1Frequently Asked Questions 2 3Status 4====== 5 6 7Q: What is the copyright status of cdda2wav? 8 9A: Cdda2wav is software copyrighted by Heiko Eissfeldt and released under the 10 COMMON DEVELOPMENT AND DISTRIBUTION LICENSE (see file CDDL.Schily.txt). 11 12Compilation 13=========== 14 15 16Q: What are the requirements to run cdda2wav? 17 18A: All operating systems that are supported by cdrecord should also be able to 19 run cdda2wav. Currently DOS and Windows are not covered. 20 Requirements of previous versions of cdda2wav have been cut down for the 21 sake of portability. Features like fork(), realtime scheduling, or shared 22 memory are all optional now. You need a shell, which runs autoconf, a c 23 compiler (even a K&R compiler should work) and a c library to build cdda2wav 24 on a supported operating system. To run cdda2wav, a SCSI transport 25 implementation for the os, a cdrom or cd burner device to read from, and 26 at least say 65K of memory for buffers are needed. 27 28 29Q: Why does it not compile under Linux, although I am using the newest kernel? 30 31A: There have been changes in the generic driver by Douglas Gilbert, that are 32 in its first release not compatible with the scsi library from Joerg 33 Schilling. We are working on this problem... 34 In the meantime better do not use this variant, use the older one instead. 35 36 37Q: Why does it not compile using standard make? 38 39A: Like cdrecord, cdda2wav needs a sophisticated make program like Joerg 40 Schilling's smake or GNU gmake. Pure posix make functionality is not enough. 41 42Setting Up (for now Linux only) 43=============================== 44 45 46Q: Should I use scsi emulation or the eide driver for my ATAPI cdrom drive? 47 48A: Scsi emulation is preferred, since it enables cdda2wav to use more commands 49 and is often the only way to get special information like track titles with 50 cd-text. The emulation module is called ide-scsi, the eide module is called 51 ide-cd. 52 53 54Q: How can I use my parallel-port-connected cdrom with cdda2wav? 55 56A: Under Linux there is a driver, that makes this device under SCSI 57 emulation available. For more information see the cdrecord documentation. 58 59 60Q: How do I check, if the current Linux kernel does support generic SCSI? 61 62A: run 'cat /proc/devices | grep "21 sg"' and see, if a line with 'sg' appears. 63 If it does not appear, the current kernel is not able to use the generic_scsi 64 interface. If you have generic SCSI support compiled as a module, see next 65 question, otherwise you need to recompile the kernel and enable generic SCSI. 66 You might try to use the 'cooked_ioctl' interface as a last resort, but then 67 you need to supply a cdrom device with -D (like -D/dev/cdrom). In this case 68 cdda2wav completely relies on the cdda reading methods from the kernel 69 driver, so it might not work (due to unsupported). 70 71 72Q: How do I load the generic SCSI module by hand? 73 74A: run 'insmod sg' and check the result (see above). 75 76 77Q: How do I find the device setting for my drive? 78 79A: Under Linux use the script scan_scsi.Linux. It prints the available devices 80 and their respective device option to be used. 81 Be aware of the fact that the generic device naming may change whenever the 82 devices on the SCSI bus change (present or not present). 83 84General usage (sampling) 85======================== 86 87 88Q: How do I record the whole cd, each track in a seperate file? 89 90A: Use the '-B' option. This will automagically create a file for each track. 91 92 93Q: How do I record the whole cd into one file? 94 95A: Just extend the default recording time from one track to a big enough 96 time in seconds to cover the whole cd (like -d99999). 97 98 99Q: How do I record successive tracks (a track range) into seperate files? 100 101A: Use the '-B' option and -t<first tracknumber>+<last track number>. 102 103 104Q: How do I record successive tracks (a track range) into one file? 105 106A: Use -t<first tracknumber>+<last track number>. 107 108 109Q: How do I record different tracks into seperate files with individual file 110 names? 111 112A: Use the supplied script 'readmult'. For usage see the comments at the 113 beginning of the script. 114 115 116Q: How can I get the highest speed out of cdda2wav? 117 118A: See the file README. There is a section about performance and what is 119 influencing it. 120 121 122Q: How can I burn audio cds with cdda2wav and cdrecord on-the-fly? 123 124A: This has not been tested very well, so caveat emptor. It is possible to 125 use cdda2wav and cdrecord with pipes, _but_ there are several issues. 126 1.: The cd drive may become too slow to keep cdrecords buffer happy, when 127 a scratch on the audio cd is encountered, and several retries take place. 128 2.: Currently there is no way to carry individual track information from 129 cdda2wav to cdrecord. Several information bits are available very late 130 but are needed in advance from cdrecord. 131 3.: Some operating systems have limitations in multiple SCSI accesses and 132 other ressources (shared memory). cdda2wav and cdrecord may block each 133 other, or might fight over limited ressources. 134 For these reasons it is not recommended to burn on-the-fly with cdda2wav. 135 136Frontends 137========= 138 139 140Q: Which frontends for cdda2wav are available? 