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Topic: Why do people use images & cuesheets? (Read 25392 times) previous topic - next topic
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Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #25 –
Quote from: valnar on
Quote from: greynol on
As a statement of fact or opinion argued from some kind of authority, this is nonsense.  Otherwise it's just an opinion which is probably better kept to oneself.  I don't go around telling someone that it's wrong to dip their fries in ketchup.


No, if I want to keep the CD intact, it's the best way.  If that is not your goal, then fine. 


No hes correct, its not a fact, its just your opinion and nothing more.

Quote from: valnar on
But to tell me or anyone that it's wrong to do it that way.... is wrong.


He didn't say its the wrong way to rip, he said you are wrong.  Theres a pretty big difference.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #26 –
Quote from: valnar on
No, if I want to keep the CD intact, it's the best way.  If that is not your goal, then fine.  But to tell me or anyone that it's wrong to do it that way.... is wrong.  It is indeed the best option.  And actually, I don't even need the cue sheet.  It's embedded into the FLAC file, which Foobar recognizes.  Although I do keep the CUE sheet too.

You apparently only listen to single songs, or like to shuffle them.  That is fine, but try to do that with movements of classical music that go together.  The entirety of the album is important to many people.  It's too bad you don't see that.

I don't get why you can do this with a single file only, but not with seperated tracks. Is there anything you miss out?

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #27 –
No. Only if you deviate from the default settings and explicitly choose to eliminate gaps. Some people could miss out on a weird kind of fetish, it seems.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #28 –
Quote from: valnar on
You apparently only listen to single songs, or like to shuffle them.

Actually no, I usually listen to entire albums, including those that have tracks that run together as one continuous piece of music.  Gapless playback hasn't been an issue for me for quite some time.  Now granted, sometimes lossy encodes can have a discontinuity in amplitude at the transition, but lossless encodes sure don't.  If I find a situation where it's audible, I can easily create a new lossy encode from a pair or set of consecutive lossless tracks in only a few mouse clicks.

...but if I want to listen to a single track or shuffle them, I can without any trouble.

I find it somewhat strange that you would make such an assumption about my listening habits.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #29 –
Quote from: rpp3po on
Some people could miss out on a weird kind of fetish, it seems.

I apologize if I've spoiled the fun by exposing this well-kept secret that individual tracks can be played back without gaps.

PS: For those people who want to group movements together, you can always use a playlist.  Not only does this work for tracks as individual files, it will work for tracks selected from a cue sheet for a single file image as well.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #31 –
Quote from: onkl on
I don't get why you can do this with a single file only, but not with seperated tracks. Is there anything you miss out?
Quote from: rpp3po on
No. Only if you deviate from the default settings and explicitly choose to eliminate gaps. Some people could miss out on a weird kind of fetish, it seems.
Even though greynol has quite rightly pointed out that you can retain every part of the CD if ripping to tracks I do think it is worth noting that you do have to put in a little extra work to rip HTOA tracks, which you don't if you rip to image.  Many who rip to tracks probably just ignore/lose these.

I rip to image as I find it a quicker and easier way to rip and store as back-up.  I do play MP3 tracks and find individual tracks far easier to play; however for back-up purposes, I just like the fact that I can set a CD going and know that I have all the data recorded in one WV file.
I'm on a horse.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #32 –
Wow, a pretty active discussion I've started.  Thx for replies.

I've figured, that img+cue is a quite maximalist approach - save as many as possible of the information that can be read from CD: gaps, codes, hidden tracks, etc. Well, this is the ultimate way to backup Audio CD. But... Do we really need to BACKUP them (not just extract audio data)?

The backup process assumes that original will be restored if needed. But I can't see any reason to burn exact copy of Audio CD to another disc (unless you are the pirate who copies the master-CD and then sells the copies). If your car sound system supports only CDDA, just burn the tracks on CD-R, you don't have any advantage from burned special codes, anyway. Generated CUE can be used to verify the rip, but where's the reason to keep it?

In a case of lossless format (which is, I believe, is a common practice among advanced audio listeners), separate tracks can be played gapless (simply, or via extra step of combining to a one big file), the sound is not distorted (since it's compressed losslessly), so, for your ears it's the same thing as if you were listening the original CD. Again, where's the reason for me to create, store and manage cuesheet for album?

