Copy protected CD's

Hear, hear!

On any platform, some of the very latest copy controlled discs contain loads of intentional CRC errors, so even if you can rip the disc with various jukebox software such as iTunes, you'll end up with hisses and clicks and all sorts of garbage in various places. The best way around this is to use software capable of precise CD reading and error correction. For Windows users, the best software would be EAC. For Mac users, the best software is xACT.

If your drive does interpolation on audio extraction, you'll get clean rips even if you use iTunes. If it does not (most new drives) you'll get pops and clicks no matter what ripper you use.

If your drive does interpolation on audio extraction, you'll get clean rips even if you use iTunes.

While that sounds reassuring, it's really not all that reassuring. Running, for example, diskutil info in Terminal is not going to reveal whether an Apple-supplied drive "does interpolation," as you describe it. And I don't think it's commonplace on OS X to be able to thoroughly test and verify drive capabilities as is the case on Windows computers, where you can use a number of utitlities to get a very clear idea of what your optical drive does and how well it does it.

Even when Windows users with Plextor Premium drives (arguably the best on the market) rip their CDs, they tend to use EAC or PlexTools. Just because the drive is capable of delivering the best possible results doesn't mean that it's going to happen each and every time, even with a brand new CD. And iTunes offers no verification of the accuracy of a rip. It's not even AccurateRip compatible, so you can't verify your ripping results against those of users who ripped the same disc with geeky, perfectionist software like EAC and PlexTools.

What you can do is to rip a couple of tunes in xACT and see if it reports any errors. If it doesn't, your drive is safe.

I've got one heavily mangled CD. Really mangled. I use it as a test CD sometimes for checking out different ripping software. For example, I cannot rip it cleanly with EAC in secure mode. I run into errors on the same track every time. On my Mac, the whole disc rips fine with X-CD-Roast (cdparanoia enabled with maximum retries per sector) but there are audible errors because X-CD-Roast doesn't actually allow for full paranoia mode with scratch detection and repair, and with xACT, the track with problems (as reported by EAC) also reveals minor problems (1,3% of the track is junk). Of course iTunes rips the CD without reporting any problems, and I get clearly audible problems with and without error correction enabled on the track in question.

Besides this particular damaged CD, I've ripped many, many others on my Mac with xACT. I always check the log file after ripping, and once in a while I'll have one or two imperfect tracks on a CD. In that case, I re-rip the tracks in question and usually xACT will report "successfully recorded." I have never played back a "successfully recorded" file and heard any flaws whatsoever, so I believe my Combo Drive is quite a good piece of hardware as long as I use good software. Still, because I know that results can vary with the same CDs/same drive/same software, I won't trust my ripping to any software (at least at this point in time) other than xACT when I use my Mac. If I were just interested in generating tiny AAC or MP3 files, I would probably just use iTunes to save time and effort, but I only like to rip my CDs once and save the files in a lossless format, so it's nice to avoid the unpleasantness of stumbling upon a badly ripped track once I have the time to finally listen to the music I've archived.

thanks for the reply michael, it looks like everything was dropped on the subject... including your kind words and productive suggestion to my post.

now to all: should i assume that discussing ways to thwart any drm is not illegal? isn't there a stated or at least implied copyright or other restriction either right on the cd/packaging or available via a notice of some kind of eula which can be reviewed elsewhere that probably states that it's illegal to find alternate ways around the drm applied to that proprietary technology used within, etc., etc.? shouldn't we all get a spanking, or sit in a corner just for the discussion in general?

not to flame apple for removing it or those who got their gutchies in a bunch over it - but wouldn't it be more productive to the thread to at least leave the part of michael's post just noting the reason that i overlooked regarding the difference between what is and is not owned, and therefore no longer legally one's property to keep a backup or alternative personal copy for other convenient usage?

I re-read the discussions tou and see why my post was best removed, but michael's post would do more to deter the rest from suggesting something even remotely similar to what i posted...

but am i thinking too much about it to test the merit of the thread itself now? and no, i'm not complaining because my post was pulled. i'll continue to come back and try to help people with whatever legit knowledge i have for as long as i can...

- jeremy

Jeremy,

DRM and all forms of copy control are very sensitive subjects, as I've learned, on any web discussion boards. It's very hard to discuss these subjects without somehow saying something of questionable legality.

In general, I try to avoid posting very much information in these sorts of threads. Consumers' rights vary hugely from country to country, and use of certain software (especially for DVDs) is considered illegal in many places--even hosting downloads for such software. One basic guideline, whether implicitly stated in Apple's Terms of Use or not, is not to encourage other users (directly or indirectly) to engage in any sort of activity that might somehow be considered less than legitimate.

So, keep up the good work. For what it's worth, having a dodgy post removed from time to time is far better than having one linger around for months when you wish you could pull it yourself (I've unfortunately experienced that myself) after you learned some more about the topic you've written about.

