6-1-39] Digidesign - MasterList CD (1998/08/16) Platforms supported: Mac See http://www.digidesign.com/prod/mlcd/ Full-featured audio CD creation. Subject: [6-1-40] Thomas Niederreiter - X-CD-Roast (1998/10/18) Platforms supported: UNIX (Linux) See http://www.fh-muenchen.de/home/ze/rz/services/projects/xcdroast/e_overview.html This is a Tcl/Tk/Tix front-end for mkisofs and cdrecord. Subject: [6-1-41] Jesper Pedersen - BurnIT (1998/10/12) Platforms supported: UNIX See http://sunsite.auc.dk/BurnIT/ This is a Java front-end for cdrecord, mkisofs and cdda2wav. Subject: [6-1-42] Jens Fangmeier - Feurio! (1998/10/16) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.feurio.de/ Audio CD creation. Subject: [6-1-43] Asimware Innovations - HotBurn (1998/11/18) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.asimware.com/ (demo available) Looks to be a solid data and audio recording program. Subject: [6-1-44] DARTECH, Inc - DART CD-Recorder (1998/11/18) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.dartpro.com/ (demo available) Audio CD creation with wide support for both analog and digital sources. Subject: [6-1-45] Interactive Information R&D - CDEveryWhere (1999/02/07) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT), Mac, UNIX (Linux, Solaris) See http://www.cdeverywhere.com/ This is a Java application that creates hybrid disc images with Rock Ridge, Joliet, and HFS support. The image can be written with any application that can handle ISO-9660 disc images. Subject: [6-1-46] DnS Development - BurnIt (1999/04/11) Platforms supported: Amiga See http://www.titancomputer.de/burnit/ Simple but powerful recording for the Amiga. Subject: [6-1-47] Andreas Müller - CDRDAO (1999/03/03) Platforms supported: Linux See http://www.ping.de/sites/daneb/cdrdao.html Linux application that does disc-at-once audio recording. Source code is available. Subject: [6-1-48] Tracer Technologies - (various) (1999/06/30) Platforms supported: UNIX (several) See http://www.tracertech.com/ Business-oriented CD-recordable applications, ranging from single user CD recording to data migration and archiving with CD and DVD jukeboxes. Subject: [6-1-49] Elaborate Bytes - CloneCD (1999/12/12) Platforms supported: Windows (95) http://www.elaborate-bytes.com/ (demo available) CD copier that claims to be able to copy just about anything. Only works with certain readers and writers; check the web site for details. Subject: [6-1-50] IgD - Fireburner (1999/12/18) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) http://www.fireburner.com/ (shareware) Simple disc recording software that takes image files (BIN/CUE, ISO, WAV) as input and writes a disc. The "binchunker" program, which converts to and from BIN/CUE files, is incorporated. Subject: [6-1-51] Jodian Systems & Software - CDWRITE (1999/12/19) Platforms supported: Windows (NT, NT-Alpha), UNIX (several) http://www.jodian.com/ Somewhat limited recording software available for a broad range of platforms. Subject: [6-2] What other useful software is there? (1998/04/06) Software related to CD-Rs that isn't a direct part of the premastering process. Subject: [6-2-1] Optical Media International - Disc-to-Disk (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95, NT), Mac See http://www.microtest.com/html/optical_media.html [ product has been discontinued ] Subject: [6-2-2] Gilles Vollant - WinImage (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows See http://www.winimage.com/ Among other things, this lets you list and extract the contents of an ISO-9660 image. Subject: [6-2-3] Asimware Innovations - AsimCDFS (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Amiga See http://www.asimware.com/ Allows the Amiga to read High Sierra, Mac HFS, and ISO-9660 (including Rock Ridge extensions). Subject: [6-2-4] Steven Grimm - WorkMan (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: UNIX See http://www.midwinter.com/ftp/WorkMan/ In addition to its primary role as an audio CD player for UNIX workstations, version 1.4 (still in beta) allows SPARC/Solaris2.4+ workstations to extract digital audio into ".au" files. Subject: [6-2-5] Cyberdyne Software - CD Worx (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.b.shuttle.de/cyberdyne/cdworx.html Full-featured extraction and manipulation of audio data from CDs. Subject: [6-2-6] Paul Crowley CD-ROM Productions - CD-R Diagnostic (1999/06/05) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.cdrom-prod.com/software.html Claims to do a number of useful things, such as displaying the contents of the TOC, listing the full volume label, analyzing the media, and recovering data from "lost" sessions and hosed UDF discs. Subject: [6-2-7] DC Software Design - CDRCue Cuesheet Editor (1998/09/14) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.dcsoft.com/ Cue sheet editor for CDRWIN. Subject: [6-2-8] Astarte - CD-Copy (1999/02/06) Platforms supported: Mac See http://www.astarte.de/ Half of a CD copier. CD-Copy has a lot of features for reading CDs as images, but is unable to write them (presumably you're supposed to use Toast for that). Subject: [6-2-9] Frank Wolf - CDR Media Code Identifier (1999/03/04) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.gum.de/cdrid/ Attempts to identify the manufacturer of a CD-R disc. Can be useful for identifying who made a particular disc. Subject: [6-2-10] Logiciels & Services Duhem - MacImage (1999/07/18) Platforms supported: Windows See http://www.macdisk.com/macimgen.htm Allows you to create a virtual Mac HFS partition, manipulate files there, and create a hybrid CD-ROM image. Subject: [6-2-11] Erik Deppe - CD Speed (1999/09/12) Platforms supported: Windows See http://come.to/cdspeed Tests various facets of CD-ROM drive performance, including DAE ability. Tables of results are available on the web site. (Some users may know the site better as http://user.glo.be/~erikd/cdspeed.htm.) Subject: [6-3] What is packet writing software? (1998/05/10) Packet writing is an alternative to writing entire tracks or discs. With track-at-once recording there's a maximum of 99 tracks per disc, a minimum track length of 300 blocks, and an additional 150 blocks of overhead for run-in, run-out, pregap, and linking. Packet writing allows several writes per track, with only 7 blocks of overhead per write (4 for run-in, 2 for run-out, and 1 for link). Since it's possible to write packets that are small enough to fit entirely in the CD recorder's buffer, the risk of buffer underruns can be eliminated. There are some problems with packet writing, mostly due to the inability of older CD-ROM drives to deal with the gaps between packets. CD-ROM drives can become confused if they read into the gap, a problem complicated by read-ahead optimizations on some models. There are two basic "philosophies" behind packet writing, fixed-size and variable-size. With fixed-size packets, the CD recorder writes data whenever it has a full packet. All packets in the same track must have the same size. It's relatively easy for a CD-ROM drive to skip over the inter-packet gaps if it knows where the gaps are ahead of time, but there's a large installed base of CD-ROM drives that aren't that smart. With variable-sized packets, the CD-ROM drive can't tell ahead of time where the gaps are. The problem can be avoided by laying out the filesystem in such a way that the drive never tries to read from the gaps. One approach is to put the entire file into a single packet, but if the size of a file exceeds the size of the CD recorder write buffer, the risk of buffer underruns returns. An alternative is to write the file in several pieces, but the Level 1 ISO-9660 filesystem supported by most operating systems doesn't support this. Replacing the "redirector" (e.g. MSCDEX) with one that supports Level 3 ISO-9660 solves the problem. Files on packet-written discs are typically stored in a UDF filesystem. When the session is closed -- necessary for the disc to be readable on anything but a CD recorder -- some implementations will wrap an ISO-9660 filesystem around the disc to make the files accessible on systems without a UDF reader. When DirectCD for Windows closes a disc in ISO-9660 format, it uses Level 3 multi-extent files. Support for Level 3 ISO-9660 will likely be added to future OSs, but for the time being it can be difficult to share such discs between machines that aren't running Win95/NT. DirectCD for Mac OS leaves the disc in UDF format, so reading the discs requires a UDF driver. See section (6-4) for more information on UDF, including a web site where free UDF drivers can be downloaded. (If you have DirectCD, you don't need to download the drivers separately; you would only need them if you didn't own packet-writing software and wanted to read discs created by somebody who did.) Writing to a CD-R with packets will be slower than writing with standard premastering software. Since the expected application for packet writing is "drive letter access" rather than creating an entire CD, this should not be an issue for most people. Audio CDs can't be written with packets. Some CD recorders may only be able to write to a disc the first 99 times it is placed in the drive, because the recorder has to calibrate the laser power before writing, and there are only 99 spaces for doing the test writes. Sony and Philips have recently developed ways to work around the problem however, and will presumably