CDex 1.70 beta 1 released on sf.net Options

[Demetris]

After about 3 years, an official release of CDex!

Project page, Files: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=567
CDex home page: http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/
CDex download: http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/download.html

Changes since CDex 1.51 (release):

* Fixed Vorbis comment field problem and track number field problem
* Updated to GNU based winamp plugins
* Support conversion of WAV files > 2 GB
* Updated Lame encoder
* Updated Ogg encoder libraries
* Add patches CDex 1.60++ (cue sheet generation)
* Updated several language files
* UTF-8 support for CDDB
* Flac Support

I seems that CDex has not been merged with Audacity after all, and that this release is by Albert Faber. Quoting a relevant post by afaber, dated 2006-06-01

Recently I've some spare time to work on CDex, will make pretty soon (somewhere next week, need to do some more testing) a new release, probably somewhere next week, Cdex version 1.60b2 will be released

Greetings,
Demetris

[Remedial Sound]

It's alive!

I've since moved to EAC in the dormant interim, though I still have a ton of respect for this handy & easy to use ripping app. Particularly as it's something that can be recommended to digital audio newbies who may be a little daunted by EAC.

Thanks for the heads up Demetris, and keep up the good work Mr. Faber.

[HotshotGG]

It's alive!

I've since moved to EAC in the dormant interim, though I still have a ton of respect for this handy & easy to use ripping app. Particularly as it's something that can be recommended to digital audio newbies who may be a little daunted by EAC.

Thanks for the heads up Demetris, and keep up the good work Mr. Faber.

... or folks like me that's don't want to wait for EAC to chew away at their drive for 5 hours doing error checking and recovery.

[Teqnilogik]

Awesome! I just recently started using CDex again a couple days ago. What timing to get back into CDex! In fact I was just reading on CDex's forums last night about the how the development is picking up and how a release was expected this week. Funny to see the new release come out today. I'm very excited about development picking up on CDex and I look forward to new versions, new features and improvements. Great job to the CDex team!

This post has been edited by Teqnilogik: Jun 5 2006, 20:27

[Gambit]

It's alive!

I've since moved to EAC in the dormant interim, though I still have a ton of respect for this handy & easy to use ripping app. Particularly as it's something that can be recommended to digital audio newbies who may be a little daunted by EAC.

Thanks for the heads up Demetris, and keep up the good work Mr. Faber.

... or folks like me that's don't want to wait for EAC to chew away at their drive for 5 hours doing error checking and recovery.

You know you can use the Burst mode in EAC too, right?

[hybridfan]

What the hell I thought this prog died, I would say after EAC, this is the best CD ripper out there, so simple yet very cool, loads of options and works very fast and efficiently, I can't wait to try this new one out

[Andavari]

I'm glad CDex isn't dead for sentimental reasons in that it was the first good CD ripping experience I had with a quality software that didn't mangle the wav's, and wasn't a crash whore like some freeware apps I tried back in 1999 when trying to find a good CD ripper. However I'd be much more excited if there was the ability to disable the cache on modern CD/DVD drives to make it a true contender to the all conquering behemoth EAC.

[OJ_829]

After about 3 years, an official release of CDex!

Excellent, EXCELLENT news. This is one of those must-install programs for me, as old as it is. I never ever stopped using CDEx from the days of 1.51. It lets one select freedb over cddb; it made diving into LAME and OGG encoding a piece of cake; and it has features (such as dynamic creation of, say, album or artist subdirectories) that some programs still in active development do not have. Even with those faults where it maybe got left behind a little over the last 2+ years, I still religiously use it for ripping my commercial CDs. Nothing is as flexible, or as straightforward to my brain. I hope he will continue to keep it simple.

[MuncherOfSpleens]

I guess the Unicode version of CDex is supposed to close without warning as soon as you try to rip using an external encoder? I assumed my command-line encoders weren't compatible; but even the new Nero encoder doesn't work, and that's entirely Unicode, right?

It doesn't much matter though; the normal version works fine, and I'm just glad CDex has been revived.

This post has been edited by MuncherOfSpleens: Jun 6 2006, 00:51

[Mr_Rabid_Teddybe...]

I guess the Unicode version of CDex is supposed to close without warning as soon as you try to rip using an external encoder? I assumed my command-line encoders weren't compatible; but even the new Nero encoder doesn't work, and that's entirely Unicode, right?

It doesn't much matter though; the normal version works fine, and I'm just glad CDex has been revived.

If you're experiencing such problems, you really should help the man developing his program by submitting a bug report.

[vlada]

It is really good news, that there is development again at CDex. But I think there are 2 things, that should be changed first:

1) Use recomended encoder versions - 3.97b2 for LAME and AoTuV 4.51 for Vorbis.

2) Adapt user interface to new LAME options: Just 2 checkboxes VBR and CBR. For VBR also add a checkbox --vbr-new, the same interface for Vorbis.

