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BIN+CUE versus ISO+MP3

dhau - Nov 25, 2003

Tagrineth

Nov 29, 2003

I totally love iso/mp3 (and for dual data-track games, I use Nero).

Using Nero doesn't help if the source files are in iso/iiso/mp3 format.

1. I got the postgap issue licked to where I can reliably make an iso/wav or iso/mp3 rip of a disc such that when burned back to CD, the audio tracks land exactly where they're supposed to. No 2-second shifting.

Bullshit. How are you checking how closely the audio tracks are lined up on the disc? Are you 100% certain that all audio tracks start and end on the same frames? And how CAN you be 100% certain?

2. You guys are always quick to complain about sound quality degradation due to mp3 compression. Which I absolutely don't understand because a. given a good encoder and a high-enough bitrate (160 or 192) quality is virtually a non-issue, and b. while game music is important, it usually is only heard in the background while the game sounds take center stage, and c. you people don't complain about downloading your favorite music and albums in mp3 format, do you? So there.

a. Yes, quality IS an issue. No matter what your bitrate is, you're still dropping sound data. And even an infinite bitrate will have a frequency cutoff.

b. You mean to say you don't listen to BGM while playing a game? Hell, in some games I barely listen to the game's sound effects at all (Tempest, Gradius II, Rez, DOOM, Tetrisphere, The New Tetris) in favour of listening to the kick-ass music. And in many other games, I'll still balance the sound in favour of music more than sound effects.

c. Hell yes, I complain. I buy pressed CD's any time I can afford to do so. I download MP3's so I can hear songs, period... but if I like the music, I *will* buy the CD (with some exceptions - like importing game soundtracks which have no US releases; Guilty Gear X2's kickass soundtrack for example is $40).

		CrazyGoon	Nov 29, 2003
		Plus, whenever you rip iso+mp3, you are 'pulling' the songs out from the game. For this to happen, they have to be converted to a music format such as mp3. The quality of the music tracks in the complete image (before rippng the music) are untouched if you rip other formats, whereas iso+mp3, even if you ripped as 192 bitrate, they are still inferior to the other formats, because the music shouldn't have even been seperated from the game image in the first place. It just adds to more concern to know whether you have 'put the pieces back together again' correctly, without having any gaps in the music, and keeping the music quality perfect. Plus, it would be a lot more effort to rip a high quality iso+mp3, than it would to rip a bin+cue, wouldn't it? Newbies would find it easier, at least.

Taelon

Nov 30, 2003

Originally posted by Tagrineth@Nov 29, 2003 @ 02:17 PM

I totally love iso/mp3 (and for dual data-track games, I use Nero).

Using Nero doesn't help if the source files are in iso/iiso/mp3 format.

I fully expected to be flamed etc. and I quite frankly don't care. But you misunderstood what I said about dual data-track games. I rip them using Nero. Into .nrg files.

That aside, yes, an iso/wav (note I say wav, not mp3) can be a fully 1:1 image of a CD as long as attention is paid to the postgap. There's nothing to it.

And again, I just don't understand everyone's bitching about the MP3 format. Sorry, but I just don't. Encoded properly, they sound great. End of story.

		CrazyGoon	Nov 30, 2003
		What do Iso+mp3, iso+ogg, iso+mpc all have in common? They are bastards to rip and serve correctly. I don't hate the formats, but I feel safer knowing I have an exact rip of the game. ...yes, I am a perfectionist. ...but not a nut

mal

Nov 30, 2003

Originally posted by dhau@Nov 29, 2003 @ 06:13 PM

Mmmm, I had impression that with cdmage or ISO Buster it is possible to rebuild .CUE from .BIN. I'll check this tomorrow.

No, you'd be wrong.

		Jurai	Nov 30, 2003
		I love when Tag lays a smackdown. And mp3 isn't lossless so obviously quality is an issue.

		antime	Nov 30, 2003
		For the quality whores, there's several lossless audio compressors to choose from (eg. flac...).

