Hello Colleagues ,

I'd like to shortly introduce the EAC guide I've made.

I've spent several years on HA now, reading and exchanging thoughts with others. Meanwhile I learnt things that I didn't know before, that are written in no guide but I wouldn't want to miss anymore. (Sounds familiar? )

Nothing in EAC is as important as a correct drive config. Nevertheless, EAC guides generally neglect this step. The result: unpleasant surprises, and many questions (even from advanced users). Pio2001 had the excellent idea to put that essential info in a FAQ. I've made this guide to make sure newbies get that info right from the start. Shortens your learning trajectory, saves you frustrations . Pio2001 was immediately enthusiastic and offered to review the guide (thank you for that).

The guide is clear & simple, but correct. Some time is spent for fundamental things (how EAC basically works) and based on that, letting the reader realize how certain settings affect rip quality. By giving people such insights, I think a lot of the usual trouble can be prevented.

One sentence to say it all: This is the guide I wish I had back when I was a newbie.

The guide is written and here ends my job. Now it is up to you guys to link to this guide, so that it reaches the audience it is meant for. Feedback is appreciated as well.

Best Regards,
liekloo

(EDIT: url update, November 2005)

As I'm still fairly new to ripping. And went through a lot of websites and forums, here. And still not sure in some areas. I've started reading your new guide. Good Job! Kudo's! Thanks! It is clear and simple.

I have not gotten to the Tell Me More part, yet, which is the stuff I know little about.

However, you have one link so far, that doesn't work:

For a 'Various Artists' CD mark 'Various Artists' and name ...

Another slight correction: Where it has:

The file 01 - Wild World contains T1, in which 00:00:00 to 00:00:03 is a gap

Should be :33 and not :03

Sorry, I write training for software for a living, and I can't help but notice these things.

On the guide: Ripping Guide -> Configuring -> Drive Options

About 10 hours ago I was trying to detect the gaps on a CD with alot of scratches, and other visible damage that looked like scuff marks. EAC slowed down on many tracks, even though the correct gap detection method was selected. You may want to include information about scratched CD's and possible slowdowns when detecting gaps.
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On the guide: Tell Me More -> Repairing a damaged CD

What! Are you saying to wipe the disc in a circle?
For years its been stated (even by record labels on the disc packaging) to wipe from the center circle to the outer edges, hence making a scratch going from center to outer edge usually won't produce serious problems, versus going in a circle may make a track un-rippable/un-playable.
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I'd think some information about looking at the read surface on a CD before trying to rip it to see if it needs to be cleaned would make a nice addition. A fingerprint or other residue (dust/skin flake) can cause some headaches and drastic slowdowns. Just about every CD I have ever ripped needs to either be blown on to get visible dust particals off it, or needs to be cleaned.

I've was downloading your guide with httrack
[ http://www.httrack.com/ ]

and I got some errors:
06:24:43 Error: "Not Found" (404) at link home-12.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm54044/eac/sub/VA.png (from home-12.tiscali-
business.nl/~tpm54044/eac/eac3.htm)

Probably because of UNIX being case sensitive:
http://home-12.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm54044/eac/sub/VA.PNG

Thought I would give you a heads up.

Radial means from the center out, as in on the radius.

Glad to have such attentive readers. Thanks, all of you

I tried to reply earlier, but right when I was available the forum seemed to be down.

As Dreamliner pointed out, the word 'radial' means from center to edge (this is also said in the guide). So there is nothing to worry about, Andavari

This is a nice guide but it needs a nice logo & brand name

You know, like it belongs to something & to know a large group of people are using it for it's purpose

a little bit ot...
is Brasso only available in the UK (where it was invented AFAIK) and maybe the US, or does it also go under some other name in Europe?
I know one could use any other metal polish, but Brasso seems to be popular.

I was just thinking the same thing: a guide without a name is like a person without a name. Doomed to stay unknown . I'll call it "the Essential ripping guide".


Good question, I don't know. The guide mentions the name 'brasso' because it is so known for this purpose (removing scratches from CDs). In reality you can use any similar product. I for instance, have never used the brand "Brasso", what I use is copper polish.

In France Brasso is unknown. There are two big manufacturers :
Bulher makes "Bul'argent" for silver and "Bul'cuivre" for copper.
Henkel makes "Argentil" for silver and "Miror" for Copper.

I am not sure what you mean by "data doesn't change anymore".
It re-reads untill it is statisticly almost certain that it found the correct result.

o.k., thank you. I will use a cheapo brand from a local store then. just felt a little unsure, as all web resources I came across metioned all mighty Brasso somehow.

I've had quite alot of success on minor scratches with toothpaste.

Really good guide. I must say it is much more clearer than most of the guides I've read, not to name any names and has a really good layout.

The one thing I might suggest is integrating it into HA...