141 142A: See the file 'Frontends'. There are command line and graphical frontends. 143 144Album and track titles 145====================== 146 147 148Q: Does cdda2wav support titles from cd extra (aka cd plus aka enhanced cd)? 149 150A: In general, yes. In order to get this information, cdda2wav needs to read 151 a data sector from the second session of the cd. This requires multisession 152 support and the capability to read XA sectors. The titles are printed on the 153 screen and written into the inf files, then. 154 155 156Q: Does cdda2wav support titles from cd-text? 157 158A: Newer versions support the most important features of cd-text like titles 159 and creators. Non-supported are currently 16-bit characters, so asian 160 titles etc. are currently not available. 161 162 163Q: Does cdda2wav support CDDB ids? 164 165A: Yes, while it does not make CDDB lookups itself, it supplies an cddb file 166 with the table of contents and the cddb id. For cddb lookups see the 167 perl script tracknames.pl and tracknames.txt. If the titles are known to 168 cdda2wav, it fills the titles itself in the cddb file. 169 170 171Q: What is the MCN? 172 173A: The media catalog number is an unique id for the audio cd release. It is 174 similar to the ISBN for books, but unfortunately it is included only on 175 some audio cds. 176 177 178Q: What is the ISRC? 179 180A: The International Standard Record Code is an unique id for a track. Like the 181 MCN (see above) it is an optional item. 182 183MP3 coding 184========== 185 186 187Q: Does cdda2wav support on-the-fly mp3-coding? 188 189A: Yes. As of version 1.9alpha I integrated the LAME encoding engine as a new 190 output format. 191 To support external encoders, I added two scripts. The trick 192 is to avoid big temporary files. There are three versions (cdda2mp3.file, 193 cdda2mp3.pipe, and cdda2mp3.fifo), the first using files, the second uses 194 pipes, and the last uses a named pipe (also called fifo). The examples 195 use the Fraunhofer encoder 'l3enc', which is a commercial product and has 196 to be purchased seperately. Other encoders should be usable in a similar way. 197 198Conversions 199=========== 200 201 202Q: How do I create a file suitable for cd burning? 203 204A: If you are using cdrecord, you can produce cdr or wav files. To select 205 cdr files, use -Ocdr, to select wav files use -Owav (the default). 206 Audio files that have been recorded with a length not a multiple of the 207 audio sector size 2352 bytes, should be used with cdrecords -pad option. 208 209 210Q: How do I convert a wav file into a cdr file (my other cd burning program 211 does not accept wav format)? 212 213A: Use 'dd if=wavfile of=cdrfile conv=swab ibs=44 skip=1 obs=2352' 214 215 216Q: How to convert cdr to wav? 217 218A: Use sox, the sound utility. It supports other formats as well. 219 220Specials 221======== 222 223 224Q: Does cdda2wav support the pre-emphasis bit? 225 226A: If the table of contents marks a track as pre-emphasized, the corresponding 227 inf file will have this information, too. That enables a cd burning program 228 to retain the state of the track. 229 230 231Q: Can cdda2wav undo the pre-emphasis effect in the samples? 232 233A: Yes, if the -T option is given (and cd quality is selected), 234 cdda2wav filters the samples with the reverse emphasis on-the-fly. This has 235 been checked with a sine sweep from a pre-emphasized test cd. 236 237 238Q: My cdrom delivers the stereo channels swapped. How can I undo this? 239 240A: Use the -cs option. 241 242 243Q: Does cdda2wav support indices? 244 245A: Yes, but since there are positioning problems with a lot of drives, 246 information might be inaccurate. A start index can be specified with the 247 -i option. To get all indices, use the -v7 option. 248 249 250Q: Can cdda2wav avoid including the pre-gap region at the end of the track? 251 252A: Currently not. This might be added later, but is not easily done. 253 254 255Q: How can I get all information about the cd without writing files? 256 257A: Use the -J option, which switches analysis to the max, and aborts after 258 the report. 259 260 261Q: Can cdda2wav display/save the graphics on my CD+graphics disc? 262 263A: No, this is not planned. A seperate X11 program could do that probably 264 better. 265 266 267Q: Can cdda2wav read the audio portion from my CD-I/Video-CD/DVD mpeg streams? 268 269A: No, these are special formats, which require much more effort. 270 271User support/feedback 272===================== 273 274 275Q: Cdda2wav is great. How can I support you to encourage further development? 276 277A: Look into the file NEEDED. Also constructive criticism and feedback is 278 appreciated. 279 280 281Q: I want to port cdrtools (cdrecord/mkisofs/cdda2wav) to a new platform (like 282 DJGPP,cygwin,os/2). How should I proceed? 283 284A: It would be convenient to have a unix like environment (like cygwin provides) A shell, and a make program would be needed to first create smake (in order 285 to make the makefile system working). Another critical component is autoconf. 286 Once that is running, os dependent interfaces and the SCSI library should be 287 adjusted. For the makefile system and the scsi library please contact Joerg 288 Schilling. 289 290 291Q: Cdda2wav sucks. Are there other alternatives available? 292 293A: Yes, for Linux you might try 'cdparanoia' from Monty (see README file). 294