EAC alternatives, Ripping problems Options

[Vietwoojagig]

After ripping a 3 year old CD-R with my best CD-Drive and with EAC using the lowest secure error-correction-mode it took me 36 hours(!) of ripping the CD. I was asking myself if the strategy to try 16 times the same sector until 8 sectors are equal (and this 1, 3 or 5 times) is really a good strategy to get a good result with the absolute necessary number of retries. Why 8 times out of 16? Why not 2 times? Why not less retries? In my case even the 16 retries are overkill.

OK, I have a lot of these CD-Rs which seems to loose their content over the years and I don't have the time to rip each CD 36 hours, so I try to rip them, with EAC, and if it takes to long I cancel the job.

So I was searching for an alternative end ended with the windows-version of CDDA2WAV (btw: the links to cdda2wav and cdrtools seem all to be broken). But I'm not quite sure about the paranoid-mode and the options. Can someone tell me something about this mode and good parameters?

Are there other alternatives for windows which have a more adjustable error-correction strategy?

And: No. These CDs are not scratched or dirty, and the CD-Drive is a really good one. The quality of the CD-Rs are obvious poor. That's the reason why I want to rescue as much of these problematic CDs before they disapear forever.

[Synthetic Soul]

foobar 0.9 now has secure ripping - which can be set to disabled, standard or paranoid.

Take a look at this topic, most especially post #11 in which Peter explains how the security works.

This post has been edited by Synthetic Soul: Oct 28 2005, 10:59

[ToS_Maverick]

the foobar betas can read cds with offset correction and secure mode (different from eac's, but as secure as eac).

foobar could read a copy protected cd, that eac couldn't due to errors. it was possible to make a perfect backup with it!

edit: neil was faster than me

This post has been edited by ToS_Maverick: Oct 28 2005, 11:02

[Synthetic Soul]

the foobar betas can read cds with offset correction and secure mode (different from eac's, but as secure as eac).

Yes, I should have mentioned the offset correction.

foobar could read a copy protected cd, that eac couldn't due to errors. it was possible to make a perfect backup with it!

This is interesting. I've seen various posts from members complaining that EAC couldn't rip discs (that were most likely copy-protected).

edit: neil was faster than me

I can't answer many questions so I have to get in quick on the ones I can.

[ToS_Maverick]

foobar could read a copy protected cd, that eac couldn't due to errors. it was possible to make a perfect backup with it!

This is interesting. I've seen various posts from members complaining that EAC couldn't rip discs (that were most likely copy-protected).

i mentioned this in "your" foobar ripping-test thread, where i posted my results with eac and foobar.

the explanation for the phenomenon, that foobar can read things that eac can't might be, that eac re-reads sectors, while foobar re-reads 2mb blocks.

edit: neil was faster than me

I can't answer many questions so I have to get in quick on the ones I can.

my experience is, that the answers that you give, are very informative and helpful

[Synthetic Soul]

Another option is CDEx, which has a paranoid mode.

I've never used the paranoid mode (I used CDEx for a while before EAC), and I have seen a comparison by Pio2001 that concluded that it was not as reliable as EAC, but it is an option.

I have no idea whether the paranoid mode is the same paranoid mode used in CDDA2WAV (i.e.: whether the engines are the same).

my experience is, that the answers that you give, are very informative and helpful

That's very kind. Thank you.

This post has been edited by Synthetic Soul: Oct 28 2005, 11:43

[Vietwoojagig]

foobar 0.9 now has secure ripping - which can be set to disabled, standard or paranoid.

Take a look at this topic, most especially post #11 in which Peter explains how the security works.

Thank you.

"Standard" mode already requires two identical CRCs on each block to pass (it will keep rereading and error out if it can't get consistent results after 128 reads; also see console output). "Paranoid" mode is pretty much the same, except it wants four identical CRCs instead; it's absolute overkill and should not be used on anything else than really badly damaged discs...

I don't think that 128 possible retries do not really help me. I was more thinking of something like 10 retries maximum.

Is it possible to create with foobar 0.9 one image-file (one wav) with a cue-sheet?

[Vietwoojagig]

Another option is CDEx, which has a paranoid mode.

I've never used the paranoid mode (I used CDEx for a while before EAC), and I have seen a comparison by Pio2001 that concluded that it was not as reliable as EAC, but it is an option.

I have no idea whether the paranoid mode is the same paranoid mode used in CDDA2WAV (i.e.: whether the engines are the same).

Thank you, I will give CDEx a try. The comparison by Pio2001 is three years old. Maybe they improved CDEx since then.

[kotrtim]

I think when a CD is dying, even best CD drive won't help,
you should be ripping it with different drives, see which drive gives you the best results, if the CD is not badly damage, you can use EAC secure mode to extract, but when the CD is ripping too slowly, its time to switch to "buffered burst"....buffered burst mode is sometimes better than secure ripping when disc is in really bad condition!

rip it with a few drive, listen and compare the ripped tracks, some drives will have louder and more clicks, some will be better.

This post has been edited by kotrtim: Oct 28 2005, 13:20

[AtaqueEG]

What about "factory damaged" CD's?

NOT COPY PROTECTED.

Just CD's that seem to have bad sectors, even though they are brand-new, out-of-the-box and NOT scratched?

I bought such a CD last week. All went fine until the last track, which EAC refused to rip and foobar2000 quit after 3 hours!!!

I repeat: It is not copy-protected

This is like the third CDs that have showed such a behaviour in my 15-year CD-buying experience. Is there something to do but change drives (no use with the ones I own) or buying the goddamm thing again?

And, no, Mexican retailers will never take an open CD back.

[sTisTi]

Thank you, I will give CDEx a try. The comparison by Pio2001 is three years old. Maybe they improved CDEx since then.

If your drive caches audio, CDEX is practically worthless, as the paranoia mode won't be of any use then. A very fast, secure alternative would be Plextools Professional, where you can configure the error correction mode and number of retries. It is as fast as EAC with burst mode as long as no errors are reported, but as secure as EAC with secure mode and a lot faster with problematic CDs. You'd need to buy a Plextor drive to use it, but if you have lots of troublesome CDs, getting e.g. a used older model might be worth it.

This post has been edited by sTisTi: Oct 28 2005, 15:50