backing up a commercial CD, 800MB+

[AmirBagachelles]

I am trying to make a back-up copy of a commercially released CD; it's HDCD and the disk image is 802MB. I tried on a Mac and on a PC, same size disc image. When I go to burn and use a standard 800MB CDR, the image cannot be burned to disc. Has anyone come across this issue? Are CDRs > 800MB out there? If I used a DVD-R blank, would I still be making an audio "CDR"? thanks, Dan

[JSngry]

Try the overburn function of your burning software.

[Dan Gould]

But that can damage the drive! I've always been afraid to try that after seeing the warning.

I think that burning to a DVD does create, in effect, a regular CDR. I made a trade with someone for a DVD of a Gene Harris - Frank Wess concert in Austria. I had trouble extracting the audio layer and he helped me out by sending the whole two hour concert on a DVD-R, which to my surprise played on the stereo.

[JSngry]

But that can damage the drive! I've always been afraid to try that after seeing the warning.

Really? I've never heard that, but that doesn't mean all that much...

Would the potential for damage come from rare/occasional use (i.e. - just doing it sets up a condition with a potential for disaster?), or more from repeated/prolonged use?

I used to try to put up to 82 minutes on a CDR when combining albums, but the inconsistency of playback led me to decide that one 40:02 CD that plays is better than one 80:27 that doesn't...but I'd also think that the original single CD would have been manufatured using some typ of overburn function, so...

Judges, can we get a ruling?

[Noj]

Did you make sure there are no spaces being added between tracks? Disc-burning software such as iTunes will add 1-2 seconds between tracks unless set up to not do so. Also, listen for moments when the tracks themselves have been book-ended by silence which can be trimmed off. 2mb is quite a bit over, though.

[Dan Gould]

Jim - I had a Nero program that would say that the files are too big, that overburn could be attempted but that permanent damage might result. Maybe it was something the Nero program included if it detected an older burning drive? I don't know but I never proceeded.

[JSngry]

I'm using Roxio & never got that warning...but I also noticed (after a while), that the overburn settings carried over & stayed in place for all future projects unless manually reset. That kinda bugged me....but I'm ok, still.

[AmirBagachelles]

I have seen screen shots of the overburn-damage warning on the Nero application. Could it be the same wear-and-tear issue associated with ripping DVDs. I will try it with an old outboard Que! drive tonight, I hated that overpriced POS from the day I bought it...

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i have no idea about hdcd, wish i did, cant wait to finally experience that-- but as far as redbooks go, if you pull the files off a cd and recopy them to a cdr you will make a superior sounding version of the music-at-hand, sounding closer to the "master" (whatever was used to make the cd)......pulling the files off the cd and recopying them eliminates the errors that are present from the original manufacturing

[JSngry]

How does that work?

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

u talkin' 2 me?

[JSngry]

Yeah, I've never heard that before, that copying a disc fixes it.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

barry diament says:

When I created a CD master at Atlantic, we kept the original and sent clones (digital, 1:1 copies) to the plants around the USA and the rest of the world. The record clubs also received clones. For all intents and purposes, the CD masters sent to all the plants were identical.

This should not be confused, however, with the discs each of the plants produced. As I have been saying since I heard the first CD made from one of my masters back in 1983, CDs from different plants sound different from each other. Sometimes CDs made on different lines within the same plant sound different from each other. And none sounds indistinguishable from the master from which it was made.

To be clear, if these disks (with identical data) are properly extracted to computer hard drive, the sonic differences go away; the differences are only evident when the CDs themselves are played in real-time, i.e. with a transport or player. So, if you listen via a player, different pressings from the same master might make a difference to you. If you listen via computer, after extracting the music from the disc, the pressing doesn't matter.

As to record club pressings, there is no reason to think these would be worse. In some cases, they might be better. Columbia Record Club pressings tended to be done at DADC, the same plant that also did non-record club pressings.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Barry

[JSngry]

Well, ok. What constitutes proper extraction?

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

i warned u!