make them available to other manufacturers. For details about the problem, see http://www.emediapro.net/JanEM/standard1.html. Drives based on the Sony 920S/940S/960S, Philips CDD2000/CDD2600, JVC XR-W2010, Ricoh MP-6200, and Yamaha CDR-400 mechanisms are capable of packet recording. (This list is not comprehensive; there are others.) A glossy overview of packet writing software can be found here: http://www.emediapro.net/MayEM/starrett5.html Details on Adaptec's software, as well as a good overview of the benefits and limitations of packet writing and UDF, can be found at: http://www.adaptec.com/products/faqs/directcd.html For a highly technical - if somewhat dated - reference, see: http://www.emediapro.net/cdrompro/0296CP/02osborn.html Information on packet-writing software follows. It is in general a bad idea to have more than one installed at the same time. Subject: [6-3-1] Adaptec - DirectCD (1999/04/11) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT), Mac See http://www.adaptec.com/cdrec/ UDF-based packet writing software. Check the compatibility list on the web site to see if it works with your CD recorder and your firmware revision level. DirectCD for Windows versions older than 1.01 conflicted with some scanners. Be sure to check the Adaptec web site for the latest version. Note that DirectCD for Windows 1.x and 2.x may not support the same set of drives on all operating systems; for example, 2.0 only worked with drives capable of using CD-RW media. If you're running WinNT, you need 2.x. NOTE: There seems to be a great deal of misinformation about how to disable DirectCD for Windows. There are two basic approaches: (1) run the uninstall program, or (2) make changes to several entries in the Windows reigstry. Some recipes have recommended changing one or two registry entries, killing a task, removing it from the system configuration Start Up list, or using a system configuration utility, but all these really do is stop the DirectCD control interface from running. DirectCD itself is still active, which you can verify by inserting an unfinalized packet-written disc. Writing data to such a disc without the UI active can lead to data corruption, because some of the safeguards are no longer working. One other note about DirectCD for Windows: in some situations you may have trouble reinstalling it. If so, try removing (or renaming) scsi1hlp.vxd, usually found in c:\windows\system\iosubsys\. Subject: [6-3-2] CeQuadrat - PacketCD (1999/03/07) Platforms supported: Windows See http://www.cequadrat.com/ UDF-based packet writing software. Recent versions offer transparent data compression, potentially increasing the disc capacity. Subject: [6-3-3] SmartStorage - SmartCD for Recording (1998/05/10) Platforms supported: Windows (NT) See http://www.smartstorage.com/page5.htm Packet writing software intended for shared environments. Subject: [6-3-4] Gutenberg Systems - FloppyCD (1998/05/10) Platforms supported: Windows (95) See http://www.floppycd.com/ Originally released by JVC as "CD-R Extensions". Does variable-sized packet writing that leaves you with an ISO-9660 Level 1 CD-ROM (constrast to the ISO-9660 Level 3 disc produced by some other packet writing solutions). This should make it possible to read the finalized CDs on operating systems other than Win95/NT. Subject: [6-3-5] VOB - InstantWrite (1998/09/11) Platforms supported: Windows (95) See http://www.vob.de/ Does UDF. Don't know what else. [15 months later, and I'm *still* having trouble finding information on their web site. Today all I get is blank pages -- when it responds at all. ++ATM 19991218] Subject: [6-3-6] Prassi - abCD (1999/09/12) Platforms supported: Windows (95) See http://www.prassi.com/ Packet writing for CD-RW. Appears to be less ambitious but far simpler than its competitors. Read-compatible with Adaptec DirectCD (i.e. you can read DirectCD discs if you have this installed). Also sold under the Sony label. Subject: [6-4] What's UDF? (1998/12/17) UDF is an acronym for the humbly-named "Universal Disk Format". It's a specification for a filesystem intended for use on write-once and rewritable media. It's currently being used for DVD and some of the CD-R/CD-RW packet writing software (e.g. Adaptec DirectCD). There have been three important releases of the specification: - 1.02: first release; primarily useful for read-only media like DVD-ROM. - 1.5: includes defect management, useful for CD-R and CD-RW. - 2.0: approved, final document [being?] produced. MacOS 8.1 and Win98 support UDF v1.02. To read UDF-format packet-written CD-R and CD-RW discs, you need UDF v1.5 support. Adaptec has made free UDF 1.5 drivers available for Mac and Windows on their web site (check there for a list of supported CD-ROM drives). Download free UDF 1.5 drivers for MacOS and Win95/Win98/WinNT4 from http://www.adaptec.com/products/overview/udfreaders.html. The technical specification for the UDF filesystem can be found at http://www2.osta.org/osta/html/ostatech.html#udf. UDF is based on the ISO/IEC 13346 standard, now ECMA-167, which is available from http://www.ecma.ch/stand/ecma-167.HTM. Some information about ISO/IEC 13346 and ISO/IEC 13490 is at http://www.mv.com/users/kaikow/. For a technical discussion of packet writing with UDF, check out http://www.emediapro.net/MayEM/mcmurdie5.html. You can find Linux source code under development at http://trylinux.com/projects/udf/. Subject: [6-5] Do I want to do packet writing? (1998/04/06) It depends. If your primary interests are writing audio CDs, duplicating CD-ROMs (for backups, right?), or creating CD-ROMs full of files that you can give to others, packet writing won't help you much. Discs written by programs like Adaptec DirectCD aren't usable in a CD-ROM reader until they're finalized. Finalized discs are in ISO-9660 format, but it's ISO-9660 Level 3, which not all operating systems can interpret (Win95 and WinNT can, with appropriate "redirectors" installed). On the other hand, if you want to be able to add small amounts of data over time, it may be extremely useful. You can read the unfinalized discs on your system, so the data isn't inaccessible; it just can't be accessed on other systems that aren't also set up to do packet writing. You can overwrite files on CD-R media (the old data is still there, but the newer directory entry points to the new file), something that was very costly with multisession writes. And, of course, the risk of a buffer underrun is almost nonexistent. As with CD-RW, it doesn't hurt to buy a recorder that supports it, but you're probably not missing much if you have one without it. Subject: [6-6] I want to write my own CD recording software (1999/02/14) Source code and ready-to-link libraries are available, but the more useful products tend to be more expensive. The library authors are usually CD-R software publishers themselves, and aren't about to put themselves out of business. Expect to sign a strict licensing agreement, if they agree to do business at all. Source code for some of the packages (notably Joerg Schilling's "CD Record" and "CD Tools" by Dieter Baron and Armin Obersteiner) is available. See sections (6-1-20) and (6-1-23). You can get ASPI developer documentation and SDKs from http://www.adaptec.com/adaptec/developers/. Subject: [6-6-1] PoINT - CDarchive SDK (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows, OS/2 See http://www.pointsoft.de/earchiv.html API and SCSI device drivers. Subject: [6-6-2] Golden Hawk Technology (Jeff Arnold) (1998/06/22) Platforms supported: PC See http://www.goldenhawk.com/ C++ class libraries. See the web site for licensing information. Subject: [6-6-3] Gear Multimedia - GEAR.wrks (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95, NT) See http://www.gearcdr.com/ 16-bit and 32-bit APIs for CD-R/CD-RW, tape drives, and SCSI hard disks. DVD support is planned. Subject: [6-6-4] VOB - CD-Wizard SDK (1998/04/06) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.vob.de/us/Products/WizardSDK.htm ActiveX interface to CD writing functions. [ Not yet available? ] Subject: [6-6-5] Dialog Medien - ACDwrite.OCX (1999/12/19) Platforms supported: Windows See http://www.dialog-medien.de/html/acdwrite.ocx.html (demo available) ActiveX/OCX interface for writing audio CDs. Develop audio CD recording applications with Visual Basic or other ActiveX environments. Subject: [6-7] What software is available for doing backups? (1999/06/15) See section (3-20) for commentary. Remember, if you're backing up less than 650MB of data and don't need fancy features like incremental backups, you don't *need* special backup software. Just write the files to a CD-R and put it in a safe place. Veritas Backup Exec is probably a good place to start looking. Subject: [6-7-1] Adaptec - Easy-CD Backup (1998/06/14) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95) See http://www.adaptec.com/cdrec/ Backup software designed to store data on CD-Rs. Allows incremental backups via multi-session writes, but backups aren't allowed to span multiple volumes. Doesn't support long filenames. [ no longer available ] Subject: [6-7-2] D.J. Murdoch - DOSLFNBK (1998/06/14) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www8.pair.com/dmurdoch/programs/doslfnbk.htm Saves the long filenames, so that you can use backup software that only knows about short "8.3" filenames. This is an alternative to the LFNBK program that