Flac Doesn't Let Me Embed This Cuesheet, What's wrong with it? Options

[smz]

Flac (1.1.2) doesn't let me embed the follwing cuesheet

CODE

PERFORMER "Performer Name"
TITLE "Album Title"
FILE "mytestfile.wav" WAVE
 TRACK 01 AUDIO
   TITLE "Track01 Title"
   PERFORMER "Performer Name"
   INDEX 01 00:00:00

   ...

with this error:

CODE

ERROR initializing encoder
state= FLAC_STREAM_ENCODER_INVALID_METADATA

Is this a bug or there is something wrong with my cuesheet that I can't spot?

Cheers

Sergio


Edit: spelling. If also a mod could fix the topic title... thanks! (Done, thanks to the mod!)

Edit2: removed great part of the cuesheet as the problem was not with it (see subsequent posts), to make the thread more readable.

Edit3: Modified cuesheet example so that RIAA doesn't sue me, in case I die...

This post has been edited by smz: Feb 9 2005, 02:34

[Synthetic Soul]

Actually, on re-reading, I think you said it just fine. I got a little confused by your post correcting yourself, that's all.

I see now that you are suggesting the "cuesheet-last-index test" as the only relevant test to make, and not suggesting that it is already in place.

And there was me thinking I'd come up with a good idea, when I'd actually just stolen yours.

Of course, if it turns out to be a bad idea, I will be quick to lay the blame squarely on your shoulders.

[smz]

I would like to make with you all a sanity check of my ideas about this issue.

To briefly recall what the problem is let me state it in these terms:

"flac.exe refuses to embed a cuesheet when the number of samples of a WAV file to be encoded (PCM at 44.1Khz, 16bits/sample, dual channel) is not a multiple of 588, i.e. not a full CD sector".

The rationale behind this is that a cuesheet will mostly come from the ripping of a CD or an image prepared to be burned on a CD.

It also comes from the fact the when you embed a cuesheet in a flac file an extra virtual track is added to the CUESHEET metadata block. The offset of this track correspond to end of the file i.e. exactly to the "total samples" of that file. An information that BTW is already present in the STREAMINFO metadata block.

It must be noted that this virtual leadout track is by definition of 0 length and it is not present in the cuesheet format, the one we are used to from CDRWin and other applications that have adopted it to describe the content of CD and that we feed to flac to be embedded.

My feeling is that this last virtual leadout track is just a "hint" to help the decoding application to determine the length of the last (real) track.

Anyway we are talking about a "cuesheet" (although "not standard") and it will be embarrassing to have that offset specified at a point where it will be illegal (impossible) for a real CD.

My personal opinion is that this is not a big problem at all, because all burning application I know of can deal with a last track of the "wrong" length by appending the needed number of 0 samples to stuff the last sector.

A player, on the other hand, will have no problem stopping to decode at whatever sample number.

I think that one can pose itself the question of what to do at decoding time in case this special offset, the last sample, is not a multiple of a CD sector: stop decoding at that sample or stuff with 0 samples so that the decoding library will return a sector aligned stream? My personal opinion is that being FLAC a lossless decoder it should return a bit-identical stream to the input, so it should stop decoding where the original stream ended.

Beside that I really don't see any problem at all in the fact that this last (virtual, introduced by FLAC) track "starts" at a "wrong" boundary. (Maybe when you "pipe" multiple FLACs with cuesheet to a single burning session?? Is this possible with any application? Will it be screwed up by this situation??)

Does all that I said make sense? Have I missed some point? Am I too ignorant of the internals and thus ignoring something that shouldn't be?

About the fact that flac.exe (and metaflac as well) should check that the input cuesheet offsets falls inside the span of the file (a totally different issue), I can't agree more: that should be checked.

Cheers

Sergio

Edit: Spelling, comme d'habitude

This post has been edited by smz: Feb 12 2005, 01:35

[smz]

One more consideration:

If foobar2000 easly accept an external cuesheet pointing to a "wrong length" WAV (or FLAC, for that matter) file, royally ignoring the CD-DA standard, that doesn't apply to a player, why should flac.exe instead refuse to encode ("play") such a cuesheet?

Sergio

This post has been edited by smz: Feb 12 2005, 02:18