And last thing. As I've already said, single tracks are widespread. Tell me name of the audio player, other than Foobar2000 which is brilliant piece of software, which can handle img+cue easily. At the same time, single tracks are supported by ANY player.

P.S. When I wrote words about "magic" in my first post, I wasn't ironic. I seriously don't understand the user purpose of extracted information, other than audio stream.

P.P.S. Like many of you guys, I prefer to not mess with playlists and shuffling, too. Just listening entire album in original track order, seeing it as a whole one. 
Caede te ipsum per murum.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #33 –
Hi,
I use image with (embedded) cuesheet for archival purposes and listening at home. I think that it is much easier to handle one single file per CD (and it lets me in some way also feel better the entity of the CD) and I have not to care about tags.
Then, with this wonderful player foobar2000 is, listening is the same, just if it were single files.
Harald

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #34 –
Quote from: Zloboglaz on
I've figured, that img+cue is a quite maximalist approach - save as many as possible of the information that can be read from CD: gaps, codes, hidden tracks, etc. Well, this is the ultimate way to backup Audio CD. But... Do we really need to BACKUP them (not just extract audio data)?


What is so hard to understand? There isn't a single bit of information that is not stored in a multiple track + cuesheet approach and preferring singular images isn't a "maximalist" approach in any way.

I can perfectly accept the use of singular images as convenient backup medium. But promoting them as a more appropriate playback medium, because multiple tracks would take anything out of context, just seems a little 'fixated', to put it mildly.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #35 –
Quote from: rpp3po on
What is so hard to understand? There isn't a single bit of information that is not stored in a multiple track + cuesheet approach. Preferring singular images isn't a "maximalist" approach in any way.


I didn't say that I prefer single image file over a couple of tracks with cue. I wonder, if we really need to use the cuesheet itself. Personally, I think that couple of files in lossless format, properly tagged with Artist-Ablum-Title-etc, is enough representation of original Audio CD staying on my shelf.

And for now, I'm trying to understand if storing of the information in a cuesheet is absolutely necessary, or it is just a good tradition.
Caede te ipsum per murum.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #36 –
Quote from: Zloboglaz on
Do we really need to BACKUP them (not just extract audio data)

The backup process assumes that original will be restored if needed. But I can't see any reason to burn exact copy of Audio CD to another disc (unless you are the pirate who copies the master-CD and then sells the copies).
I think that this is an interesting point; one that I have considered a few times previously.

Even though I back-up to image, I often wonder if I will ever do anything with my back-up except make lossy track files from it, either if a disk dies or MP3 is finally usurped.  With this in mind, backing-up in "CD format" is a little misdirected.

My lazy response is that by using images I know I have all the information there*, and I can worry about what to do with it as and when I have to, which may be never, or at least a long time in the future when I will hopefully have more time on my hands.  I'd rather ensure that I have everything stored, and worry about what to do with it when I have to.

* I know I can also do this with tracks, but not necessarily (e.g.: HTOA tracks) with one click.
I'm on a horse.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #37 –
Quote from: Zloboglaz on
I didn't say that I prefer single image file over a couple of tracks with cue.

What you did say is that img+cue is a "maximalist" approach which is simply untrue if "img" is strictly defined as one single file. 

That said and although I do prefer to deal with separate files per track, having kept my collection as single-file images prior to switching because I liked the elegance in the minimalist approach of being able to keep an entire album in just one single file with an embedded cue sheet,  I realize where you're coming from, Zloboglaz (and I have to credit sauvage78 from seeing this from the start).  Whether CUE sheets are absolutely necessary depends on what you're trying to accomplish, and in your case, it would seem that the answer to this is no.

I think the lesson to be learned here is that people often have legitimate reasons for doing things the way they do, so long as they aren't basing these on misunderstandings or incorrect knowledge.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #38 –
Quote from: Synthetic Soul on
* I know I can also do this with tracks, but not necessarily (e.g.: HTOA tracks) with one click.

Only if your drive can extract HTOA in the first place, of course, but I do see your point as well.

It was never my intention to disparage single-file images, rather it was to address the common myth that they are the only guaranteed way to have the most complete snapshot of a Red Book CD using EAC.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #39 –
Quote from: greynol on
Only if your drive can extract HTOA in the first place, of course, but I do see your point as well.
Indeed.  And given the infrequency of these tracks, and the fact that in my experience one listen is normally enough, the importance of this feature shouldn't be overstated.

