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Topic: Is it accurate/ok to EAC-rip songs off a virtual drive? (Read 6323 times) previous topic - next topic
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Is it accurate/ok to EAC-rip songs off a virtual drive?

Simple query really:  In regards to using EAC to securely rip CDDA tracks to disk, can perfection still be maintained when mounting a CD image (say, a game-based one) to a virtual drive (i.e. Daemon Tools) and choosing to rip from that?

I'm aware about drive offsets having to be adjusted to a specific setting depending on the drive (if it's not already set for you by AccurateRip of course), but seeing as (modern) virtual drives can be under any name it wants, would this be a cause for concern?  Or can one get away with leaving the offset marked as 0?

I reckon it would be a real time-saver compared to burning the image to a CD-RW, ripping slowly off of that, and erasing it afterwards.  But what do you guys think?


All help and advice appreciated.

Is it accurate/ok to EAC-rip songs off a virtual drive?

Reply #1 –
Yes, the tracks from the virtual drive will always be a 100% perfect copy of the mounted image! In fact it's just a very unusual file conversion method.

So if the original CD image has errors, those errors will be copied perfectly in EAC. And EAC won't even notice it! Isn't that great?

You mention "game-based CD image", I suspect you have used a CD ripper that is designed to make 1:1 copy of damaged (i.e. copy protection due to deliberate damages) CDs. That's the worst ripper you can use to rip audio CDs, because those rippers are designed to ignore errors and not to detect them. Of course, they might have a error-detection and correction mode and you may have used it, in that case you might have a secure rip. But in general don't use those rippers for ripping audio CDs.


My question to you: Why do you need to do this? Why not use the original CD image? You have absolutely no gain by using this superfluous copy method.

Maybe this tool is of more interest to you: CUETOOLS! It can check the tracks against the AR database, too.

Also if you're not sure whether the CD images contain errors, you should re-rip the original audio CDs in case they're not in the AR database or in case the AR check got you no overall positive match.

PS: Using virtual drives in combination with AccurateRip leads to the deletion of all your submissions from the AR database. 

Conclusion: Whatever you're doing, don't do it. Or at least do it another way. (awating objections from other users here...)  Also note that this has been asked a thousand times before... search might lead you to very interesting threads with all the questions you might not even now know you will ask.

Is it accurate/ok to EAC-rip songs off a virtual drive?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: RevMarzikins on
Simple query really:  In regards to using EAC to securely rip CDDA tracks to disk, can perfection still be maintained when mounting a CD image (say, a game-based one) to a virtual drive (i.e. Daemon Tools) and choosing to rip from that?


It works, but a direct conversion is much more practical. CUETools was a good recommendation, Foobar might also do the job.

Quote from: RevMarzikins on
I'm aware about drive offsets having to be adjusted to a specific setting depending on the drive (if it's not already set for you by AccurateRip of course), but seeing as (modern) virtual drives can be under any name it wants, would this be a cause for concern?  Or can one get away with leaving the offset marked as 0?


CUETools would automatically take care of that. Doing it via EAC will allow you to continue using AccurateRip, but will ban you from submitting your own results.

Quote from: RevMarzikins on
I reckon it would be a real time-saver compared to burning the image to a CD-RW, ripping slowly off of that, and erasing it afterwards.  But what do you guys think?


You don't need to rip slowly from an image, read as fast as you can and the results will be identical - conversion from the physical layer has already happened. In fact, you don't even need EAC or any other secure ripper. Any regular (burst mode) ripper as BonkEnc, Nero, etc. will do. Still direct conversion would be the preferable route, as recommended.

Is it accurate/ok to EAC-rip songs off a virtual drive?

Reply #3 –
Oh, there might be one good reason to use a ripper for game CDs: copy-protected audio CDs. As they suffer from similar defects like game CD/DVDs.

But still you should use a tool like CUETools for checking those rips with AccurateRip. Using virtual drives in EAC with AccurateRip enabled is really not a good idea, apart from being more work IMHO.

Is it accurate/ok to EAC-rip songs off a virtual drive?

