Flac - Sep 2004 - Archiving CDs w/ Flac on Unix (and subsequent re-encoding)

On a related note, are there any tools which can read the Index information  
from a CD and preserve these in some file for later recreation?

The actual TOC on a CD has very little information: just the Absolute Start  
Time of each Track.  Is there any documentation of the "TOC" file
format that
is commonly used?  I do not recall coming across anything.  Obviously, I am  
also interested in similar documentation for the CUE file format.

I am (slowly) working on disk burning software that supports FLAC directly,  
without requiring the time or disk space needed for uncompressing the audio  
before burning.  Uncompression should be possible on-the-fly.  I am mostly  
working with original material which sometimes has index markers, but I would  
also like to find software which can read index markers from existing CDs so  
that this can be preserved when creating a backup/copy.

Brian Willoughby
Sound Consulting


Begin forwarded message:

On Sun, 12 Sep 2004, Eric Sandeen wrote:
> cuetools looks good, too.... guessing toc parsing might not be so bad to
> implement either, though.
TOC has certain advantages:

    1. You can use it along with the CDRDAO dump to re-create the
    original CD.

    2. It has more information than CUE format.

cjs
--
Curt Sampson  <cjs@cynic.net>   +81 90 7737 2974   http://www.NetBSD.org

Brian Willoughby wrote:
> On a related note, are there any tools which can read the Index information
> from a CD and preserve these in some file for later recreation?
I think the toc file output from cdrdao does this; it detects pregaps, 
sub-indices within tracks, etc.  Converting this to cue via cuetools and 
importing into a flac file seems to preserve the indices:

     track[8]
       offset: 73980984
       number: 9
       ISRC: USUMG9900502
       type: AUDIO
       pre-emphasis: false
       number of index points: 2
         index[0]
           offset: 0
           number: 0
         index[1]
           offset: 58212
           number: 1

> The actual TOC on a CD has very little information: just the Absolute Start
> Time of each Track.  Is there any documentation of the "TOC" file
format that
> is commonly used?  I do not recall coming across anything.  Obviously, I am
> also interested in similar documentation for the CUE file format.
I found
http://developer.berlios.de/docman/display_doc.php?docid=517&group_id=2130
(sorry if I got this thread OT for the list)  :)

-Eric

On Sun, 12 Sep 2004, Brian Willoughby wrote:
> On a related note, are there any tools which can read the Index
> information from a CD and preserve these in some file for later
> recreation?
cdrdao.
> The actual TOC on a CD has very little information: just the Absolute
> Start Time of each Track.
Are you sure you're not confusing TOC and CUE here?

If the TOC file was created by cdrdao, it will the catalogue number,
track and index positions (for both audio and data tracks), copy and
pre-emphasis flags, pre-gaps, track ISRC codes, at least CD-Text
subchannel information.
> Is there any documentation of the "TOC" file format that is
commonly
> used?
I think you must be confusing TOC and CUE. CUE is sidely used; TOC is
not: only cdrdao uses it as far as I know. The TOC file format is quite
well documented (over 400 lines of documentation, including examples) in
the cdrdao manual page.
> I am (slowly) working on disk burning software that supports FLAC
> directly, without requiring the time or disk space needed for
> uncompressing the audio before burning.
You're still going to use the time anyway; you must uncompress before
burning. So you'll save only the diskspace for the uncompressed image.
I personally don't think it's that worthwhile; anybody with any number
of FLAC compressed CD images around is not going to be wanting for less
than 800 MB of free disk space.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson  <cjs@cynic.net>   +81 90 7737 2974   http://www.NetBSD.org
     Make up enjoying your city life...produced by BIC CAMERA

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 12:03:17 +0900 (JST), Curt Sampson <cjs@cynic.net>
wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Sep 2004, Brian Willoughby wrote:
> 
> > On a related note, are there any tools which can read the Index
> > information from a CD and preserve these in some file for later
> > recreation?
> 
> cdrdao.
:)
> > The actual TOC on a CD has very little information: just the Absolute
> > Start Time of each Track.
> 
> Are you sure you're not confusing TOC and CUE here?
I think he meant the TOC of a CD, not a toc file as created by
cdrdao--the latter is very detailed as it's created by an observation
of the disk while the former is queried from the media.
> If the TOC file was created by cdrdao, it will the catalogue number,
> track and index positions (for both audio and data tracks), copy and
> pre-emphasis flags, pre-gaps, track ISRC codes, at least CD-Text
> subchannel information.
Exactly.  And it's in a nice textual format that can be used to do
many things.  I think what we're all looking for here is a program
that can capture all of that information and preserve it in a
compresses-lossless format.  If we could just roll flac and cdrdao
together.  Then we could use th .toc file to read out parts of the
.flac file and feed them into oggenc along with the freedb
metainfo....
> > Is there any documentation of the "TOC" file format that is
commonly
> > used?
> 
> I think you must be confusing TOC and CUE. CUE is sidely used; TOC is
> not: only cdrdao uses it as far as I know. The TOC file format is quite
> well documented (over 400 lines of documentation, including examples) in
> the cdrdao manual page.
Quite true.  Do you know of similar documentation for the .cue format?
> > I am (slowly) working on disk burning software that supports FLAC
> > directly, without requiring the time or disk space needed for
> > uncompressing the audio before burning.
> 
> You're still going to use the time anyway; you must uncompress before
> burning. So you'll save only the diskspace for the uncompressed image.
> I personally don't think it's that worthwhile; anybody with any
number
> of FLAC compressed CD images around is not going to be wanting for less
> than 800 MB of free disk space.
You assume that the repository and the burning/reading meachine are
one and the same.  Think of a nice fat server and a burner/reader
client with just an 802.11b connection.  Temporary space may be at a
premium on the actual burner/reader machine but not on the server, but
bandwidth may be an issue between them.  Multiply this by a house full
of clients and it does start to become an issue.

Really, though, this is a tiny problem.  Tell FLAC just what chunk out
of a file you want and it'll produce it.  Alternately, teach FLAC
about a particular meta-info format inside .flac files while allows it
to determine that chunk by itself.  Six of one, a half-dozen on the
other....

Cheers,
David