Hi friend,

I would come back to that letter because I think I got a long awaited answer:
I want to archive my music with the best possible quality on my Mac (better than iTunes can supply) and you indicated xACT that I did not know.

So I dowloaded it, but unfortunately I cannot make it work. I have version 1.5b3, I am running it on G3 500 DV SE iMac, with OS X 10.4.2.

The thing is that every time I try to use "util" for CD Extraction (which means for me copying a music cd on the hdd), I receive the following error message:

"AppleScript Error

Can't get text item 2 of " *Disk Appeared ('disk1',Mountpoint = '/Volumes/Audio CD', fsType = 'cddafs', volName = 'Audio CD')". (-1728)"

It hangs the whole system, nothing else is running paralelly.

So I feel unhappy being excluded from the best for technical reasons. Sorry to trouble yoou with this, it seems to me that you had experiences with this software, maybe you can help me.

Thanks and regards,

Laszlo

Hi Laszlo,

I haven't ever seen xACT return any kind of AppleScript error before, and I'm having trouble figuring out what's going wrong in your case. When xACT extracts audio from an audio CD, it needs to unmount the disc/volume first, and perhaps that's not happening. When you try to use the "util" tab to extract audio, does the CD remain mounted on the Desktop or Finder window and never disappear? If that's the case, then xACT isn't able to unmnout the audio CD. The first thing I'd try in that case is to open Terminal and run the diskutil -r command. Make sure xACT is closed and the audio CD is loaded in the computer when you run that command. Afterwards, try using xACT to rip the CD again and see if it works.

Good luck.

Sorry, there was a typo...

The Terminal command is disktool -r

Hi NoName,

Thanks for your comments regarding xACT. You are right, the CD remains on the desktop and xACT tries to import endless. You cannot even shut down the system, just by forcing.
So I tried with disktool -r and -u disk1 in Terminal and the CD is unmounted correctly. But when it disappears, how shall I say to xACT which songs to import? So I am still stuck... Sorry to be so gringo. Can you help me? Isn't this a problem with my Mac rather than with xACT? What do yoou think?

Thanks,

Laszlo

Laszlo,

Yes, there is the obvious problem of unmounted the audio CD prior to extracting with xACT... when the application doesn't first recognize the mounted volume, it can't be used to start the extraction job and unmount the volume.

This is probably a very weak attempt at trying to troubleshoot the problem, but if it were my own computer, I would probably take a few minutes to launch Terminal again and run
sudo diskutil repairPermisions /
to see if that fixes anything.

I'm guessing you could still use xACT, even in its broken state, to generate FLAC (or other) files directly from the mounted audio CD, but it wouldn't really be "ripping." Instead, it would have pretty much the same effect as using the Finder to copy what it recognizes as AIFF files from the audio CD. In this case, cdparanoia is not used, and leading/trailing silence not respected. This is also how Toast handles audio extraction--and why I don't recommend it :-/

Well - I've just bought three early Bob Dylan CDs that won't even play on my TiBook, let alone import into iTunes (6.0), although they are recognised and the tracks are all listed. They crash iTunes so thoroughly that it takes two force quits to clear it. This is the first time I've had problems with CDs and another Dylan CD I bought at the same time works OK. Other audio programs (Windows Media Player, Amadeus) don't seem to work on these discs either. BUT my wife's PC, also running iTunes for Windows, played and ripped them quite happily and I was then able to trnsfer the to the Mac. While I am very relieved to have solved the immediate problem, it is a bit galling to admit that it was a PC that came to the rescue!

I assume this IS a copy protection issue, but there is nothing on the CDs to say they are protected. I feel Apple should be trying to ensure that all CDs (and DVDs) can be played on their machines, or should give us advise on how to overcome any problems. Or do they want us to give up and get all our music from the iTunes Music Store?

Robert--

I see that you're using a TiBook 667. There's another thread around where people with TiBook 550s and 667s are having problems with the newer version of iTunes. The workaround that works for some is to put the CD into the drive and wait until it spins down, usually a couple of minutes, before they try to import or play the CD. If this works, you should send in feedback at Apple's Mac OS X Feedback page.

I assume this IS a copy protection issue, but there is nothing on the CDs to say they are protected.

I'm in the U.S., and so far, the manufacturers seem to be marking them pretty clearly. If you look at this CD cover, you'll see a little logo in the bottom right hand corner of the cover. Look for that logo on CDs. That's a common way of marking them.

There are some other formats out there, too, that can cause problems. I have had problems with DualDisc with my iMac, though not with my PowerBook. I haven't had problems with hybrid SACD in my computers, but I have one that doesn't want to play in my car stereo.

I feel Apple should be trying to ensure that all CDs (and DVDs) can be played on their machines

Unfortunately, it really is a case these days of "buyer beware" with all the odd formats of discs around these days. And in some cases, there just isn't much Apple can do about these discs. Especially if they're a new format that came about after the drive in a particular computer was manufactured.

best,

charlie