Nero audio CD bug...
Cooper Blake
Nobody is bothered by the fact that the current version of Nero
(5.5.6.4) ALWAYS skips the last sector on all audio tracks coming from
wave files? This doesn't seem to be a problem when performing a full CD
image copy, but only when burning from wave files.
Can anyone disprove me? Considering the amount of discussion on usenet
devoted to sector-perfect audio copies, I'm amazed that no one seems
concerned. Oh, and this is regardless of the source of the wave file
(Nero extraction, CDex extraction, record your own wave file, etc.),
with the option to trim track silence DISabled. This bug does not occur
using Fireburner with the same burner and wave files.
-Cooper
Graham Mayor
really serious about audio wouldn't use Nero for burning their audio files.
Exact Audio Copy and Feurio are much better audio tools - and given that the
first is a free download and the second a time unlimited fully functional
demo, there really is no contest. However, when it gets daylight here, and I
can get at my other machine without waking the family (I'm an insomniac)
I'll run a few tests with Nero and see if I can duplicate your findings.
Have you reported the problem as a potential bug?
--
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Graham Mayor <gma...@btinternet.com>
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"Cooper Blake" <cbl...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in message
news:3C4D04F5...@andrew.cmu.edu...
Arby
experts in all things MP3. I've looked at EAC and, while I am sure it's as
good as it's creators and supporters say it is, it's all Chinese to me. And
I don't know Chinese. So, Why don't EACs developers invest some time and
money and make the product commercial, by which I mean sophisticated and
powerful 'and' user friendly, as in user friendly to everyone who might like
to use the program?
"Graham Mayor" <gma...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:a2j1au$11npfh$1...@ID-88807.news.dfncis.de...
Graham Mayor
yesterday, which goes a long way to addressing your concerns. However, this
was never intended as a commercial product. It was a product produced by an
enthusiast which has taken on a life of its own, because it is so much
better at what it does than the expensive competition. Officially the
application is classed as beta - but EAC's beta is more stable than a couple
of bloated big name products that I could mention. Whether a commercial
product will emerge at the end, or whether the technology will be snapped up
by one of the big boys remains to be seen. Andre certainly deserves some
financial reward for all the effort put into the application.
There are plenty of FAQs and help files out there on the web that will help
you use this application, but there's no gain without pain. The rewards are,
however, there to be had. There's even a PDF file linked from the site,
written by an enthusiastic user, which explains most of what you might want
to know to get started.
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Graham Mayor <gma...@btinternet.com>
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"Arby" <rbat...@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:y0838.1913$Okf...@news2.bloor.is...
Graham Mayor
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Graham Mayor <gma...@btinternet.com>
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"Graham Mayor" <gma...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:a2j306$11fnjj$1...@ID-88807.news.dfncis.de...
Arby
lose. In any case, with a cable connection and a P4 running on XP home,
downloading anything is just too easy. But I'm so tired of downloading 'the
program that's gonna do it'! I'd like to download a free techie to just get
me going.
I'm going to play around with EAC, eventually. As I already noted, I don't
doubt that it's good stuff.
That's part of the solution. The other part is the plain English answer to
the question, What is the stuff? All I know is that I have a boatload of
music files on my PC that I'd like simply choose from, creating playlists
that I can burn to CDs, and have a satisfactory product, namely one which
sounds decent and with all the tracks of equal volume. I know EAC has
something to do with that. But that's all I know. With the MP3 Gain, I saw a
folder icon and a file icon, and so I clicked on the file icon and saw all
of my MP3 files. I didn't take it any further. But that was nice and easy. I
don't know whether the rest of the operation in MP3 is as nice and easy, but
I hoped EAC would be - if it's going to let me process 'all' of my music
files to the same outcome as MP3Gain would process my MP3 files to.
I'll play with it later. As you said, Graham, No pain, no gain. Actually,
For too many of us there's too much pain involved and too little gain. I
don't, and never have, argued with the principle however. But everyone else
who knows all this stuff has taken courses 'and' received one-on-one from
buddies or family members to get them over critical spots. Keep it mind.
"Graham Mayor" <gma...@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:a2j35s$11o1od$1...@ID-88807.news.dfncis.de...
Cooper Blake
the functionality of the program; it's not the easiest to learn but lets you
accomplish a lot. Even the audio extraction seems to work fine with my drive.
I did actually report this to Nero but haven't heard anything in response.