comes with Win95. Old versions are free, new versions are inexpensive. Subject: [6-7-3] Dantz - Retrospect (1999/12/18) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT), Mac See http://www.dantz.com/ Dantz's Retrospect 4.0 can make use of CD-R and CD-RW by using packet writing. Useful for backing up multiple machines on a network. Subject: [6-7-4] Veritas - Backup Exec (1999/07/12) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.veritas.com/products/ This was originally developed by Seagate Software. The Seagate Network and Storage Management Group was sold to Veritas in June 1999. This comes bundled with some recorders. A list of compatible devices can be found at http://tech.seagatesoftware.com/dsl/devicedt_ddProduct_BEWRKNT.htm. The consumer "Backup Exec Desktop 98" version works with Win95 and Win98. Separate versions are available for WinNT Workstation and WinNT Server. Subject: [6-7-5] Ghost Software - Ghost (1998/05/19) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT), OS/2 See http://www.ghostsoft.com/ Ghost is intended as a way to create boilerplate software installations and distribute them. It also works rather well as a way of backing up an entire disk partition. A "ghosted" image file can be written to a CD-R. Subject: [6-7-6] PowerQuest - Drive Image Special Edition for CD-R (1998/12/20) Platforms supported: Windows (via DOS) See http://www.powerquest.com/ [ no CD-R product info available yet? ] Drive Image 2.0 creates a compressed hard drive image file that allows you to backup and recover your hard drive. It runs as a DOS application to prevent Windows from messing with the disk while you're copying it. The Special Edition for CD-R allows the disk image to span multiple CD-R discs, providing an effective way to back up or archive an entire hard drive onto CD-R. The CD-Rs created are bootable, and (if your PC supports it) you can restore your system by booting the disc. Subject: [6-7-7] Centered Systems - Second Copy (1999/03/07) Platforms supported: Windows (3.1, 95, NT) See http://www.centered.com/ (shareware) Second Copy maintains a duplicate of your files on a different system or removable media. It runs in the background and constantly updates the backup. Useful for maintaining an archive of a few files; not meant for full-system backups. Subject: [6-7-8] FileWare - FileSync (1999/03/07) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.fileware.co.uk/products.htm (shareware) Similar to Second Copy, but with a different feature set. Subject: [6-7-9] Novastor - NovaDISK (1999/06/05) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.novastor.com/backup/datasheets/cdrw.html Backup software that is "CD-R aware". Requires drive-letter access to the drive, which has to be provided by another program (e.g. DirectCD). Subject: [6-7-10] Adaptec - Take Two (1999/09/02) Platforms supported: Windows (95, NT) See http://www.adaptec.com/cdrec/ Image-based backup software. Included with Easy CD Creator 4. Subject: [6-7-11] NTI - Backup NOW! (1999/07/12) Platforms supported: See http://www.ntius.com/products.htm Full backup software for CD-R/CD-RW. Includes data compression and automatically spans multiple discs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: [7] Media (1998/04/06) This section covers recordable CD media. Subject: [7-1] What kinds of media are there? (1998/09/16) The basic building blocks of CD-R media are cyanine dye, which is cyan blue in color, and phthalocyanine dye, which is more or less colorless. The reflective layer is either a silvery alloy, the exact composition of which is proprietary, or 24K gold. There are gold/gold, green/gold, silver/blue, and silver/silver CD-Rs. The apparent color is determined by the color of the reflective layer (gold or silver) and the color of the dye (cyan or colorless). For example, green/gold discs combine a gold reflective layer with a cyan-colored dye, resulting in a gold appearance on the label side and a green appearance on the writing side. Many people have jumped to the conclusion that "silver" discs are made of silver, and have attempted to speculate on the relative reflectivity and lifespan of the media based on that assumption. Until an industry representative issues a statement concerning the actual composition, it would be unwise to assume that the reflective layer has any specific formulation. Taiyo Yuden produced the original gold/green CDs, which were used during the development of CD-R standards. Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals invented the process for gold/gold CDs. Silver/blue CD-Rs, manufactured with a process patented by Verbatim, first became widely available in 1996. According to the Ricoh web site, the silver/silver "Platinum" discs, based on "advanced phthalocyanine dye", were introduced by them in 1997. They didn't really appear on the market until mid-1998 though. See section (7-3) for vague details on who manufactures what. The reason why there are multiple formulations is that the materials and process for each are patented. If a new vendor wants to get into the CD-R market, they have to come up with a new combination of materials that conforms to the Orange Book specifications. Some CDs have an extra coating (e.g. Kodak's "Infoguard") that makes the CD more scratch-resistant, but doesn't affect the way information is stored. The top (label) side of the CD is the part to be most concerned about, since that's where the data lives, and it's easy to damage on a CD-R. Applying a full circular CD label will help prevent scratches. http://www.mitsuigold.com/ has some info on MTC media. You can visit http://www.ricohcorp.com/press/platinum2.htm for a press release concerning Ricoh's "platinum" media. An EMedia Professional article discussing the composition of the newer discs is online at http://www.emediapro.net/EM1998/starrett10.html. CD-RW discs have an entirely different composition. The data side (opposite the label side) is a dark silvery gray that is difficult to describe. Subject: [7-2] Does the media matter? (1998/04/06) Yes. There are four factors to consider: (1) Does it work with your recorder? (2) Which CD readers can use it? (3) How long does it last before it starts to decay? (4) What's the typical BLER (BLock Error Rate) for the media? Some audio CD players (like the ones you'd find in a car stereo) have worked successfully with one brand of gold media but not another. Some players fail completely with green, some fail completely with gold, some only work with blue. Some people have found brand X CD-R units work well with media type Y, while other people with the same unit have had different results. Recording a disc at 4x may make it unreadable on some drives, even though a disc recorded at 2x on the same drive works fine. To top it all off, someone observed that discs burned with one brand of CD-R weren't readable in cheap CD-ROM drives, even though the same kind of media burned in a different device worked fine. The performance of any piece of media is always a combination of the disc, the drive that recorded it, and the drive that reads it. A number of specific discoveries have been posted to Usenet, but none of them are conclusive. Many people have reported that Kenwood CD players don't deal with CD-Rs very well, while Alpine units play nearly everything. Some users have found that the *quality* of audio recordings can vary depending on the media. Whatever the case, if you find that CD-Rs don't sound as good as the originals, it's worthwhile to try a different kind of media or a different player. See section (4-18) for other ideas. One final comment: while there are clearly defined standards for CD-R media, there are no such standards for CD and CD-ROM drives -- other than that they be able to read CDs. It is possible for media to be within allowed tolerances, but be unreadable by a CD-ROM drive that can handle pressed discs without trouble. All you can do in this sort of situation is find a better-quality CD or CD-ROM drive, or switch to a brand of media whose characteristics are on the other side of the tolerance zone. Subject: [7-3] Who manufactures CD-R media? (1999/03/04) Taiyo Yuden made the first "green" CDs. They are now manufactured by TDK, Ricoh, Kodak, and probably several others as well. Mitsui Toatsu Chemicals (MTC) made the first "gold" CDs. They are now manufactured by Kodak and possibly others as well. Verbatim made the first "silver/blue" CDs. Most CD-R brands (e.g. Yamaha and Sony) are OEMed from one of the major manufacturers. Attempting to keep track of who makes what is a difficult proposition at best, since new manufacturing plants are being built, and resellers can switch vendors. A CD-R media identification application, listed in section (6-2-9), may be useful here. (The same feature is provided by some CD recording applications, such as Feurio and cdrecord.) A list of manufacturers codes is available at the OSJ (Orange Book Study group Japan), http://www.world.sony.com/Electronics/CD-R/index.html. The web page explains how data in the "Lead-in Start Time in ATIP" is used to identify the manufacturer. Subject: [7-4] Which kind of media should I use? (1999/09/12) There is no "best" media for all recorders. You can't tell how well a disc will work just by looking at it; the only way to know is to put it in *your* recorder, write a disc, then put it in *your* reader and try it. Statements