		Jurai	Nov 30, 2003
		lossless compressors generally give you the same compression ratio that using best rar compression would give you

Tagrineth

Nov 30, 2003

I fully expected to be flamed etc. and I quite frankly don't care. But you misunderstood what I said about dual data-track games. I rip them using Nero. Into .nrg files.

Once again: That. Doesn't. Help. If. The. Game. Is. Already. Provided. In. Iso/iso/mp3. Format.

Last I checked, FTP's still provide NiGHTS in that format, NOT NRG. I don't care how YOU PERSONALLY rip the game, I care more about how the servers host the game. And right now, I don't see many NRG's or CDI's or even MDF/MDS's served.

That aside, yes, an iso/wav (note I say wav, not mp3) can be a fully 1:1 image of a CD as long as attention is paid to the postgap. There's nothing to it.

As long as attention is paid to the postgap? OK, so what if the dev decided to include two audio tracks, and a 2 second gap between them as well as the standard gap after the data track? What then? How can you tell? Do you waste a CD trying to burn with the standard 2 second gap, then no gaps? Then find there's something wrong?

Also, if you'd care to open your "PERFEKTZOR COPPIEZ" in a nice programme like CDex, I'm sure you'd find that even your beautiful pictures of perfection are in fact SEVERAL FRAMES OFF THE MARK.

See, the single biggest problem with your silly little argument is your whole "As long as attention is paid to the postgap." bit. It's already a SEVERE PAIN IN THE ASS writing a cue sheet for a 40-track game... having to pay extra attention to gaps between tracks just makes it even more irritating. And if you're going to rip as fucking ISO/WAV, why not go all the way to bin/cue (no fucking around with making a cue sheet, much better track location fidelity, etc.), or even NRG or CDI (hey, if you already do it for dual data track games, why the fuck not for all? - and the benefits are nice: perfect file structure maintenence, capable of recording multisession data, etc.).

And again, I just don't understand everyone's bitching about the MP3 format. Sorry, but I just don't. Encoded properly, they sound great. End of story.

Sure they sound good, but not as good as the original pressing. Then you have the problem that when you make an iso/mp3 rip, the MP3's will NEVER EVER be identical to the waves - in start/end times, in track length, in decompressed space... there are always gaps created at the start/finish of the track, somehow or another, in compression or decompression.

ISO/AUDIO is simply a bad format, no matter how you look at it.

		antime	Nov 30, 2003
		RAR has a special compressor for audio built into the program. By default, if you use the higher compression levels it'll automatically try to detect the type of data you're compressing and use the appropriate algorithms.

Jurai

Nov 30, 2003

Originally posted by antime@Nov 30, 2003 @ 02:04 PM

RAR has a special compressor for audio built into the program. By default, if you use the higher compression levels it'll automatically try to detect the type of data you're compressing and use the appropriate algorithms.

and wtf does that have to do with me saying that rar compression is equiavelent to true lossless compression

answer:

nothing

		antime	Nov 30, 2003
		Just explaining why a general-purpose archiver like RAR achieves similar compression rates to specialized software. And of course RAR is a true lossless compressor, it would be totally useless otherwise.

Taelon

Nov 30, 2003

Originally posted by Tagrineth@Nov 30, 2003 @ 03:02 PM

I fully expected to be flamed etc. and I quite frankly don't care. But you misunderstood what I said about dual data-track games. I rip them using Nero. Into .nrg files.

Once again: That. Doesn't. Help. If. The. Game. Is. Already. Provided. In. Iso/iso/mp3. Format.

How bloody stubborn are you

I never said I was ripping BURNED CDs!

I rip originals you fool

As for the rest of your incessant ranting. I can only laugh

I don't care. You try much too hard to tell me that an iso/wav image cannot be a perfect representation of the CD it was ripped from. Sad, really

slacker52

Dec 1, 2003

Originally posted by Taelon+Dec 1, 2003 @ 12:39 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Taelon @ Dec 1, 2003 @ 12:39 AM)</div><div class='quotemain'> <!--QuoteBegin-Tagrineth@Nov 30, 2003 @ 03:02 PM

I fully expected to be flamed etc. and I quite frankly don't care. But you misunderstood what I said about dual data-track games. I rip them using Nero. Into .nrg files.

