• Isis
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  • Registered: 2007-12-10
  • Posts: 31

I had a few technical questions about these two descriptor files. 

I understand cue is to tag and break up a bin files into the right components/sections on a CD.  MDS does the same. 

However, doesn't CUE have some limitations?  Aren't there certain scenarios or weird non-standard data/audio arrangements that it can't handle?

As far as I know MDS can tackle anything (all that extra protection junk as well).  The only thing holding back the MDF/MDS format is that offset and audio integrity cannot be verified.  Also, is MDS a closed format or not?

I'm thinking that if we could solve the offset issue, this combination would be the silver bullet.  One file for all the raw data/audio one file to describe it.  Though this prevents fancier storage techniques of selectively compressing the audio... but then you don't have much usability in that situation (HDD space is cheap anyways!)

So what if we petition Alcohol 120% developers to include offset correction (you'd have to determine it on your own)?  Then we have ONE easy step (once configured) to dump a game.  Yes, you'd have to verify it, so do it 2x, and try another reader.  But then that is the point of an online database to compare to. 

Maybe we can put together a fund to encourage the developers.  I wouldn't mind giving a few bucks to have Alcohol take care of all my imaging needs (especially those weird mixed-data-audio-hybrid music CDs that can't be exactly reproduced using EAC). 

Just an idea!

  • Registered: 2009-08-28
  • Posts: 201

You are not going to achieve anything. Alcohol wont give their format open like that. Besides you still need to verify each track seperately. And subless mdf=img=bin. And i dont know if mds handles multi files.

I was thinking recently but didnt post it maybe dumpers should provide an extra checksums for the single-bin or .img file of a game. At least for verified (green) dumps. By mounting and redumping with clonecd. I tested this on a game recently and of course redumping it from the virtual drive with the same settings in EAC except 0 offset. It matched.

  • Nexy
  • Nexy
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  • Registered: 2009-10-24
  • Posts: 867

You can't make or edit an mdf, that's the main problem, only alcohol or converter tool like ultraiso can make it.

Pakkiso also uses the cue for proper naming when compressing/decompressing.

Alcohol, Clone CD and other dumping tools cannot extract audio correctly either. Audio is saved on disc in raw sectors with no ECC checksums, so the data must be reads several times per sectors to ensure that it has been read correctly.

Also Alcohol and CloneCD will happily buzz right over errored sectors in the data track and try to fix them with error correction, so you don't know if your slightly scratched disc is read properly or not.

Plextor PX-760A 1.07 (+30) : Plextor PX-716SA 1.11 (+30) : Plextor PX-W5224A 1.04 (+30) : Plextor PX-W4824 1.07 (+30) : Plextor PX-W4012TA 1.07 (+98) : Plextor PX-W1610TA (+99) : Plextor PX-W1210TA 1.10 (+99) : Lite-On LTR-48246S (+6) : Lite-On LTR-52246S (+6) : Lite-On LH-20A1H LL0DN (+6) : BenQ DW1655 BCIB (+618) : ASUS DRW-2014L1 1.02 (+6) : Yamaha CRW-F1 (+733) : Optiarc SA-7290H5 1H44 (+48) : ASUS BW-16D1HT 3.02 (+6)
  • Registered: 2006-12-24
  • Posts: 3,847

ccd files _probably_ will be added in the future (along with the subs), but definetely not mds (ccd is readable, mds is not).

  • Isis
  • Dumper
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  • Registered: 2007-12-10
  • Posts: 31

Seems the closed nature of MDS will kill it (didn't know ccd was readable!  cool!). 

My biggest concern was that CUE was not up to the task of perfectly recreating the original structure of the disk and that MDS somehow did (mainly because of my inability in the past to dump audio cds with data tracks, but seems you guys have figured it out!). 

I have a large mds/mdf library of my games, and didn't want to convert to bin/cue only to find out I thew away some "needed" information.

6 Reply by Nexy (edited by Nexy 2009-12-21 20:56:28)

  • Nexy
  • Nexy
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  • Registered: 2009-10-24
  • Posts: 867

MDS/MDF is really only need for securom, tages and starforce which needs DPM. Most everything else can either be in bin/cue or ccd format.

We really need an editing tool which can convert between various images and split subs etc. This way we could make sure to get a good dump of something and integrate the subs/audio into the image and still retain the DPM measurement data. But this is only needed for some cases which aren't to common.

Integrating clonecd discs out of stuff with cdextra or other special cases and would be a nice feature.

Plextor PX-760A 1.07 (+30) : Plextor PX-716SA 1.11 (+30) : Plextor PX-W5224A 1.04 (+30) : Plextor PX-W4824 1.07 (+30) : Plextor PX-W4012TA 1.07 (+98) : Plextor PX-W1610TA (+99) : Plextor PX-W1210TA 1.10 (+99) : Lite-On LTR-48246S (+6) : Lite-On LTR-52246S (+6) : Lite-On LH-20A1H LL0DN (+6) : BenQ DW1655 BCIB (+618) : ASUS DRW-2014L1 1.02 (+6) : Yamaha CRW-F1 (+733) : Optiarc SA-7290H5 1H44 (+48) : ASUS BW-16D1HT 3.02 (+6)