Quote from: greynol on
It was never my intention to disparage  single-file images, rather it was to address the common myth that they  are the only guaranteed way to have the most complete snapshot of a Red  Book CD using EAC.
I certainly think it is a point worth making. However, it seemed to me that the barometer was beginning to swing too much the other way (by no fault of an individual), which is why I felt the need to chip in.  As you said:

Quote from: greynol on
I think  the lesson to be learned here is that people often have legitimate  reasons for doing things the way they do, so long as they aren't basing  these on misunderstandings or incorrect knowledge.
Amen.  In my case: sheer laziness!
I'm on a horse.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #40 –
Sheer laziness indeed, but I'm still old school and like to listen to albums as a whole, and so it makes more sense to me to rip to image with embedded cuesheet.
Surf's Up!
"Columnated Ruins Domino"

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #41 –
Well I use one FLAC file + CUE, per album, and I love it.

Some simple reasons behind this decision:
1) Annoying problems with overlapping tracks can be fixed easily:
  + Suppose track 1 is the introduction to track 2. The end of track 1 contains cymbal sounds increasing in volume. Track 2 SHOULD start after the cymbals: with a kick-drum, cymbal and a guitar chord stum, for example.
  + The original CD is slightly screwed, because track 2 starts 0.1 seconds too early/too late
  + If you are listening to individual tracks in shuffle mode, or if you simply skip track 1 at any time instead of listening to track 1 and track 2 together, you will have to bear with a horrible click or some unwanted sounds
  * -> So with a cuesheet, you just need to make a simple change with notepad, and your music now sounds like it's meant to. Without this format, you have to re-rip the offending songs and/or do everything manually with a sound editor.

2) tags: I hate ID3 and FLAC metadata [i hate embeded cuesheets too]... having to embed information inside a file is a pain. If you ever want to correct something, you need to modify each and every file where a tag is messed up. Dealing with cues this becomes much easier. I know there are very good mass tagging programs out there, but why even bother: cue sheets are better for my needs. If you suddenly decide, for example, you want to verify the capitalization of your whole music collection, you can write a program to do it easily. Also, i love the fact you can add REM to cuesheets and add your own metadata. It will be ignored by all programs, but you can always implement your own plugin to make use of the remarks. In some cases it's just useful to read those comments manually by opening the cuesheet with notepad. For example: A song by Dream Theater that is 20-something minutes long might have one main title, but, various section names. With REMs you can store all the section names as well.

3) If i find some click/pop sound while listening, or anything else that annoys me [for example, a 6 second gap of silence between tracks], i can always extract the FLAC into a WAV file and edit it with any sound editor without loosing quality, or worrying about the effect this change may have on other tracks (especially when eliminating unecessarily long silent sections: I like 2 second gaps)

4) My player supports it: foobar2000 rocks. I don't care about winamp reading .cues... who cares

5) My DAP does not like cues nor flac files, but you can always use CUETools to split your images, and then make them mp3s. With my computer it only takes a few minutes per CD.

6) If i ever decide to switch to APE or WavPack or whatever, then the metadata will stay

So my real question is: WHY NOT use images and cuesheets?

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #42 –
I haven't seen anybody mention these reasons why I use tracks vs. single image:

1.  I was under the impression that to use AccurateRip with EAC, you have to rip as single tracks (this may or may not be true, but I understand it to be the case).
2.  When ripping damaged CDs, if some tracks have errors, I can re-rip just the tracks with errors as opposed to having to re-rip the entire CD again.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #43 –
Quote from: ricecake on
1.  I was under the impression that to use AccurateRip with EAC, you have to rip as single tracks (this may or may not be true, but I understand it to be the case).
2.  When ripping damaged CDs, if some tracks have errors, I can re-rip just the tracks with errors as opposed to having to re-rip the entire CD again.

1. No. EAC does AccurateRip when ripping as image.
2. Those are in fact two different choices, how to rip and how to store the result. At one point i was ripping as a wav image, and splitting into tracks and encoding to flac afterwards (because i don't like how EAC interacts with encoders and how does it handles tagging etc). It's also possible to rip as tracks and encode to a single image afterwards. It makes sense when cd is damaged and you want to rip a certain track until your cd-drive dies, but for normal cd's ripping as an image is easier, faster and safer.
CUETools 2.1.6

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #44 –
Quote from: Gregory S. Chudov on
for normal cd's ripping as an image is easier, faster and safer.

