The VH Trade Site Forums Archives

[Revo11]

After dinking around on this website, the EAC site, Hydrogen Audio, and other sites, I am beginning to get a handle on ripping and burning, but I need to get confirmation from some of you, if possible.

I installed EAC on my computer, with the FLAC encoder. I haven't gotten around to installing the other encoders yet.

I ripped "Complete Zero" onto my hard drive by using "Action>Copy Image and Create Cue Sheet>Uncompressed". That created a large WAV file, with a CUE sheet. I was then able to burn a CD by using Tools>Write CD-R>File>Load Cue Sheet.

The CD seems to be fine, the song titles were transferred, etc... One weird thing though, when I play the CD with Foobar 2000, there are no song titles in the menu.

So, Question 1 is - Did I rip and burn properly, i.e., is this disk formatted in a way that you would expect to receive in a trade (that's probably my most important question)? How would I make a disk with just FLAC files? Which format is preferred?

Question 2 is - Why don't song titles appear in Foobar?

Question 3 is - I understand that "Copy Image and Create Cue Sheet" is a one-time thing for burning a CD, but not necessarily the format that you want to save your files onto your HD. Do I need to copy these files twice to my HD, once as WAV files and once as FLAC files? If I copy the tracks to my HD, how do I ensure that a Cue Sheet is available, without going back to my original CD?

Sorry if these questions seem very basic, I truly have read through the FAQs and threads, but some things are still not clear to me.

Thanks in advance to your help.

[frankm]

Wow, you are quite a head of the curve, many people don't bother with track titles in the CUE Sheet. I'm impressed, keep up the good work.

A couple questions for you.

Do other discs show the song titles in Foobar? I don't use it so I'm not certain. Did the original disc show the song titles?

Not all CD Players or Drives support the CD-Text feature which is what it sounds like you are looking at.

It sounds like you did everything properly. If you open the CUE Sheet in NotePad does it display the song titles?

Using EAC you can create a CUE Sheet for separate files, not sure of the exact wording within EAC but I know I've done it.

You can rip from EAC as individual files and then with the CUE Sheet for separate files you've got something slightly different from the one large file. Personally I prefer this as if one track doesn't rip properly I can re-rip that one track instead of re-ripping the whole disc.

Ah, format, FLAC seems to be the most popular. SHN is pretty popular too. I use FLAC the most but I'm pretty flexible as far as the widest acceptance ... FLAC is pretty much taking over the landscape.

OOOooooo ... if you share your CUE Sheet, like I like to do ... open it using NotePad and remove the File Path. EAC will include the entire Drive, Path and Filename ... if the CUE Sheet and the Files are in the same directory or same folder than it only needs the Filename so I remove the rest. It can cause issues when sharing. This simlifies things.

So, here we go ...

Question 1 ... It sounds like you did everything properly and that is how I'd expect to receive a CDA if we were to trade. If you wanted to make a FLAC disc, I would rip track by track and then convert the WAV files to FLAC using Traders Little Helper ... create a FLAC Fingerprint, TLH will do this for you too! FLAC is probably the most favorite format.

Question 2 ... I don't use Foobar so I'm not certain, did the original disc show the song titles? Are the song titles in the CUE Sheet? Does your CD Burner support CD-Text? I think there is also something in EAC you need to check but I can't recall.

Question 3 ... The best method is to rip as WAV and then convert to FLAC, two separate steps not one. If you use Traders Little Helper there is an option to delete Input file which will delete the WAV after it creates the FLAC but it also has a double check feature and asked you even when you have it checked, I think that is kindda nice so you don't do something by mistake. You can save the CUE Sheet on your Hard Drive to use in the future. I often burn the Cue Sheet to disc with the FLAC files so if I want to burn a CDA in the future I can just decode and with the CUE Sheet burn.

[Revo11]

Thanks for the detailed response Frank, that's very helpful.

Do most traders send out disks without titles? I just assumed that I was expected to do that.