to the effect that "dark green" is better than "light green" are absurd. Some discs are more translucent than others, but that doesn't matter: they only have to reflect light in the 780nm wavelength, not the entire visible spectrum. It may be a good idea to start by selecting media that is certified for your recorder's desired write speed. This is particularly important for CD-RW discs, which won't be written faster than the disc is rated for, regardless of the top speed of the drive. Using 8x-certified CD-R media when recording at 8x isn't a bad idea, but doesn't seem to be essential. The Orange Book standard was written based on the original "green" discs from Taiyo Yuden. "Green" media is more forgiving of marginal read/write power variations than "gold", making them easier to read on some drives. TDK's media has been a popular choice for some time. "Gold" media manufacturers claim it has a longer lifespan and will work better in higher speed recording than "green" discs. Mitsui's gold/gold discs are recommended by some vendors, and in some informal and unscientific tests were more compatible with car CD players than Kodak gold or TDK green discs. The response to Mitsui's "platinum" media has also been favorable. Different test labs will tell you different things. See http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/History/Commentary/Parker/stcroix.html for some notes on low-level differences between media types. There is no advantage to using expensive "audio CD-Rs". There is no difference in quality between consumer audio blanks and standard blanks from a given manufacturer. If you have a consumer audio CD recorder, you simply have no other choice. There is no way to "convert" a standard blank into a consumer audio blank. See section (5-12) for notes on how you can trick certain recorders into accepting standard blanks. Trying samples of blanks is strongly recommended before you make a major purchase. Remember to try them in your reader as well as your writer; they may not be so useful if you can't read them in your normal CD-ROM drive. Maxell's CD-R media earned a miserable reputation on Usenet. In April '97 Maxell announced reformulated media that seems to work better than the previous ones. They have a web site at http://www.maxell.com/cdr/. Some good technical information is available from http://www.mscience.com/. BLER measurements for a variety of recorders and media is in a big table on http://www.digido.com/meadows.html. See also "Is There a CD-R Media Problem?" by Katherine Cochrane, originally published in the Feb '96 issue of CD-ROM Professional. Subject: [7-5] How long do CD-Rs and CD-RWs last? (1999/12/18) There doesn't seem to be a clear answer for CD-RW. The rest of this section applies to CD-R. The manufacturers claim 75 years (cyanine dye, used in "green" discs), 100 years (phthalocyanine dye, used in "gold" discs), or even 200 years ("advanced" phthalocyanine dye, used in "platinum" discs) once the disc has been written. The shelf life of an unrecorded disc has been estimated at between 5 and 10 years. There is no standard agreed-upon way to test discs for lifetime viability. Accelerated aging tests have been done, but they may not provide a meaningful analogue to real-world aging. Exposing the disc to excessive heat, humidity, or to direct sunlight will greatly reduce the lifetime. In general, CD-Rs are far less tolerant of environmental conditions than pressed CDs, and should be treated with greater care. The easiest way to make a CD-R unusable is to scratch the top surface. Find a CD-R you don't want anymore, and try to scratch the top (label side) with your fingernail, a ballpoint pen, a paper clip, and anything else you have handy. The results may surprise you. Keep them in a cool, dark, dry place, and they will probably live longer than you do (emphasis on "probably"). Some newsgroup reports have complained of discs becoming unreadable in as little as three years, but without knowing how the discs were handled and stored such anecdotes are useless. Try to keep a little perspective on the situation: a disc that degrades very little over 100 years is useless if it can't be read in your CD-ROM drive today. By some estimates, pressed CD-ROMs may only last for 10 to 25 years, because the aluminum reflective layer starts to corrode after a while. One user was told by Blaupunkt that CD-R discs shouldn't be left in car CD players, because if it gets too hot in the car the CD-R will emit a gas that can blind the laser optics. However, CD-Rs are constructed much the same way and with mostly the same materials as pressed CDs, and the temperatures required to cause such an emission from the materials that are exposed would melt much of the car's interior. The dye layer is sealed into the disc, and should not present any danger to drive optics even if overheated. Even so, leaving a CD-R in a hot car isn't good for for the disc, and will probably shorten its effective life. See also http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/Media/Longevity.html, especially http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Industry/news/media-chronology.html about some inaccurate reporting in the news media. http://www.cdpage.com/dstuff/BobDana296.html has a very readable description of CD-R media error testing that leaves you with a numb sense of amazement that CD-Rs work at all. It also explains the errors that come out of MSCDEX and what the dreaded E32 error means to a CD stamper. Highly recommended. Subject: [7-6] How much data can they hold? 650MB? 680MB? (1999/09/12) There are 21-minute (80mm/3-inch), 63-minute, 74-minute, and 80-minute CD-Rs. These translate into data storage capacities of 184MB, 553MB, 650MB, and 700MB respectively (note these numbers are approximate). See section (7-14) for more about 80mm CD-Rs, and section (3-8-1) for some notes on 80-minute blanks. Typical 74-minute CD-Rs are advertised as holding 650MB, 680MB, or even 700MB of data. The reality is that they're all about the same size, and while you may get as much as an extra minute or two depending on the exact construction, you're not usually going to get an extra 30MB out of a disc labeled as 74-minute media. See section (3-8-2) for information on writing beyond a disc's stated capacity. Folks interested in "doing the math" should note that only 2048 bytes of each 2352-byte sector is used for data on typical (Mode 1) discs. The rest is used for error correction and miscellaneous fields. This is why you can fit 747MB of audio WAV files onto a disc that holds 650MB of data. It should also be noted that hard drive manufacturers don't measure megabytes in the same way that CD-R and RAM manufacturers do. The "MB" for CD-Rs and RAM means 1024x1024, but for hard drives it means 1000x1000. Keep this in mind when purchasing a hard drive that needs to hold an entire CD. A data CD that can hold 650 "RAM" MB of data holds about 682 "disk" MB of data, which is why many CD-Rs are mislabeled as having a 680MB capacity. (The notion of "unformatted capacity" is a nonsensical myth.) Spelled out simply: 74 minutes == 333,000 sectors == 650.3MB CD-ROM == 746.9MB CD-DA 80 minutes == 360,000 sectors == 703.1MB CD-ROM == 807.4MB CD-DA The NIST is considering the use of different names for powers of 2, which would avoid this ambiguity and disappoint lots of marketing folks. See http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html. Some programs, such as Easy-CD Pro 95, will tell you the exact number of 2K blocks available on the CD. (With Easy-CD, put a blank disc in the CD-R and go to the "Disc Info / Tools" menu item.) It's difficult to draw conclusions from the results though. An article in the June issue of _EMedia Professional_ found that not only does disc capacity vary from brand to brand and batch to batch, it may even vary depending on which model of recorder is used to examine the disc. An informal survey conducted by one user found that the deviation between the largest and smallest CD-R was about 3500 blocks (47 seconds, or 7MB), which while not inconsequential is nowhere near the difference between 650MB and the 680MB or 700MB figures quoted by some manufacturers. All discs had at least 333,000 blocks, as required by the Red Book specification. (Before you ask which discs held the most data so you can run out and buy them, I should mention that the person doing the survey had trouble mounting some of the higher-capacity discs. Getting those few extra seconds may cost you in other ways.) http://www.cdmediaworld.com/ has a fairly complete listing of how much data different brands of media will actually hold, as does http://resource.simplenet.com/files/compare.htm. (Again, bear in mind that different batches of the same media may have different capacities.) The PCA (Program Calibration Area), PMA (Program Memory Area), TOC (Table of Contents), lead-in, and lead-out areas don't count against the 74-minute rating on single-session CDs. You really do get all the storage that the disc is rated for. On standard MODE 1 discs that aren't using packet writing, there is no "formatting overhead". Bear in mind, however, that the "cluster" size is 2K, and that the ISO-9660 filesystem may use more or less space than an MS-DOS FAT or HFS filesystem, so 650MB of files on a hard disk may occupy a different amount of space on a CD. On a multisession disc, you lose about 