Hi,

May I know which is the better way to backup my original pressed audio cds?

1. Using EAC to extract image.wav ( combined read/write offset KNOWN) and burn to cdr (cda format).

2. Using EAC to extract individual tracks ( read offset corrrection UNKNOWN) and simply burn these .wav files to cdr (data cd).

Of cos I want the backup to be as close to the original as possible. I personally feel that method "1." seems to be better but cda has a poorer error correction than data cd format.

Method one would definitely be the correct procedure.

Method 2 is much better (data CD instead of audio), you don't have to worry about bugs, scratches, skips, etc..., But beware that you'll need more than one CDR per album (up to 800 MB of wav files).

Edit : picmixer, the important question here is not one file vs several files, but data CD vs audio CD.

But wouldn't method 1 always create a more accurate reproduction of the original CD?

If you're speaking about offsets, you can forget them when you know that in exchange, you can re-read the backup without having to rely on secure mode extraction, and offsets again, and overread into lead-in/out, thanks to the CD-ROM format that stores wav files.

If you're speaking about 1 file + cuesheet vs multiple files, there is no difference in the audio. Only the extra data can change (CD Text if your cd has some, gaps indexes, that are nearly completely unuseful...).

I was speaking about the first indeed.

Thank you for clearing that up Pio2001

EDIT


Wouldn't lossless compression then make perfect sense in this case? Rather then dealing with an increase in file size.This way one at least wouldn't need more then one data cd per audio cd.

I havent really got problems with hitting the limit capacity of cdrs if I burn them in data cd format. Anyway, I guess I would be using DVD-Rs to back up .wav instead of burning them to individual CDRs. I also feel its is more secure to just store them in .wav since it is the most compatible format and at least be rather sure that 10-20 years down the road, .wav files are still supported by the then modern OS and hardware platform.

I guess I would stick to image.wav method since 1:1 exactness is my priority. Thanx alot...

Why not use lossless compression? You can use the difference in space to create a PAR2 file which will improve the reliability of your backups.

Extract image to WAV -> Convert with a lossless algorithm + Add CUE sheet, tags, covers/other relevant info -> RAR them all into a single file per album -> Use PAR2 on these RAR files for error recovery purposes.

I think this would be quite a good solution.

I just want to add that the last method is kind of boring when you want to listen to the tunes but if they're for archival purposes then it's fine.

Not really. Many players could play audio files in RAR archives. Alternatively you can keep these files separate or embed the additional information as tags or inside the container (MKA).

Depending on the size of the archive you might want to use a hard drive backup instead. I find them cheaper/more convenient than DVD/CD backup.

method 3 -?????
rip cd to FLAC and burn them as data CD

EDIT:
If its a 10-13 track CD which the total time is around 50 minutes......

create a CD+
CDDA for the 1st session
and data CD for the 2nd session

Since you're using DVD-Rs for backup, couldnt you just set aside a few megabytes for a program like foobar2000 + decoders etc on the DVD, and backup using flac or something similar? Then you wouldnt have to worry about the format not being supported in the future. Using a lossless compression scheme would save you 100s of mb's, so wasting a few on foobar or something similar shouldn't be any problem.

For backup I use one file APE rips with an embedded cuesheet.

Exact duplication of the original medium and backup are two different problems.

Hi

Maybe I'm wrong but as far as I know there is a small but important difference that should be mentioned when talking about multiple file extraction!

How to handle the gaps!

There is just one method that keeps all data and doesn't drop a single bit, and thats: "Append gaps to next track".
I know is't uncomfortable if a track starts with s gap (most of the time it's just silence), nevertheless it's the only way to preserve all data.

Alternatively what I would recommend is to make an Image+CUE and burn it as a "Data CD", as Pio2001 already told you, on CD, DVD or HD (my favourite 'cos it's cheaper, really). Image is to second and last method you can use without fearing to lose data!

best regards Fabian

PS: yould anyone have a look at my thread at digital-inn ("need last affirmation ...")

Its not a problem of not having the program in the future but rather will the future OS or even hardware support the then obsolete programs 10-20 years down the road.

What do you think of just creating a alcohol-image and save it on hard-drive or DVD-R?
Would that be a good way to backup Audio-CDs lossless?

No because you would miss EAC's very good error detection. Alcohol is simply more suited to create backups of data CD's rather then audio CDs.

As Pio2001 already mentioned error correction works very different on data CDs than on audio CDs

The probability of not being able to read a lossless format in 10 or 20 years is lower than the probability for your CDRs to be dead after all this time anyway.