Once again: That. Doesn't. Help. If. The. Game. Is. Already. Provided. In. Iso/iso/mp3. Format.

How bloody stubborn are you

I never said I was ripping BURNED CDs!

I rip originals you fool

As for the rest of your incessant ranting. I can only laugh

I don't care. You try much too hard to tell me that an iso/wav image cannot be a perfect representation of the CD it was ripped from. Sad, really

[/b][/quote]

i smell blood..delicious.....

btw anyone see a problem in converting clonecd to bin/cue? as you seem to be the tech on this stuff.

		CrazyGoon	Dec 1, 2003
		Just leave them as is. I'm they must be converted, then burn them (on lowest speed) then rip them (again, at lowest speed) as bin+cue. Conversion tools stuff up images.

Jurai

Dec 1, 2003

How bloody stubborn are you

I never said I was ripping BURNED CDs!

I rip originals you fool

As for the rest of your incessant ranting. I can only laugh

I don't care. You try much too hard to tell me that an iso/wav image cannot be a perfect representation of the CD it was ripped from. Sad, really

[/b][/quote]

probably because she is right and it cant be

		CrazyGoon	Dec 1, 2003
		Nonono guys and gals. He is saying any games in his collection (originals, that is ) that have 2 data tracks, he rips them into nero format.

slacker52

Dec 1, 2003

Originally posted by CrazyGoon@Dec 1, 2003 @ 04:36 AM

Just leave them as is. I'm they must be converted, then burn them (on lowest speed) then rip them (again, at lowest speed) as bin+cue. Conversion tools stuff up images.

well that was the plan, cause ive got a game (or 6) in clonecd format which girigiri dislikes, and since i cant buy/install a modchip in my saturn, i need a 2352 bin/cue to test (or iso/wav with iso2raw) the image, and iso buster doesnt like extracting from an img file :blah

		Taelon	Dec 1, 2003
		Crazygoon, I love you For explaining me and for making as much sense as you do (esp. with burning to CDRW and re-ripping being the safest way to convert an image) :thumbs-up:

Tagrineth

Dec 1, 2003

How bloody stubborn are you I never said I was ripping BURNED CDs!

I rip originals you fool

What's your point with this one? I didn't say you were ripping burned discs.

-edit: And in case you're talking about dual data track games - again, that doesn't help if all the places where I can get the discs without resorting to buying an original (and just fyi, I do own NiGHTS, for one) provide them in iso/iso/mp3. It's good and all when you use full-featured formats for your own purposes, but it doesn't do anyone else any good, which is the biggest issue here above everything else.

As for the rest of your incessant ranting. I can only laugh I don't care. You try much too hard to tell me that an iso/wav image cannot be a perfect representation of the CD it was ripped from. Sad, really

It CAN'T be a perfect representation. Download CDex (google for it), and take a look for yourself, the tracks will NOT line up perfectly. Better yet, use alt-printscreen and paste the CDex windows into Paint - but then again, you could just paste the same window twice.

There is simply NO WAY to get a 100% exact copy using iso/wav... and besides, if you're going to use iso/wav anyway, why not just go ahead and use an all-in-one format like nrg/cdi?

You see, there's one big issue that I see here. I'm actually presenting a logical argument, telling you all sorts of simple, easy to understand reasons for why what you say isn't -quite- possible, whereas your argument consists of BUT IM RIGHT NEENER NEENER BLAH BLAH.

I'm through with this pathetic excuse for a thread until I see some kind of proof that you've burned an iso/wav compilation that's identical to the original CD, or at least been given directions so I can repeat your methods (I have one hell of a lot of CD-R's to burn right now, so I'm willing to try one of your voodoo cue sheets). I won't be replying to you again until I see something beyond 'ur wrong! im right!'.

---- added:

Crazygoon, I love you For explaining me and for making as much sense as you do (esp. with burning to CDRW and re-ripping being the safest way to convert an image)

PLEASE tell me this is sarcastic. >_>