Edit: Forgot to say thanks for the great guide. Easily one of the best I've seen to date.

Edit: Erm, posted dumb question. Figured it out for myself.

Thanks, liekloo..!



~esa

Yes that is what it means, i.e. consistent results over multiple read attempts. I'll rephraze the sentence in question.
Additionally, Digga's (relevant) brasso question is now answered in the guide.


Very relevant remark. However at this moment this would go beyond my available time.

Thank you, this guide has helped me a lot - including the tip about using Brasso - it works - and so does your wonderful guide.

Yup . . . thanks for the great guide. It explained a couple of things, (like the error correction and C2 thing), better than I had seen before.

Now I understand.

Thanks.

Why not incorporate the excellent guide into the HA KB/Wiki?

Hi there...
I have a suggestion..

in the guide.. you have this commandline for Ogg encoder:
-q 5 -a "%a" -t "%t" -l "%g" -d "%y" -N "%n" -G "%m" %s -o %d

But, if you select "Ogg Vorbis Encoder" in the 'External Compression' > 'Parameter passing scheme', this should be enough: -q 5
Since EAC will then set the tags automatically... (v0.95 prebeta5)

Wow~~~ I hat off to you liekloo

Really nice guide liekloo!, it has a lot of stuff other guides suppose the user already knows, many thanks!

Its not available any more (HTTP Error 404)

Does anybody knows if it is mirrored somewhere elese?


TNX


Sergio

Via Google I found it mirrored at:
http://home.tiscali-business.be/~tpm54044/index.htm

Many thanks!

Sergio

This is so late in the thread I do not know if it will make sense, but there is a German polish. SimiChrome. A very fine polish. Much finer than Brasso which is quite coarse alongside SimiChrome. Used to be sold at VW dealers and anyone carrying German car parts and accessories. It will polish a scratch out of a watch crystal.

The guide's URL has changed (I switched to a new ISP):
http://users.fulladsl.be/spb2267

This thread is updated, soon the FAQ will be as well (I've messaged Pio2001).

Hi!

Thankyou for the new URL. I modified a recent post of mine to reflect the new URL.

Really a well written document, important to this community, IMHO.

Thanks again for it.

Sergio

Edit: BTW.... Your signature still says "home-12.tiscali-business.nl/~tpm54044"

Might be a stupid question, but what would be the better program to use with a Plextor 12/10/32 drive? PLexTools, or EAC?

Beamrider, welcome to HA!

I think you are highly Off-Topic on this thread, and you should had started your own for your question, but...

Assuming that you are asking for the best program for RIPPING (not burning), my personal answer is... it depends.

Both are great programs and both have their limits (and bugs).

What are u willing to do? Rip each track to a separate file or a whole album to an IMAGE+CUE? To uncompressed PCM (.wav), to a lossy compressed format (e.g. MP3) or a lossless compressed format (e.g. WavPack)?

Try browsing and searching this forum archives. You'll see this is something has already been debated several times.

Personally for everyday use with CDs that are in a good shape I now use EAC but with the undocumented -usefua option, to put less stress on my Plextors (do a search for it if you need more information on that). When I encounter problems I use PlexTools with its advanced recovery options (recover best sector/recover best bytes).

Sergio

Edit: changed last paragraph organization a little bit.

A year ago I bought a Plextor & Plextools, hoping that Plextools would do what EAC couldn't: extract from a badly scratched CD.

I personally didn't see much difference between Plextools' and EAC's error correction power. On scratched CDs that EAC gave up on (5-10), Plextools hardly did a better job, for it did not succeed to extract the full track without errors. I had the impression it managed to go deeper than EAC did, but in the end both programs failed to deliver a perfect rip. Which makes them equal for my purposes (I'm only interested in perfect rips).

'Equal' should be taken with a grain of salt though: Plextools is fairly new and not as well tested as EAC is. I recall a thread on this forum where it was found that Plextools' error recovery was sometimes faulty, which was quite a letdown! All errors were claimed to be perfectly recovered, but the resulting rip was faulty.

In terms of speed Plextools totally crushes EAC (much much faster).

Have you tried EAC in FUA mode?

Cheers.

Sergio

You're right, it seems like the latest drives can be lightning fast with EAC. Thanks for pointing my attention to this very welcome news

I personally go for the "drive spin dry" option. I've got an old Liteon DVD-ROM drive connected to the PC, and after cleaning I wash the CD with filtered water, shake it by the edges to remove the excess water and then insert it into the drive. The drive then spins up the disc and the water is flung off the CD surface. I then switch it to my main optical drive for ripping. Amazingly, the drive still works perfectly after 50 odd CDs.

Your screenshots are kind of ugly...;
If you'd like, I can take some for you and email them or whatever; write the text in a nicer, anti-aliased font, etc...