23MB of space when the first session is closed, and about 14MB for each subsequent session. A common mistake when writing multisession CDs is to overestimate the amount of space that will be available for future sessions, so be sure to take this into account. Pressed aluminum CDs are also supposed to hold no more than 74 minutes of audio, but are often tweaked to hold more (see section (3-8)). This can make life interesting when attempting to copy CDs. BTW, to convert blocks to seconds, divide the number of blocks by 75. If your blanks have 333,000 blocks, they have 4440 seconds, which is exactly 74 minutes. Some packet-writing solutions will take a large bite out of your available disc space. For example, if you use Adaptec DirectCD 2.x with CD-RW media, it uses fixed-length packets. This allows random file erase, which means that when you delete a file you actually get the space back, but you're reduced to about 493MB after formatting the disc. (You can create a CD-RW with variable-length packets by formatting a CD-R with DirectCD and then doing an image copy from CD-R to CD-RW. You regain the space but lose the ability to do random file erase.) Subject: [7-7] Is it okay to write on or stick a label on a disc? (1999/06/05) Only if you're careful. The adhesives on some labels can dissolve the protective lacquer coating if the adhesive is based on a solvent that the lacquer is susceptible to. Asymmetric labels can throw the disc out of balance, causing read problems, and labels not designed for CDs might bubble or peel off when subjected to long periods of heat inside a CD drive. Similarly, the ink in some kinds of pens may damage the top coating of the disc. Specific information can sometimes be found on the back of the jewel case that the discs come in. Old TDK CDR-74 discs had the following warning: "[...] 2. Do not attach labels or protective sheets, or apply any coating fluids to the disc. 3. When writing titles and other information on the label (gold) side of the disc, these should be written in the printed area using an oil-based felt-tipped pen. [...]" Other brands say "use a permanent felt-tipped pen" or words to the effect that the ink shouldn't smudge. The most important part is to use a felt tip pen and not a ball-point, because the top layer can be delicate. There are pens recommended specifically for writing on CD-Rs. Examples include the Dixon Ticonderoga "Redi Sharp Plus", the Sanford "Powermark", TDK "CD Writer", and Smart and Friendly "CD Speed Marker". Some of these are relabeled Staedtler Lumocolor transparency markers, which are water-based. Never use a solvent-based pen on a CD-R. Many people have had no problems with the popular Sanford "Sharpie" pens, which are alcohol-based. Other people say they've damaged discs by writing on them with a Sharpie. In any event, the Ultra Fine pen looks almost sharp enough to scratch, so sticking with the Fine Point pen is recommended. So long as you use the right kind of pen, it's okay to write directly on the top surface of the CD, label or no. If the prospect makes you nervous, just write in the clear plastic area near the hub, or only use discs with a printable top surface. Whatever you do, don't try to peel a label off once it's on. You will almost certainly pull part of the recording layer off with the label. If you're going to label a disc, do it immediately, so you can make another copy if the label doesn't adhere smoothly. Any air bubbles in the label that can't be smoothed out immediately are going to cause trouble. Only use labels made specifically for recordable CDs. ProSource Sales & Marketing, Inc. (http://www.inter-look.com/prosource/) sells labels and an applicator that are reputed to work well. See also http://www.neato.com/ for information on the NEATO CD-Label kit (complete with animated illustrations), and http://www.labelcd.com/ for the CD Stomper Pro. If you speak Italian, try http://www.ufocd.com/. Information on The Gizmo is available from http://www.greatgizmos.com/. Buy some labels, put them on some discs, leave them someplace warm, and see if they peel off. If they do, you'll need a different kind of media or a different kind of label. Some labels don't adhere very well unless they're attached to a disc with a plain lacquer surface on top. You can also buy printers that will write directly onto discs with a printable surface. One example is http://www.fargo.com/. A wealth of information on CD-R labeling options can be found here: http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Technology/CD-R/Labeling/ Sony's http://www.sonydadc.com/ web site has a "Downloads & Templates" section with artwork that my prove useful. Mike Richter's CD-R primer has a very nice page on labeling discs. See http://resource.simplenet.com/primer/labels.htm. It is important to keep the CD balanced, or high-speed drives may have trouble reading the disc. According to one report, a disc that had a silk-screened image on the left side of a CD-R (leaving the right half of the disc blank) was unreadable on high-speed drives due to excessive wobbling. Most label kits come with a label-centering device, usually something trivial like a stick that's the same width as the hole in the middle of the CD. Avery's CD-R labels became quietly unavailable in October 1997. The rumor is that the adhesive caused data corruption problems, so Avery recalled them. There are indications that the adhesive would fail on some discs and start to lift off within a short period of time. If you have Avery labels (#5824) purchased before this date, you should avoid using them. The labels being produced now don't have this problem. Subject: [7-8] How do CD-Rs behave when microwaved? (1999/05/19) Disclaimer: I'm not recommending you put a CD into a microwave. CDs may contain metals that will cause your microwave to arc, destroying the microwave emitter (see cautions about metal objects in the manual for your microwave). Don't try this at home. Better yet, don't try this at all. The basic process is, take a disc that you don't want anymore, and put it shiny-side-up on something like a mug of water so it's nowhere near the top, bottom, or sides of the microwave. (Actually, you may want to leave it right-side-up if the disc doesn't have a label, because the foil is closest to the top of the CD.) I'm told it is important to put something in the cup to be on the safe side. Try to center it in the microwave. Turn off the lights. Program the microwave for a 3-second burst on "high", and watch the fireworks. Performing this operation on replicated CDs results in blue sparks that dance along the CD, leaving fractal-ish patterns etched into the reflective aluminum. For those of you not with the program, this also renders the CD unreadable. Trying this with a green/gold CD-R gives you a similar light show, but the destruction patterns are different. While pressed CDs and CD-RWs don't develop consistent patterns of destruction, CD-Rs tend to form circular patterns, possibly because of the pre-formed spiral groove. On a different note, CD-Rs seem to smell worse, or at least they start to smell earlier, then replicated CDs. The materials used are non-toxic ("cyanine" comes from the color cyan, not from cyanide), but breathing the fumes is something best avoided. For the curious, here's a note about why they behave like they do: "The aluminum layer in a CD-ROM is very thin. The microwave oven induces large currents in the aluminum. This makes enough heat to vaporize the aluminum. You then see a very small lightning storm as electric arcs go through the vaporized aluminum. Within a few seconds there will be many paths etched through the aluminum, leaving behind little metalic islands. Some of the islands will be shaped so that they make very good microwave antennas. These spots will focus the microwave energy, and get very hot. Now you will see just a few bright spots spewing a lot of smoke. The good part of the light show is over, turn off the oven. I suspect that if you leave the oven going much longer, the CD-ROM will burst into flame. This will smell very bad and may do bad things to your oven and house. Don't do it." -- Paul Haas (paulh@hamjudo.com), on http://hamjudo.com/notes/cdrom.html Dreamcast GD-R discs come out just like CD-R, but DVD-R is a whole different experience. Subject: [7-9] What can I do with CD-R discs that failed during writing? (1998/12/20) If the disc wasn't closed, you can write more data in a new session. If the disc was closed, or was nearly full when the write failed but is still missing important data, then its use as digital media is over. However, that doesn't mean it's useless. Here are a few ideas: - Fill in the center hole to avoid leaks, and use them as drink coasters. - Create a hanging ornament or wind chime. The latter isn't all that interesting - they just sort of "clack" a little - unless you use the discs to catch the wind and something else to make the chimes. - Use them as mini-frisbees in an office with cubes. Since they're rather solid and may hurt when they hit, you should await a formal declaration of intra-office war before opening up with these. - Have CD bowling tournaments where you see how far you can roll one down a narrow hallway. You'd be surprised at how hard it can be unless you get the wrist motion just right. - Put them under a table or chair whose legs don't quite sit right. - Run