I looked at the CUE sheet, and the song titles were not displayed. They are not displayed on the burned CD either, so I'm not doing things correctly. The titles were on the original CD, and the titles are also displayed for the FLAC files on my HD when I open EAC.

I've not heard of Traders Little Helper. I was hoping that EAC would solve all of my needs, because I dislike trying to integrate multiple programs, but maybe I'll give it a look. I've also been reading about REACT, but I haven't gotten a chance to look into it yet.

So, I'm getting close. As soon as I debug my process for audio CDs, I'll begin my DVD education. Hopefully the learning curve won't be quite as steep.

Thanks for your help!

frankm wrote: Wow, you are quite a head of the curve, many people don't bother with track titles in the CUE Sheet. I'm impressed, keep up the good work.

A couple questions for you.

Do other discs show the song titles in Foobar? I don't use it so I'm not certain. Did the original disc show the song titles?

Not all CD Players or Drives support the CD-Text feature which is what it sounds like you are looking at.

It sounds like you did everything properly. If you open the CUE Sheet in NotePad does it display the song titles?

Using EAC you can create a CUE Sheet for separate files, not sure of the exact wording within EAC but I know I've done it.

You can rip from EAC as individual files and then with the CUE Sheet for separate files you've got something slightly different from the one large file. Personally I prefer this as if one track doesn't rip properly I can re-rip that one track instead of re-ripping the whole disc.

Ah, format, FLAC seems to be the most popular. SHN is pretty popular too. I use FLAC the most but I'm pretty flexible as far as the widest acceptance ... FLAC is pretty much taking over the landscape.

OOOooooo ... if you share your CUE Sheet, like I like to do ... open it using NotePad and remove the File Path. EAC will include the entire Drive, Path and Filename ... if the CUE Sheet and the Files are in the same directory or same folder than it only needs the Filename so I remove the rest. It can cause issues when sharing. This simlifies things.

So, here we go ...

Question 1 ... It sounds like you did everything properly and that is how I'd expect to receive a CDA if we were to trade. If you wanted to make a FLAC disc, I would rip track by track and then convert the WAV files to FLAC using Traders Little Helper ... create a FLAC Fingerprint, TLH will do this for you too! FLAC is probably the most favorite format.

Question 2 ... I don't use Foobar so I'm not certain, did the original disc show the song titles? Are the song titles in the CUE Sheet? Does your CD Burner support CD-Text? I think there is also something in EAC you need to check but I can't recall.

Question 3 ... The best method is to rip as WAV and then convert to FLAC, two separate steps not one. If you use Traders Little Helper there is an option to delete Input file which will delete the WAV after it creates the FLAC but it also has a double check feature and asked you even when you have it checked, I think that is kindda nice so you don't do something by mistake. You can save the CUE Sheet on your Hard Drive to use in the future. I often burn the Cue Sheet to disc with the FLAC files so if I want to burn a CDA in the future I can just decode and with the CUE Sheet burn.

[frankm]

Don't be so quick to assume you are doing things wrong. It sounds to me like you are doing most things correctly. I doubt most people expect CD-Text to be a part of their discs in trade. In EAC CD-Text actually appears in two spots but I'm not at home right now so I can't tell you exactly where it is. If I have time this evening and if I remember I'll look it up and post again.

If you are trading FLAC/SHN then the CUE Sheet and CD-Text becomes even more irrelevant. I have seen some file names like "Track01.flac", "Track02.flac" and so forth. Personally I prefer file names like "vanhalen19771231t01.flac", "vanhalen19771231t02.flac" and so forth. For me filenames are BAND, YEAR, MONTH, DATE, a "d" if there is more than one disc, "t" for track and then the number of the track.

[Revo11]

Thanks again Frank, I think I've gotten things figured out. Now that I've gotten everything configured properly, I'm amazed at what a great program EAC is.

As far the as CD-Text thing goes, it turns out that my CD writer isn't capable (ahem) of writing text.

Maybe I should have checked that first, instead of wracking my brain for six hours. I'll just look at that as one of life's little lessons - don't ignore the obvious.