Reply #4 –
What a quick, and rather lengthy, reply! 


Well I'm only asking because I've kept a set of my old game CDs backed up to images for a significant time now, and some of them I don't have the original CDs of anymore.  I was keen on extracting the CDDA audio out of some of them but wasn't keen on using up CDs just to get at their music, hence the "rip-off-of-a-virtual-disc" suggestion.


I'm not bothered about AccurateRip in this case (it doesn't seem to pop up when I access a virtual disc under EAC anyhow).  And why the concern about 1:1 rippers (not sure if you're thinking of the same programs as me, but hey) preserving damaged tracks or whatever?  If they were on an original disc to begin with, and there are means of getting round them, wouldn't it be the same case with a mounted virtual image?  Of course, I can check to see if the apps I use have these "error-correction" options and what not, but surely if anything about the data was altered during the ripping process, it wouldn't even be a 1:1 image anymore?

Is it accurate/ok to EAC-rip songs off a virtual drive?

Reply #5 –
The problem is that CDDA knows no reliable error detection that is accessible to the software level, it uses CIRC which is handled by the drive's hardware itself, a software ripper doesn't get noticed by the drive if there was an error or not.

Data CDs do have an extra layer of error detection which is read out by the ripping software, operating software etc... and if the data is corrupted the software notices itself.

So audio rippers need to use special tricks to be relatively certain that an audio track was ripped error-free, re-reading sectors twice or more times and comparing the results. While not 100% perfect, it's the preferred method by many people. Another method if to compare the results from many users, that's AccurateRip. In general use burst mode (unsecure) method and AR enabled for original retail audio CDs. Chances are high that the CD is already in the database. If not set to secure mode before ripping. You can tell by the AR icon in EAC whether the CD is in the database or not.

Anyway back on topic: now I get what you mean and it changes everything. In fact your method would be the only one you could get the audio tracks. CUETools cannot get the audio tracks from such a multi-session image AFAIK. It would be a nice feature, btw... so yes, you actually have to mount it in a virtual drive and use a CD ripper.

Be aware that you do not have to use EAC's secure mode here, you can use any ripper you like. As I mentioned in the beginning of my first post, if the original rip had errors (in the audio tracks) then those will NOT get detected and corrected by EAC's secure mode or any other secure ripper. What damage was done cannot be repaired. But I wouldn't worry about that, too much.

If you still have the game CDs, re-rip them in EAC. If not convert them to WAVs using a virtual drive and any CD rippers you have available, which one you use doesn't matter. You can still use secure mode, it won't take that much longer anyway, there's simply no benefit from that over burst mode here at all.

PS: regarding error detection in game CD/DVD rippers and multi-session game CDs. Those CDs are so old, in those days they didn't even use copy protection that is based on deliberate errors on the game medium. So a "blind copy" of those game CDs isn't even necessary. A normal rip like you would do with any other data CD is sufficient. That will only get you the data part of the multi-session CD. The audio tracks can then be secure ripped with EAC or dBpoweramp... but this will get you two sets of files. Maybe you want one single image? In that case you can't be certain that the audio tracks in that image are error free. Anyway, I take it that this doesn't concern you anymore since you don't have those game CDs anymore.

Is it accurate/ok to EAC-rip songs off a virtual drive?

Reply #6 –
Accuraterip on Game-CDs? ...maybe i'm misunderstanding something here or you guys are reeeaaally on the wrong track.

N.B. EAC doesn't even rip a data-track from a regular CDDA...
Can't wait for a HD-AAC encoder :P

Is it accurate/ok to EAC-rip songs off a virtual drive?

Reply #7 –
Quote from: odyssey on
Accuraterip on Game-CDs? ...maybe i'm misunderstanding something here or you guys are reeeaaally on the wrong track.

N.B. EAC doesn't even rip a data-track from a regular CDDA...


a lot of older games had their music stored as CDDA and the game itself in a data track (Quake, Half-Life, I think, and lots of others). in that case you can use EAC to rip the music.