them through one of those industrial-strength paper shredders (the kind with the rapidly spinning wheels) to get shiny green or gold confetti. - Make really, really big earrings. - Try to convince people at the beach that it's a shell from a new species of abalone. - Hook them into your bicycle spokes as reflectors. - Use them as wheels on a toy car. (If you had buggy firmware, you're probably stocked for a toy 18-wheeler.) - Build a suit of "CD-R chain mail" for laser-tag games. - Use them as art-deco floor or ceiling tiles. - Hang them from the rear view mirror in your car. - Cut it into a jigsaw puzzle with a small wire saw. - Try out the "helpful CD repair" suggestions that periodically crop on the newsgroup. Like the ones that suggest using acetone and sandpaper to refinish a scratched CD-R. - Hang them in your car windows. Some people believe that CDs will defeat speed guns and automated speed traps that use flash photography. - Add them to your aquarium. - Use them as dart boards or BB-gun targets. If you "miss" the hole in the middle, the error is immediately obvious. - String several together as a toy. Alternate green and gold for visually pleasing results. - Make a boomerang (http://www.etud.insa-tlse.fr/~aamiel/boom/cd.html). - Buy a cheap clock mechanism from a hobby/electronics store, and turn it into a novelty clock. - Hang them in fruit trees to scare birds away. - Use them as backing for round knobs on cabinet doors, to keep the wood from getting soiled. Works best with 80mm discs. If you've given up hope of doing something "useful" with it, do something destructive with it. Try to scrape the reflective layer off the top with your fingernail. Drop it on the ground so that it hits edge-on and see if the reflective layer delaminates or the plastic chips. Try to snap it in half. Leave it sitting on a window sill with half the disc covered by a book to see the effects of heat and sunlight. Write on it with nasty permanent markers and see if you can still read it a week later. Different brands of media have different levels of tolerance to abuse, and it's useful to understand just how much or how little it takes to destroy a disc. In one carefully controlled experiment it was determined that CD-Rs behave differently from pressed CDs when you slam them edge-on against the ground. The aluminum ones will chip (once you throw them hard enough, otherwise they just bounce) and create silver confetti. The gold one I tried chipped and the gold layer started peeling, leaving little gold flakes everywhere. One user reported that a Verbatim blue CD developed bubbles even though the plastic was intact. More experimentation is needed (but not around pets, small children, or hard-to-vacuum carpets). On a different tack, some CD-Rs don't hold up well when immersed in water. Try pouring a little water on a disc, then let it sit until it dries. If the top surface scratches off more easily afterward, you need to be careful around moisture. Silver/blue Verbatim discs seem particularly sensitive. One comment about snapping discs in half with your fingers: use caution. Depending on the disc and how you break it, you may end up with lots of sharp polycarbonate slivers flying through the air. Wear eye protection, be aware of people around you, and be sure to clean up all the plastic shards afterward. If you have far more coasters than you want to play with, consider recycling them. You can find a list of recyclers in the FAQ list on http://www.allthingscdr.com/allthings-cdr/cdrfaq.html#handling. Subject: [7-10] Where can I find jewel cases and CD sleeves? (1999/09/12) There are many vendors. A few are listed below. Incidentally, you have a lot of choices when it comes to CD packaging. There are single-disc jewel cases, double-sized doubles, single-sized doubles, triples, quads, sextuples, plain colors, neon colors, paper envelopes, Tyvek envelopes, cardboard sleeves, clear jewel cases with black trays, clear jewel cases with built-in trays, CD pockets for use in three-ring binders, and on, and on. If you can imagine it, it's probably up for sale. Some URLs to start with: http://www.bagsunlimited.com/ http://www.tape.com/cdr.html http://www.xdr2.com/cd-jewel.htm http://www.cdroutlet.com/ http://www.desktopsupplies.com/dps/cdromproducts.html http://www.discmarket.com/ Subject: [7-11] What's "unbranded" CD-R media? (1999/03/07) Simply put, it's a CD-R disc with nothing printed on the top surface. Some people need "plain" discs that they can print on, or simply like them for the aesthetic value. There is no difference in quality or capacity. Subject: [7-12] How do I repair a scratched CD? (1999/12/12) If you scratched the top (label) side of a CD-R, and it no longer works, your disc is toast. (If you scratched it, and it still works, copy the data off while you still can.) If you scratched the bottom side, then all you've done is etch the polycarbonate (plastic), and it can be repaired like any other CD. A common misconception is that the data is on the bottom, but if you examine it carefully you will see that the data is beneath the label. The laser reads the data through the polycarbonate layer, and if the layer is scratched the laser will refract onto the wrong part of the disc. For small or radial scratches, the error correction in the CD format will allow the disc to continue working, but if there's too much disruption you will get audible glitches or CD-ROM driver errors. If the disc works some of the time, you can "repair" it by copying it onto a new CD-R disc. If the disc is always unreadable, or is copy protected, you will need to repair the disc itself. One product that may be useful is Wipe Out! (http://www.cdrepair.com/), a chemical abrasive that allows you to reduce scratches. Others include Scratch Suppressor from http://www.cdrestore.com/ and Discwasher from http://www.recoton.com/docs/disc/1-4.html. The Repair FAQ at http://www.repairfaq.org/ has a section on repairing scratched CDs. Find the "Compact Disc Players and CDROM Drives" section, and skip down to 4.10 and 4.11. Some people have suggested using plastic polishes or "fine cut" paint polishes sold for removing fine scratches on automobiles. These fill in the scratches and create a more optically consistent surface. Fine metal polishes may also work, and some people claim that plain old white toothpaste does the trick. There is some chance that the filler material will fall out over time, rendering the disc unreadable once again, and possibly gunking up your CD-ROM drive alone the way. If you want to fill in the scratches, you should make a copy of the contents to a new disc as soon as possible, and stop using the original. Subject: [7-13] What's this about a Canadian CD-R tax? (1999/02/07) In the United States, a distinction is made between "consumer digital audio" media and data media. You have to pay extra for consumer audio CD-R blanks and DAT tapes, and the music recording industry gets a piece on the assumption that the media will be used to hold commercially recorded material. Canada has gone a step farther, by placing a levy upon *all* media capable of storing audio. Even the "data" CD-R blanks, which don't work in consumer audio CD-recordable decks, are subject to the levy. Some web sites with more information: http://www.amoconsultants.com/cdr/ http://www.sycorp.com/levy.htm http://www.tcp.ca/gsb/reviews/storage/cdr-Q199.html Subject: [7-14] Can I get 80mm (3-inch "cd single") CD-Rs? (1999/04/11) The 80mm CD didn't catch on everywhere. In some markets, notably the USA, the smaller discs are rarely seen. The 80mm CD-R made a brief appearance, and then vanished. It appears that, because of the growing popularity of home CD recorders, a manufacturer has decided to produce the 80mm media once again. Using them may not be as straightforward as could be hoped. Most software will work just fine, because all CD-Rs have slightly different capacities, especially when you consider 63-minute, 74-minute, and 80-minute blanks. The problems stem from their physical dimensions. If you have a caddy-based recorder, you will have a problem: while trays have two different rings for 80mm and 120mm discs, caddies don't. According to the Yamaha CDR-102 manual, there is a "Disk Adaptor", referenced as part #ADP08, that sits in the caddy and keeps the disc properly positioned. A device that performed a similar function used to be sold by music stores so that standard players could handle 80mm CD-singles; it looks like a plastic donut that clips onto the disc. If you have one of these, great. If you don't, you may have difficulty finding them. You will likely have even worse luck figuring out how to play an 80mm disc on a "slot in" CD-ROM drive -- the kind where you push the disc into a slot, and it slurps it up. A less common issue with 80mm discs has to do with playback. A loose sheet included with the CDR-100/102 "CD Expert" manual states: "An 8-cm disc recorded at normal speed on the CD Expert may not playback correctly on some manufacturer's CD-ROM drives. This is likely on drives that have a playback PLL (phase lock loop) bandwidth of 1.5 kHz. Most drives, however, have a playback PLL bandwidth of 2.5 kHz, in which case this is not a problem." The final discouragement for 80mm discs is that they only hold 21 minutes of audio (about 95250 sectors on Ritek silver-blue discs, or about 186MB), but at present cost more