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=96428&highlight=diament+copy+error

[Dan Gould]

I'm gonna call 100% bullshit and I don't give a shit who this Barry person is.

You cannot "correct" "errors" by extracting an exact copy of a disc and then re-burning.

We've truly reached Nirvana, or something. We've gone from "if you don't use EAC when you burn a copy, you may get errors!" to "extract a copy, burn it, and you'll fix the "errors" and get a true master identical to the one the engineer produced!"

Give me a fucking break.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Barry Diament's nickname is "Barry Demented" for a reason. Some of the things he's stated as "fact" over on the Steve Hoffman forums read like stories from The Onion. He's certifiable. Don't believe anything he says and you'll be better off.

[Dan Gould]

Too late for chewy.

Any evidence whether Barry's dementia pre-dated exposure to the Hoffman forum?

[Claude]

A CD-R copy can sound better than the original CD, if the original CD is defective/scratched and puts stress on the CD player's error correction.

With such a CD, it may still be possible to extract the data without errors using EAC and a suitable CD drive with very good audio extraction capapilities, and then burn an error-free CD-R, which will sound better than the original defective CD.

With an error-free original CD, the copy will of course not sound better. Maybe the Cds that Barry Diament used had some kind of manufacturing error, or his CD player doesn't cope well with pressing errors.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I don't know when Barry started saying all this crazy stuff or if he always believed it. I do know that in the early days of CD, he was one of the leading mastering engineers for UMG. He did the first CDs for many big name artists like U2, Bob Marley, Led Zeppelin, Yes, AC/DC and others. Now, he's no longer being used by any major so something must have changed.

[RDK]

i have no idea about hdcd, wish i did, cant wait to finally experience that-- but as far as redbooks go, if you pull the files off a cd and recopy them to a cdr you will make a superior sounding version of the music-at-hand, sounding closer to the "master" (whatever was used to make the cd)......pulling the files off the cd and recopying them eliminates the errors that are present from the original manufacturing

Oh Chewy, don't be spreading that Barry Diamant/Steve Hoffman Forum bullshit around here. Yeah, a few dopes will believe anything; doesn't make it true.

added: It seems Barry's reputation is already fairly public knowledge! Heh.

Edited May 6, 2010 by RDK

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

whoa, u guys are BRUTAL!

[Kevin Bresnahan]

whoa, u guys are BRUTAL!

Aric, what's brutal is reading some of the nutty stuff that Barry states as fact as his sycophants over at the Hoffman forums eat it up & regurgitate back as gospel.

I hope you understand that what Barry's claiming is that digitally-identical CDs, even those from the same press run, will sound different, even on the same player. His claim is that the CD player will somehow distort the data so that the analog output will change. Have you ever tried his theory? Buy two identical CDs at the store tomorrow and play them one after the other. Barry says he can hear differences. Do you? If you can, you're better than me.

Next thing you know, you'll start quoting "Night Gort" Dave. Some of his proclamations make Barry look normal.

Kevin

[Dan Gould]

What's even nuttier is the assertion that you can extract an exact copy of the disc, burn it (copy it exactly, basically) to a new CDR, and magically create an exact duplicate of the original master, which was supposedly corrupted by the burning process at the manufacturing plant.

[Daniel A]

What's even nuttier is the assertion that you can extract an exact copy of the disc, burn it (copy it exactly, basically) to a new CDR, and magically create an exact duplicate of the original master, which was supposedly corrupted by the burning process at the manufacturing plant.

What Claude reports regarding defective discs is correct. Whether it holds up for non-damaged discs is debatable. One suggested theory is that some CDRs are more easily read by audio CD players and do not stress the built-in error correction as much. It's up to someone to do some blind testing with a variety of discs to see if it holds up, but I suspect that too few people are enough concerned to bother. It tells something that those who claim to hear a difference seldom offer statistically significant blind test data.

In the world of HiFi - always ask for blind test results. Otherwise there is no reason to take claims too seriuosly.

Edited June 1, 2010 by Daniel A