That's why I'm hoping I can get a few others to verify my findings. I think the
easiest way to duplicate it is to tell CDex to to a partial extract on 1 song,
from 0:00:00 to 1:00:00. Because CDex seems to overshoot by 1 cluster, the
actual file will be 1 min, 0 seconds, 1 sector / frame long. When you drop the
wave into a Nero audio compilation, it should (wrongly) report the length as
1:00:00. Burn that audio track, extract it, and the length will indeed be
1:00:00, at least in my experience. That file will also be 2352 bytes smaller
than the source wave.
-Cooper
Markeaux
version ... it's all easy point-and-click, after you install it just do a
File > Add New Tracks To Music Library .... then pull down View and
checkmark My Library and all your music files will display - then just drag
them into the Playlist window ... to save your Playlist just hit Save and
enter a name. The Music Library is a super easy way to categorize all your
music (ie, you can select multiple songs by holding the CTRL key while
clicking, then right-click on those and select Edit Track Tags, hit Select
All then just put a checkmark by the tag you want to change them all to ---
very quick and easy!).
Burning is very easy, too - after your songs are in the Playlist window just
hit the Burn button. Of course it can do a lot more, too - I liked it so
much I lifetime-upgraded to the Plus version (over a year ago) which
includes faster burning and Super Tagging, the latter being a super easy way
to automatically update mp3 tags by pulling the tag info off an online
server. Oh, and by the way, I have found that MMJB's audio cdr's from mp3's
have a slightly better high end over Nero - Nero seems to cutoff some high
frequencies which is noticeable on cymbals, synths, some processed vocals,
etc.
"Arby" <rbat...@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:y7938.5129$eL....@news1.bloor.is...
: Thanks Graham. I've already downloaded the file. I figured I had nothing
Arby
featured as Nero, 'plus' user friendly, I would definitely be interested.
Really, though. The obstacle with Nero, for me, was normalization. No one
seems to know much about it. Or else no one wants to explain it. One fellow
in a newsgroup responded to my queries with the suggestion that I needed to
batch normalize the files in Nero. He didn't explain himself at all. But I
figured that he wouldn't suggest it if it wasn't an option, even if I hadn't
noticed it. So, today, I burned a CD, trying a few little things just to
help ensure a good outcome. I disabled my Norton's for one thing. I
certainly shut down my Morpheus. I also set the burn speed lower, but not to
it's lowest setting. I slid the volume bar rightward toward the middle. I
have no idea what to do with it, actually. Then I highlighted the entire
complilation and right click it, the way I had previously for single files.
It seemed to work. I normalized, leaving things at the Nero default of 15.
Actually this time it was at 20, but I assume I did that previously. Anyway,
My music CD came out not too shabby. I set the stereo widening to 5%. I
think that whatever positive affect that had on most of my tracks, it may
have hurt two. I can live with the result, however. It's not bad. But the
vocals seem to have lost their sharpness. I might skip the stereo widening
in the future, at least while I'm not too good at doing all of this.
"Markeaux" <mark...@YANKTHISyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:Mxf38.3004$z05.225624@news20...
Doug
It looks like I can duplicate this problem. I made a compilation a few days
ago. The songs were ripped from pressed original CDs with audiograbber into
.wavs and burned with nero 5.5.6.4. I still had the original .wavs hanging
around so I ripped the first 3 tracks from the compilation with
audiograbber. They are all 2352 bytes smaller than the originals. I'm
using a QPS 20x burner.
I'll try to make a report to ahead.
Doug
"Cooper Blake" <cbl...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in message
news:3C4D04F5...@andrew.cmu.edu...
Graham Mayor
and miss affair because of differences in dynamic ranges of the various
tracks. The more heavily compressed the dynamic range (the ratio between the
loud bits and the quiet bits), the louder the perceived balance of the
track, but the poorer the sound quality.
If you wanted a better match, then you would have to apply dynamic range
compression to those tracks with the greater dynamic range. A more
successful method with tracks that have varying levels of dynamic range is
to adjust the volume levels of the tracks to get a closer match. You might
also want to consider reducing the dynamic range of those tracks that have
the wider dynamic range, as increasing the dynamic range of compressed
tracks is rarely as successful. For these processes, you will require a WAV
editor.
You cannot *improve* the sound of music by widening the stereo imagery. You
can only make it worse. The effect is produced by messing around with the
phase relationships of the channels. Remember those artificially produced
stereo from mono recordings that were inflicted on us in the early days of
stereo? This is much the same sort of thing. If you are at all interested in
music, don't do it! Even mono sounds better than this!