than their full-sized counterparts. They are an interesting curiosity, but little more. [ On a personal note: my Plextor 8/20 refuses to accept any of the discs from the Ritek batch I bought, but I was able to use them with a Yamaha CDR-102 and a CD-single caddy adapter. I found the discs at http://www.cdroutlet.com/; others have used http://www.octave.com/. ] Subject: [7-15] Where can I find CD-ROM business cards and "shaped" CDs? (1999/12/12) You can find CD-ROMs in many interesting shapes, including ovals and rectangles. These are functional CD-ROMs that are, for example, the same size and shape as a traditional business card (well, a really thick business card). They can have your name and contact information printed on the front, and can hold a modest amount of data, typically about 40MB. Recordable CD-R business cards are available as well. As with 80mm CDs (see section (7-14)), you may have trouble playing these "discs" on CD-ROM drives that use caddies or have a "slot-in" design. Some net.vendors: http://www.cdshapes.com/ http://www.pocketcd.com/ http://www.cddigitalcard.com/ http://www.sculptedcd.com/ http://www.avomedia.com/record/index.html http://www.superduperdisc.com/ http://www.cdroutlet.com/ Cutting a CD-R disc into a different shape isn't recommended, because the recording layer tends to delaminate easily once the seal has been broken. Some CD-Rs have appeared in Japan that use a 120mm polycarbonate disc with an 80mm recordable area. This allows the outer polycarbonate to be cut into interesting shapes without affecting the recordable area. Some pictures are available on http://www.fadden.com/cdrpics/. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: [8] Net Resources and Vendor Lists (1998/04/06) Some of these sites have both technical information and product sales; they're listed twice. The CD-Info bibliography at http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/Bibliography.html is updated more frequently and will probably be more accurate than this section. It also has pointers to books, magazines, relevant areas on commercial online services, and other good stuff. Subject: [8-1] Information resources (1999/02/15) Some useful web pages. Don't forget about the newsgroups, listed in section (0-5). http://resource.simplenet.com/ Mike Richter's collection of files and URLs related to CD-R. http://www.cdpage.com/ Lots of good stuff, including a library of technical articles. http://www.cd-info.com/ Information about CDs and CD-Rs, especially technology and industry stuff. http://www.osta.org/ Optical Storage Technology Association (OSTA); see the CD-R Q&A doc. http://www.sigcat.org/ SIGCAT (Special Interest Group on CD Applications and Technology) Foundation home page. http://www.adaptec.com/cdrec/ Lots of useful information on CD-R. http://www.adaptec.com/support/cdrlist/policies.html Excerpts from and instructions for joining the Adaptec CD-R mailing list. http://www.westnet.com/~gsmith/cdrecord.htm Some practical advice and experiences with CD-R, including a lengthy discussion on transferring audio recordings from other sources. http://www.cinram.com/techlibrary/main.html Cinram's (was Disc Manufacturing, Inc.'s) technical library. Used to have more stuff. A few articles remain. http://www.cdarchive.com/ Lots of information on CDs and CD-Rs. ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/cdrom/faq Information and FAQs from the alt.cd-rom group. http://www.araltd.com/whatscdr.html Product information plus some nifty graphics. http://www.hsv.tis.net/disc/ Technical info. http://emf.net/~mal/cdplus.html Info on CD Plus (a/k/a CD Extra). [ no longer there? ] http://www.tc.umn.edu/~erick205/Papers/paper.html Highly technical paper on CDs. http://www.compulink.co.uk/~xi/hp4020i.htm Site dedicated to the HP4020i. http://www.epool.com/mtc/mtc_02.html Information about CD-R in general and Mitsui Toatsu media in particular. http://www.octave.com/library.html A bunch of good stuff. http://www.octave.com/library/ricoh/cdrhandbook.html Ricoh's CD Recordable Handbook in HTML form. http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~psyche/cdda/ Information and links to software for digital audio extraction. http://music.digidesign.com/html/faqs/faqmlcd.html FAQ for MasterList CD. Has some interesting notes. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/6665/jdlnet_jvc_cd-r.html A collection of information and helpful hints for new users in general and JVC XR-W2010 users in particular. http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/6893/ Information on CDD2600 and CDD3610 recorders. http://www.orangeforum.or.jp/english/ The "Orange Forum" web page. (CD-R is "Orange Book".) Very artistic. http://www.digido.com/ A few articles on various subjects relating to studio-quality audio recording. http://www.hrrc.org/ Home Recording Rights Coalition (some good legal stuff). http://members.xoom.com/cdburning/ CD Burning Paradise. http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jrao/maccdr/ Macintosh CD-R stuff. http://www.mscience.com/ The Media Sciences web site; good technical info. http://plop.phys.cwru.edu/repairfaq/REPAIR/F_cdfaq.html CD-ROM section of the Repair FAQ (http://www.repairfaq.org/). Lots of good technical info on CD stuff, as well as how to fix things when they break. http://www.cdmediaworld.com/ Several articles on CD-R (a/k/a www.esware.net/empire/hardware). Subject: [8-2] Magazines and other publications (1998/07/06) http://www.emediapro.net/ Home of EMedia Professional, formerly CD-ROM Professional. Some articles are available online. http://www.kipinet.com/ Several publications which may be of interest. http://www.cd-webstore.com/ Home of two online trade publications, "Burning Issues" and "Pressing On". Subject: [8-3] Net.vendors (1999/10/02) NOTE: this should not be considered an endorsement of these vendors. No attempt has been made to verify the quality of products or service you will receive. This list is provided as a convenience. http://www.uvision.com/ Internet bargain hunter. http://www.pricewatch.com/ Street price search engine. http://www.cdrom.com/pub/simtelnet/msdos/cdrom/ Freeware and shareware utilities. http://www.necx.com/ Hardware, software, and media. http://www.ic-direct.com/ Hardware and media. http://www.gemmedia.com/ Media. http://www.com/mediasource/ Hardware and media. http://www.cdarchive.com/ Hardware and software. http://www.cddimensions.com/ Media and some high-end hardware like networked CD-R jukeboxes. http://www.compusa.com/ CompUSA's online catalog. Hardware and media. http://www.oneoffcd.com/ One-off CDs and CD reproduction; also hardware, software, and media. http://www.microtech.com/ CD-R duplication hardware and services. http://www.rimage.com/ CD-R duplication hardware and services. http://www.superduperdisc.com/ CD replication, specializing in same-day service. http://www.commercial-illusions.com/ Media and duplication services. http://www.datares.com/creativet/ Media and hardware. http://www.araltd.com/ [ dead? ] Media and hardware. http://www.inter-look.com/prosource/ Media, hardware, and oft-recommended CD labels. http://sweb.srmc.com/andys/index.html Hardware and software. http://www.cdrmicro.com/ Media and hardware. http://www.hk.linkage.net/~metro Hardware, software, and media. http://www.octave.com/ Hardware and software. http://www.pasystems.be/ Hardware and media. http://www.mediasupply.com/ Media. http://www.computability.com/ Hardware. http://www.globalcomputersupply.com/ Media. http://www.cd-recordable.com/ Media (they manufacture their own). http://www.cdw.com/ Hardware and media. http://www.pcconnection.com/ Hardware and media. http://www.cmpexpress.com/ Hardware and media. http://www.essential-data.com/ Hardware, software, and media. http://www.microboards.com/ Hardware, software, and media. http://www.ynjmicro.com/ Hardware and media. http://www.americal.com/ Hardware and media. http://www.blankmedia.com/ Media. http://www.adaptec.com/products/store/index.html Adaptec's online store. http://www.xdr2.com/ Media and jewel cases. http://www.bagsunlimited.com/ Bags Unlimited; carries a remarkable variety of CD envelopes and cases. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Subject: [9] Contributors (1999/10/10) Most of the information contained in this FAQ was culled from the Usenet newsgroups comp.publish.cdrom.* and the WWW sites mentioned in the previous sections. Please remember that the author is NOT a CD-R expert, so sending him mail won't get you very far. Please *post* questions to comp.publish.cdrom.*. The CD-Recordable FAQ was first posted to Usenet on March 2nd, 1996, and was made available in HTML form on www.cd-info.com on March 24th, 1996. The current home on www.fadden.com became active May 28th, 1998. This FAQ was written by: Andy McFadden fadden*netcom.com With a great deal of help on the first several drafts from: Katherine Cochrane katherine*cd-info.com Hal Rottenberg hal_rottenberg*hp.com Georges Brown Georges*cdarchive.com And information and suggestions -- mostly in the form of posts to comp.publish.cdrom.