Then some more options could be to add support for NeroAAC encoder, make the format selection more simple - remove old low quality encoders - Psytel, GoGo, FhG etc. I think it would be much better to have only selection like MP3, OGG Vorbis, FLAC, MPC, WMA, AAC etc. Then it the format preferences you could choose an encoder, if there will be more available.

I think currently is CDex for many users even more confusing the EAC. So it would be really nice to have CDex as a simple-to-use, yet high quality alternative for EAC. Just my opinion

[master]

Glad to hear that there are still development progress at CDex.

This is a great program and I'm still using it now.

[Jojo]

1) Use recomended encoder versions - 3.97b2 for LAME and AoTuV 4.51 for Vorbis.

what's the version that bundles with Cdex? Lame 3.96.1?

[vlada]

Jojo> I have there 3.97 alpha.

[Jojo]

Jojo> I have there 3.97 alpha.

that's strange indeed. One would think they'd bundle the recommended Lame 3.97b2 release

[HotshotGG]

You know you can use the Burst mode in EAC too, right?

I don't have the patient to sit down and configure EAC. My drive doesn't have any special features anyway and the last experience I had when using EAC I wanted to toss something out my window. . I have just always preferred cdparanoia for the convience and I really can't tell the difference. if my cd is scratched I know it will do jitter correction, etc. It's worked well for me in the past. Most attempts at secure extractions on other O/S can only be done with cdparanoia anyhow don't forget. That's just how I feel about the situation.

This post has been edited by HotshotGG: Jun 9 2006, 01:08

[kwanbis]

I don't have the patient to sit down and configure EAC.

never understood whats so difficult or so much work, to configure EAC. I have used it many times in the past. It took me like 30 secs to setup first time.

[HotshotGG]

never understood whats so difficult or so much work, to configure EAC. I have used it many times in the past. It took me like 30 secs to setup first time.

It depends upon the user. All I am saying is that for the average user, it's pain in the ass to configure and they could spare themselves the trouble. Anyway... I am glad to see the latest released of Cdex 1.70 Beta 1. Now I need to figure out why previous versions wouldn't run on my O.S? I am thinking buggy ASPI drivers or something similiar. I need to look into it.

This post has been edited by HotshotGG: Jun 9 2006, 01:17

[shadowking]

I am getting corrupt flac files using the built in flac encoder. An external flac encoder crashes the program and that actually worked in 1.51

Can anyone verify this ?

[Demetris]

Same here for the built-in encoder. foobar won't play the file, 1by1 (w/ Winamp plugin) plays it without seeking or length information, and flac -t gives this:

CODE

D:\music>d:\programs\flac\flac -t Ozawa.flac

flac 1.1.2.1, Copyright © 2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005 Josh Coalson
Portions copyright © 2006, Gian-Carlo Pascutto
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions. Type `flac' for details.


Ozawa.flac: ERROR initializing decoder
state = FLAC__FILE_DECODER_ERROR_OPENING_FILE

An error occurred opening the input file; it is likely that it does not exist
or is not readable.

This post has been edited by Demetris: Jun 10 2006, 19:23

[fpi]

All problems should be fixed in beta2

[rjamorim]

Jojo> I have there 3.97 alpha.

that's strange indeed. One would think they'd bundle the recommended Lame 3.97b2 release

Remember that 3.97b2 is recommended by HydrogenAudio, not by the LAME team. Therefore, it's not an official recommendation in any sense.

Anyway...

Albert Faber has recently contacted me, asking me to point him in the direction of knowledgeable people that might be interested in contributing to CDex development. I already pointed Michael Spath to him, and contacted other developers of my knowledge, but I would also like to extend the invitation to anyone here willing to help. Just contact me or him at cdex---hccnet.nl (replace the dashes with an @) telling what you would like to help with. Some features really missing there, IMO, are:

- APE tag writing
- LAME encoding interface adhering to LAME's guidelines
- Ripping to a single WAV file + CUE

Please post your wishlists here. I'll point Faber to this thread soon.

Best regards;

Roberto.

[hermes_vb]

... or folks like me that's don't want to wait for EAC to chew away at their drive for 5 hours doing error checking and recovery.

I feel you man. I installed EAC long time ago, but switched to CDex 1.51 when my new drive died on me after ripping 4 CD's in a row. EAC's Secure Mode puts an incredible strain on the Drive. Poor laptop drive couldn't take it anymore and commited suicide.

[HotshotGG]

I feel you man. I installed EAC long time ago, but switched to CDex 1.51 when my new drive died on me after ripping 4 CD's in a row. EAC's Secure Mode puts an incredible strain on the Drive. Poor laptop drive couldn't take it anymore and commited suicide.

We are in the minority here on HA, as you will get plenty of EAC brown-nosers on this forum. My advice to you what be to determine what features your drive has first and then decide the appropriate ripper is to use. In my own person opinion cdparanoia is better when it comes to jitter correction in some circumstances, but EAC is better at detecting error due to the fact that it utilizes C2 error correction, etc. It depends on your taste and drive. No general guideline can be reached.

[spoon]

>when it comes to jitter correction

Which drive in the last 4 years is not AccurateStream?