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Graham Mayor <gma...@btinternet.com>
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"Arby" <rbat...@rogers.com> wrote in message
news:wul38.3190$Okf...@news2.bloor.is...
Graham Mayor
this and have come up with the following observations.
Your problem with the 'skipping of the last sector' may well be tied to
the 'remove silence from end of tracks' under the CDA options for audio disc
which is set by default. The only way to access this if you are storing
temporary files on the hard disc is to deselect when creating a new audio
layout - before you add the tracks. Once the temporary tracks are written to
the hard drive, there's no going back to add this information back in,
without starting over, even though it is possible to change the flag from
the write screen.
This aside, I was unable to duplicate a problem - so how are you identifying
that the last sector is curtailed?
If you rip with Nero, a Nero WAV file has its own unique header
information, but a *clean* rip is otherwise bit for bit the same as that
from CDex or EAC. - I've compared them!
Tracks ripped with Nero have the copy protection flag set by default,
(shown as a double SS symbol against 'protection' in the assembly window)
but this can be turned off from the track properties. This is no doubt to
comply with licensing arrangements.
I ripped tracks with Nero (with the flag at '1' above set to off) and
compiled a new disc with the same tracks ripped with EAC.
I burned discs using the same WAV files with both Nero and EAC, then
re-ripped both discs with EAC
In theory this should have produced three sets of identical wav files (the
originals, one set produced by Nero and one set produced by EAC). It didn't!
All three sets produced different file lengths.
EAC burned identical copies of the files, whether they were ripped by EAC
or Nero. Identical to the files EAC ripped from the source disc.
Nero burned files that were slightly larger from its own rips and slightly
smaller from EAC rips. In all cases the differences affected only the space
at the ends of the tracks and the header information. The actual data - the
music content - was unaffected.
I did not make any additional tests using compressed source files, nor did I
evaluate the results using tracks without pre-gaps, such as a live
recording.
Using the small monitor speakers I have connected to my PC, I could hear no
differences between any of the files. All the tests were made on CDRW discs,
which will not play in my CD player, so I could not check on more revealing
equipment, but I suspect there will little, if any subjective differences
between discs produced by Nero and by EAC from the same source files.
Nero does not hold the preferences you dictate, and given that its CDText
functions are clumsy, I would not use it for preference when producing audio
discs, but for everyday use in a non-critical environment, it is quite
capable. I cannot say that I have reproduced the problems you complain of,
but if you find my methodology flawed, or I have misinterpreted the problem,
then please comment. I have some time on my hands for the next few weeks to
experiment further.
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Graham Mayor <gma...@btinternet.com>
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"Cooper Blake" <cbl...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in message
news:3C4D04F5...@andrew.cmu.edu...
gerry
On Wed, 23 Jan 2002 16:33:28 -0000, "Graham Mayor" <gma...@btinternet.com>
wrote:
>As indicated in an earlier post, I have had the opportunity to investigate
>this and have come up with the following observations.
>
>Your problem with the 'skipping of the last sector' may well be tied to
>the 'remove silence from end of tracks' under the CDA options for audio disc
>which is set by default. The only way to access this if you are storing
>temporary files on the hard disc is to deselect when creating a new audio
>layout - before you add the tracks. Once the temporary tracks are written to
>the hard drive, there's no going back to add this information back in,
>without starting over, even though it is possible to change the flag from
>the write screen.
>
Thanks for your post!
Although I thought I liked Nero, it seems altering WAV data by default is
the stupidest thing I have ever heard of. (ignoring Easy CD Destroyer's
problems)
Why would I want silence intended to be there cut off and 2 second gaps not
intended to be there added?
Nero, seems very powerful and VERY BRAIN DEAD. No way to set many defaults
and too many "favors" done for you. If defaults could be controlled and
rational to begin with, seems like Nero should be fine.
What is odd is that these defects should be very easy to fix. Where did
Ahead stick their head?
Any suggestions on what is good CD SW that does not do unwanted "favors" for
you? Is there any???
It doesn't seem that, within a recorders abilities, writing CD's should be
that big of a problem by now.
gerry
.......
"From Sea to Shining Sea"
--
gerry misspelled in my email address to confuse robots
Cooper Blake
> Your problem with the 'skipping of the last sector' may well be tied to
> the 'remove silence from end of tracks' under the CDA options for audio disc
> which is set by default.