{hardware,software,multimedia} -- from: [ Trivial spam-guard in place; change '*' to '@' if you want to send mail. ] Decius Aiacus decius_aiacus*hotmail.com Alecto alecto*goulburn.net.au Pierre-Yves Andri PierreYves.Andri*ping.be Jeff Arnold jarnold*mainstream.net Jeff Aspinall aspinall*umich.edu Evil Azrael evil_azrael*gmx.de Mario Diéguez B. hidrosan*entelchile.net Clive Backham clive*capita.nildram.co.uk Brian Barth BrianBarth*aol.com Dave Bayer bayer*bway.net Alex Bell abell*plasmon.co.uk Yves Belle-Isle BelY*Sogi.com Ricardo Martinez Benesenes Ricardo.Martinez-Benesenes*post.rwth... Dennis Benjamin ocms0001*ermine.ox.ac.uk Mathieu Besson Mathieu.Besson*hec.unil.ch Blaine blam1*aol.com Jim Blietz entexse*interaccess.com Peter 'Pedro' Blum peter*microtech.com Patrick Boen patrick.boen*tip.nl Robert R. Boerner, Jr. bob973*concentric.net Eric Jan van den Bogaard bogaard*euronet.nl Axel Booltink ab*comex-sales.com Michael Borowiec mikebo*Mars.mcs.net David Bouw bouw*dds.nl Scott Bracken scott*oneoffcd.com Sune Bredahl sjn*it-support.dk Peter Broadbent bent*iweb.net.au Simon Brownlee simon.brownlee*jrc.it Craig Burgess craigb*microstar-usa.com Frans de Calonne fdecalonne*elektroson.com Chris Cant chris*phdcc.com Mirco Caramori mirco*padus.com Mark Carde mcarde*nntpq30.bnr.ca Juan Carlos ackman*emirates.net.ae Carter Duplicator*carter.cc Brian D. Chambers bucknife*electriciti.com Kenneth Chen lore*carabelli.com Michel Cherbuliez cherbu*cuimail.unige.ch Andrew Chiang andrewc*seas.ucla.edu Sean Christy seanchr*hotmail.com Dave Chung dtchung*vms6.sci.csupomona.edu Kevin Clark clark*crl.com Christophe CLERC-RENAUD clerc*ntt.fr Jef Collin Jef.Collin*tornado.be Daniel Courville courville.daniel*uqam.ca Kevin Coyle kmcoyle*ccgate.hac.com Gary Crosby gacrosby*mail.socomm.net John Daly jdaly*palmnet.net datta datta*archive.uwp.edu Gary Davis gdavis*loop.com Paul DeFilippo bruttium*hotmail.com Peter DiCamillo peter*stanley.cis.Brown.EDU Steven M. Dietz steve*burp.hboc.com Mike Dijkema m.dijkema*bureau.rug.nl Kurt Dommermuth kurtz*lanminds.com Hans Driessen marcomlo.pkm*nl.cis.philips.com Barry Drodge bdrodge*golden.net Russell Duffy rad*gulf.net Mark J. Dulcey mark*ziplink.net Cydrek Dysan cdysan*zip.com.au.nospam Lunatic E'Sex Luny*apple.com Toerless Eckert Toerless.Eckert*Informatik.Uni-Erlan... Erik Eckhardt erik*netgate.net Jonathan Edelson winnie*teleport.com Heiko Eissfeldt heiko*colossus.escape.de Daniel Elroi audndani*ix.netcom.com Steve Enzer enzer*mpi.com Grant Erickson eric0139*itlabs.umn.edu Sam Etler etler*cs.wisc.edu Martin Evans MARTIN*paladio.demon.co.uk Voytek Eymont voytek*ibm.net Frank Feder fwfeder*deltanet.com Helen Feng wanderer*li.net Joel Finkle jjfink*skcla.monsanto.com Joe T. Fountain gorjoe*wenet.net Emile Gardette egardett*freenet3.scri.fsu.edu E. Goldberg earl*sky.net Gerry Goodrich gogood*ibm.net Colin Gordon gordonc*oldpeter.agw.bt.co.uk Jac Goudsmit http://www.xs4all.nl/~jacg/dcc-faq.html Gary E. Grant ggrant*crl.com grasser grasser*srmc.com Patrick Green patrick*bbs.fornext.com Richard Green srcemag*gate.net Dave Grimes dgrimes*cts.com Ron Gustavson rongus*tiac.net Gregory F. Haas gregh*cwnet.com Joe Hall phroget*xmission.com Steven Duntley Halpape UserNAme*ix.netcom.com Russ Harper topquark*niia.net Chris Harrison c-harry*mindless.com Matt Hartley hartlw*rpi.edu Mike Harvey mharvey*cqi.com Robert Hedges rhhedgz1*ulkyvm.louisville.edu Marc Herbert Marc.Herbert*bat710.univ-lyon1.fr Herman Hillebrand hermanh*bio.vu.nl Anders Holm anders.holm.1965*student.uu.se Steve Holzworth sch*unx.sas.com Vincent van't Hoog hoog*zeelandnet.nl John J. Hook jjh*sprintmail.com Dan Hopper ku4nf-N0SPAM*N0SPAM.pagesz.net Frank Huberty frank*nouse.de M. H. mhulden*Helsinki.FI Malcolm Humes mal*emf.net Todd R Hustrulid Todd.R.Hustrulid-1*tc.umn.edu Chris Ice chris.ice*cisco.com Kristof Indeherberge kristof.indeherberge*skynet.be Andrea Invernizzi ainvernizzi*tinet.ch Jadiel jadiel*geocities.com Patrick Jeski pjeski*mich.com Harri Johansson harri.johansson*hpy.fi Curt Johnson cjohnson*dbtech.net Arnold Jones arnold*mdi.com HK hk*mindless.com Tapio Keihanen dio*snakemail.hut.fi Roger A. Kendall kendall*ucla.edu Steve Kennedy prografx*teleport.com Roger Kirk rkirk*videoserver.com Richard Kiss richard*homemail.com Peter van Klaveren Peter.van.Klaveren*cmg.nl Lyle Knox laknox*asu.uswest.net Jerry Kohoutek jerryk*rmii.com Adrie Koolen adrie*ica.philips.nl Steven A. Kortze skortze*erols.com Alexander S. Kosiorek alex_audio*interramp.com James Krainock jamesk*microboards.com Bernard Lang lang*calva.inria.fr Greg Legowski gregleg*telerama.lm.com Lemarcha lemarcha*plg.u-nancy.fr J. Russell Lemon Lemon.J.Russell*worldnet.att.net Barry Libenson barryl*visix.com Marc van Lierop marcvl*freemail.nl Wee-Keong LIM keong*deepdene.ecr.mu.oz.au Linda linda*htp.net George Lindholm lindholm*ucs.ubc.ca Mike Linhart mlinhart*rsl.ukans.edu Torbjörn Lindgren tl*funcom.com Chris HP Lovecraft tmservo*ksu.ksu.edu nelson luc nelson_luc*isd.toshiba.com.au Jean-Paul Maas jmaa*ictlux.com Maki maki*infosys.it Nathan Manlove nate*ai2a.net Markie markie#the*the*-castle.com Bob Martin rtm*netgate.net John Marvin jsm*fc.hp.com Jean-Francois Masse jfmasse*teaser.fr Jonathan Austin Maton jmaton*unf.edu Mats mats*gmx.net Anthony McCarthy anthony*xi.compulink.co.uk Doug McFadyen dmcfadye*kea.bc.ca Dawn Messerly dawn#_*_.com Michel Milano mmilano*tiac.net Gene Miller gmiller*vnet.ibm.com Hans Mons Hans.Mons*iaehv.nl Patrick Morris patrick.morris*tait.co.nz Ken Moss kmoss*surfnthe.net F.Mouta fernando.mouta*mail.telepac.pt Brian Mullen mullen*hurricane.net2.nlu.edu John Navas JNavas*NavasGrp.Dublin.CA.US Brandon Navra navra*iafrica.com Paul Newson ienewson*netcom.ca Niderost, B.U. niderost*fys.ruu.nl Lou Nigro buster*hiheels.com Jon nobody nobody*nowhere.net Nick Norton Nick*swint.demon.co.uk Jonathan Oei joei*mindspring.com David Oseas doseas*usa.net palomaki palomaki*erols.com Dana Parker danapark*ix.netcom.com Jeff Pearson lumpofcoal*aol.com Reto A. Pergher dzkrper*shinbiro.com Chris Petersen cpeterse*unix.SRI.COM Matthias Petofalvi mpetofal*vub.ac.be Jason Petrait petrait*u.washington.edu Dave Platt dplatt*nc.com Jaap v.d. Pol jaap.van.de.pol*tip.nl Kevin Purdy kpurdy*voicenet.com Frank Racis racis*voicenet.com Ron Reaugh Ron-Reaugh*worldnet.att.net Paul Reeves reeves*guy.asimware.com Phillip A. Remaker remaker*cisco.com Rick Richardson rick*dgii.com Mike Richter mrichter*mindspring.com Jim Riggs jriggs*verbatimcorp.com Stephanie Roberson Thursday*kimbanet.com Robert Rolf Robert.Rolf*UAlberta.ca Danny Roos mayday*dataweb.nl Meelis Roos mroos*ut.ee Tonko de Rooy tderooy*raleigh.ibm.com Paul Rubin phr*netcom.com Michael Rubin mickster*li.net Road Runner rmiller2*columbus.rr.com Torsten Sander ints*sun.rz.tu-clausthal.de Nick Sayer nsayer*quack.kfu.com John Schlichther jschlic1*mnsi.net Angela Schmidt Angela.Schmidt*stud.uni-karlsruhe.de Jörg Schilling schilling*fokus.gmd.de Bertel Schmitt bschmitt*panix.com Barbara Severance digihorse*earthlink.net Chris Severance severach*jacksonmi.com Jason Shannon Jason.Shannon*digitivity.com Guy Shavitt guy-s*usa.net Shawn shawnl*jax.jaxnet.com Brett Sherris bsherris*li.net Aron Siegel vinylm*hotmail.com J. Robert Sims, III robsims*hootie.lvld.hp.com Bart Smith BartSmith*msn.com Eric Smith eric*brouhaha.com Greg Smith gsmith*westnet.com Tim Smith tzs*coho.halcyon.com John Smyth xy3*usa.net Guy G. Sotomayor, Jr. ggs*idiom.com Dave Souza souza*corpsys.com Spalding spalding*unforgettable.com Ziv Speiser xor*main.aquanet.co.il Jeff and Mary Spencer spencer*rollanet.org Startide startide*earthling.net Don Sterner dsterner1*yahoo.com Jon Stewart jstewart*nomadics.com Deirdre' Straughan deirdre_straughan*corp.adaptec.com Kees Stravers pb0aia*iaehv.nl Gregg Strawbridge audubon*felix.teclink.net Jan Strous jan*strous.demon.nl Ron Stuurman rons*bart.nl Sybren S.J.Hettinga*lr.tudelft.nl Johann Taucher Johann.Taucher*uibk.ac.at Thomas Tempelmann thomas_tempelmann*corp.adaptec.com Paula Terrell paula*cdr1.com John Tessier support*trillium.adaptec.com tethys tethys*ml.com Gregory Theulings marcomlo.pkm*nl.cis.philips.com Kevin Patrick Thibedeau thibedek*wpi.edu Lorin Thwaits lthwaits*aol.com Hock Toh transx*pc.jaring.my Martin Trautmann traut*th-darmstadt.de tRIs sis5264*sis.port.ac.uk Tung Cheng Tsai thlx*mail.ncku.edu.tw Louis Tumbao tumbao*usa.pipeline.com Dave Ulmer david_ulmer*corp.adaptec.com Rich Unger rbu1*cec.wustl.edu Doug V. dutchman*centuryinter.net S Valdez svaldez*icogsci1.ucsd.edu Chris Valentine c.p.valentine*open.ac.uk Vo, Charles H. st3wr*rosie.uh.edu Greg Volk gvolk*umr.edu Gilles Vollant 100144.2636*compuserve.com Jon Wadelton eden*c031.aone.net.au Andreas Walfort andreas.walfort*kassel.netsurf.de Michael Walker mwalker*cybernex.net Mark Warbington markoni*mindspring.com Gerald E. Weber geweber*hiwaay.net Lauren Weinstein lauren*vortex.com Jerome H. Whelan whelanj*oasys.dt.navy.mil Royce White rwhite*datadisc.com Nic Wilson nicw*powerup.com.au Julien Wolf Julien.Wolf*mb3.tu-chemnitz.de Klaus Woltereck kw42*gmx.net Roy Worthington royw*octave.com Joachim Worringen zdv181*zam176.zam.KFA-Juelich.de Deidra Young D.Young*smec.curtin.edu.au Yvon yvonus*bigfoot.com Stefek Zaba s*dotdemon.demon.co.uk Gero Zahn gero*uni-paderborn.de Oliver Zechlin oliver.zechlin*erl9.siemens.de Zohar Ziv zziv*actcom.co.il OSTA CD-R Q&A http://www.osta.org/ My humble apologies to anyone I've omitted. ++ATM 19991219 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Send mail to fadden@netcom.com (Andy McFadden) CD-Recordable FAQ - http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/ (a/k/a www.spies.com/~fadden) Fight Internet Spam - http://spam.abuse.net/spam/ & news.admin.net-abuse.email