 

Please elaborate on all three points.  I see no reason why any of them are necessarily true.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #45 –
1) EAC's UI has a convinient button to rip a cd image + cue in one click. When ripping by tracks, you'll need more clicks and there are more chances for a mistake - e.g. you can rip tracks with gaps appended and rip a cue sheet with gaps prepended or vise versa.
2) When ripping a separate track, i several times noticed EAC having problems at the first sector of the track. It managed to correct them and go on normally, but the ripping speed decreased big time. I've no idea why, but i from my experience in writing a ripping program, i can guess that cd drives like it when the data is read sequentially and without pauses. Pauses and seek operations cause problems.
3) HTOA
CUETools 2.1.6

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #46 –
Quote from: Gregory S. Chudov on
When ripping by tracks, you'll need more clicks and there are more chances for a mistake - e.g. you can rip tracks with gaps appended and rip a cue sheet with gaps prepended or vise versa.
Nonsense.  Press the mp3 button and you have tracks ripping in the standard way.

Quote from: Gregory S. Chudov on
When ripping a separate track, i several times noticed EAC having problems at the first sector of the track.
While I've seen this with a few discs with one particular drive, it doesn't happen in burst mode.  Probably a bug with EAC.

Quote from: Gregory S. Chudov on
HTOA
...if your disc has it and your drive can rip it, but it's not like image ripping is the only way to get at this data.  What percentage of your discs have HTOA that is something other than null samples?

So you've detailed a situation where ripping an image can be be faster.  You haven't sold me on easier or safer.

Meanwhile, in the event that you have a track that's ripped in error that can be ripped correctly through successive tries, single-file image ripping is far more cumbersome.

I've really never had an issue with EAC's tagging or handling of external codecs.

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #47 –
Quote from: greynol on
Press the mp3 button and you have tracks ripping in the standard way.

Without gap detection and the cue sheet. That's two more buttons. While the IMG button does everything right away.

Quote from: greynol on
Meanwhile, in the event that you have a track that's ripped in error that can be ripped correctly through successive tries, single-file image ripping is far more cumbersome.

I'm flexible. I rip an image, then i rerip a problematic track if i need to. I split the image into tracks and replace the problematic one with the best copy. There's no problem with that. Not that it happens very often - EAC rips most CDs correctly from the first try, and if it doesn't, second try rarely helps.

Quote from: greynol on
I've really never had an issue with EAC's tagging or handling of external codecs.

Well, i have at least two issues. First is unicode support. Freedb is capable of unicode entries, but EAC doesn't support that. More than that, freedb protocol says that when non-unicode entries are all in latin-1 encoding, while EAC treats them like they are in your system's default ANSI encoding. My system's default ANSI encoding is not latin1, so EAC even gets it wrong for european music. And even if EAC did support unicode for freedb, it passes tags to flac.exe via command line, and command line is never unicode. Second issue is a lack of musicbrainz support, which has better edited entries.
CUETools 2.1.6
 

Why do people use images & cuesheets?

Reply #48 –
Quote from: Gregory S. Chudov on
Without gap detection and the cue sheet. That's two more buttons.

1) Manual gap detection is not necessary to create a cue sheet.
2) I would wager to say that most people who rip separate tracks don't really care about cue sheets
3) Generating a cue sheet is simple enough, if you want it.
4) IIRC, REACT makes this effortless.

Quote from: Gregory S. Chudov on
Not that it happens very often - EAC rips most CDs correctly from the first try, and if it doesn't, second try rarely helps.

Probably on the order of discs with legitimate HTOA given your average collection.

Quote from: Gregory S. Chudov on
First is unicode support. Freedb is capable of unicode entries, but EAC doesn't support that.

I think Andre is working on that.

FWIW, I was a former image ripper and often used to use a wave editor to splice rips with bad portions using good data from, you guessed it: re-ripping.  It was quite tedious.  To this day I still patch bad portions of tracks with good portions using a wave editor.  Because the amount of data being loaded and saved, it's less tedious.  The end result has always been verifiable with AR, provided the disc is in the database [even if from a different pressing or different disc ID (musicbrainz is the bomb)].