Nope.. that's disabled, as I create the new compilation. I believe this option
only strips the files during DAE, but it does not modify existing waves anyway.
> This aside, I was unable to duplicate a problem - so how are you identifying
> that the last sector is curtailed?
1. Take a wave file. Any wave file. Calculate # of sectors of audio data. CDex &
EAC apparently leave a 44 byte header; (file size - 44) / 2352 = # sectors. Or
just divide bytes by 2352 and round down.
2. Calculate running time (in division, round down):
minutes = (# sectors) / 75 / 60
seconds = (# sectors) / 75 - (# minutes * 60)
frames = (# sectors) mod (75)
3. Drag the file into a new audio compilation in Nero. In my case at least, Nero
reports the duration of the song to be 1 frame less than that calculated in #2.
4. Burn the track. Extract the full track with CDex. In my case, the file is
exactly 2352 bytes smaller than the source wave file; the duration is exactly as
Nero reported.
> If you rip with Nero, a Nero WAV file has its own unique header
> information, but a *clean* rip is otherwise bit for bit the same as that
> from CDex or EAC. - I've compared them!
Yep. I've had no DAE problems.
> EAC burned identical copies of the files, whether they were ripped by EAC
> or Nero. Identical to the files EAC ripped from the source disc.
>
> Nero burned files that were slightly larger from its own rips and slightly
> smaller from EAC rips. In all cases the differences affected only the space
> at the ends of the tracks and the header information. The actual data - the
> music content - was unaffected.
From EAC rips, what's the precise difference in file size between the Nero burn
& the EAC burn? Maybe it's 2352 bytes?
My file size from an EAC burn is identical to the original. The file burned in
Nero, when extracted from EAC, is precisely 2352 bytes smaller than the source
file. The calculated song duration is exactly as Nero reported before burning (1
frame less than the source file).
> Nero does not hold the preferences you dictate, and given that its CDText
> functions are clumsy, I would not use it for preference when producing audio
> discs, but for everyday use in a non-critical environment, it is quite
> capable. I cannot say that I have reproduced the problems you complain of,
> but if you find my methodology flawed, or I have misinterpreted the problem,
> then please comment. I have some time on my hands for the next few weeks to
> experiment further.
I appreciate the time you're spending on this. I want to separate DAE from this
issue; it occurs regardless of the source of the file. Try the formulas I gave
and get a calculated song duration for the wave. Drag it into Nero and see if
its reported Duration is 1 frame/sector shorter. I have noticed this, which is
before the burning process even begins. Burning & re-extracting only confirms
that Nero is indeed cutting the last sector.
I haven't been comparing the actual file data very much; I'll worry about that
when I can get teh right # of sectors.
-Cooper
Graham Mayor
observations.
The Nero and EAC burns are not exactly 2352 bytes different. The difference
depends on the track.
In order to avoid clicks in the reproduction, tracks must be split on the
sector boundaries - the sector size being 2352. How the applications deal
with odd sector sizes is undoubtedly at issue.
Are you burning the results TAO or DAO - all my burns are DAO. I wouldn't
dream of using TAO for audio.
--
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Graham Mayor <gma...@btinternet.com>
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"Cooper Blake" <cbl...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in message
news:3C4F4B23...@andrew.cmu.edu...
ned ludd
"Cooper Blake" <cbl...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in part
> I appreciate the time you're spending on this. I want to separate DAE from
this
> issue; it occurs regardless of the source of the file. Try the formulas I
gave
> and get a calculated song duration for the wave. Drag it into Nero and see
if
> its reported Duration is 1 frame/sector shorter. I have noticed this,
which is
> before the burning process even begins. Burning & re-extracting only
confirms
> that Nero is indeed cutting the last sector.
>
> I haven't been comparing the actual file data very much; I'll worry about
that
> when I can get teh right # of sectors.
>
The few tests I've done confirm your findings, and the missing sector is
indeed audible as a blip in a live recording. Feurio and cdrwin burning the
same files don't exhibit the problem.
I came upon an interesting wrinkle to this loss of the last sector, it only
happens for wav files ripped from CD. If you import a wav recorded via the
analogue sound card input, or a wav from a decompressed mp3, the duration of
the track does not exhibit the one sector loss. Haven't yet burned any discs
to test this thoroughly.
Cooper Blake
exactly on the sector boundary. I don't think it's possible for an audio CD
track, especially one with gaps between tracks, to NOT end on a sector boundary.
Whenever I use CDex to extract files, the file size in bytes is modulo 44
(leftover after some multiple of 2352); this leads me to believe that a typical
wave file has exactly 44 bytes dedicated to the header (maybe something @ end of
file as well?).
The thing is that extracting from Nero can leave larger header sizes, and I
think it's due to CD-text data. When I used Nero to extract a CD track that I
created (& wasn't identified by CDDB), it had the 44 byte extra size, but songs
of my U2 CD had > 90 bytes in header size.
SO in other words, if you want to compare the file sizes after burning in
different progs, always use CDex or EAC (also seems to produce 44 byte headers).
Could you just post your wave file sizes in bytes, before & after burning with
different software?
I've been using DAO, 10x with the bundled high speed RW disc on my Liteon 24x
burner, with CD-Text disabled and "remove silence..." option disabled, and
SMART-BURN on.
-Cooper
Cooper Blake
(don't have a mic hooked up) at 44khz, 16bit. When I dragged into Nero audio
compilation, it seemed to work fine: 11 seconds, 0 frames. Judging by the file
size, the length of audio data is also 11 seconds, 0 frames, but the header is
106 bytes instead of the typical 44. I burned & extracted, and the length is the
same, minus the extra header size (no lost sectors).
So Nero has a problem with only some types of wave files. Considering that the
sample rates were identical, the difference must be somewhere in that header.
Maybe if the header is less than a certain size, it cuts of the last sector for
some reason. Strange bug!
At least I can see that I'm not the only one with the problem. Nero tech support
finally emailed me back and said to call, so maybe they'll figure it out.
-Cooper
Graham Mayor
from my hard drive so I cannot give you an instant answer. I'll have another
go, duplicating your settings over the weekend.
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"Cooper Blake" <cbl...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in message
news:3C506EE3...@andrew.cmu.edu...
ned ludd
It was far too late in the evening to think clearly or remember how I
created my test files. The reason the mp3 and sound card sourced wav files
don't lose the sector is that none of them ended exactly on a sector
boundary. Nero was merely chopping off the fraction beyond the final sector
boundary. Now, as soon as I edit one of these files to end on a sector
boundary and import them into Nero, the last sector vanishes just as for CD
sourced files which can't end anywhere but on a sector boundary.
Seems to be a rounding bug in the works, even if the wav ends on a sector
Nero goes ahead and rounds it off to the previous sector anyway.
And if that's the case, it rivals some of Roxio's bugs for sheer stupidity,
nor should it take more than a few minutes to fix.
"Cooper Blake" <cbl...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote
Graham Mayor
version 5.5 was first released, perhaps they'll pick up on this one. I have
found that once Nero become interested in an issue, they become dogged in
their determination to fix it. The hard bit is to get them interested.
Cooper Blake has their ear on this one. Maybe it will run. They will
hopefully put right the outstanding issues before they release version 6 -
which I hear is scheduled for later this year. I've marked this thread to
watch for future developments.
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"ned ludd" <lu...@neoluddites.ark> wrote in message
news:3c51...@news.comindico.com.au...
The Number 23
in the WAV file. It is difficult to know where the RIFF chunks are in the
file unless you had a binary/hex editor to view the raw data, but I've seen
bugs due to this in other software in the past.
-Brian
"Cooper Blake" <cbl...@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote in message
news:3C5070ED...@andrew.cmu.edu...
Anthony Horan
> This is a repeat from a few days ago:
>
> Nobody is bothered by the fact that the current version of Nero
> (5.5.6.4) ALWAYS skips the last sector on all audio tracks coming from
> wave files? This doesn't seem to be a problem when performing a full CD
> image copy, but only when burning from wave files.
I concur with you, Cooper. I only noticed this after burning a compile CD
from wave files with 5.5.6.4 and then playing it at the nightclub I work at -
only to find a coupem of tracks had their (cold) endings abruptly cut off. I
had edited the endings quite tightly for obvious reasons, and on playback
originally thought that the Denon players I was using were misbehaving; now I
see what really happened :)
I have updated to the new 5.5.7.2, but have not yet had a chance to see if
this problem still exists (and if anyone's still sceptical, yes, it's a real
problem, and it's obviusly Nero's fault). I'll try and find time to do a test
disc in the next day or two.
> with the option to trim track silence DISabled.
That option only applies to tracks that Nero rips from CDs itself; none of
the tracks on my disc were ripped that way, and I still had the missing-data
problem.
- Anthony