C'mon Audio / Video converters and Corporate greed

Hi folks

We get so many offers of Video / Audio format converters --but NONE but ABSOLUTELY NONE (Caps intended) of the Free ones ever offer an option to make an AUDIO CD and save it to any sort of image file. They all want you to burn to a "physical CD".

If they can burn to a physical CD why not an "Image" CD.

I don't believe it's NERO (commercial software which does burn to an image file) is in any way the culprit here -- so please guys --whats going on here.

Is it so much harder to generate an image file rather than burn to a real physical Audio CD.

BTW even Ultra ISO seems to have some sort of problems with this.

I have also nothing against NERO -- they do what they do -- but how is it that their software manages this while nobody else can or seems to want to offer it.

Who really wants physical audio CD's any more !!! -- or even if they do -- how about those who want to transfer audio CD's to other things like phones etc for playing !" without the whole hassle of transcoding, tagging etc etc.

Cheers
jimbo

"Is it so much harder to generate an image file rather than burn to a real physical Audio CD."

A physical Audio CD consists of 'land' and 'pits' which is covered in a reflective layer. The difference in height is ¼λ of the reading laser wavelength hence you get an out of phase lower reflection effect due to the difference in path length of ½λ.
That is how a CD player reads the digital data.

Therefore you cannot "burn to a real physical Audio CD", they have to be manufactured. This is the original Red Book standard.

You can only burn to a CD-R or CD-RW which have a dye layer which varies in reflectivity to represent the digital data, this is Orange Book standard.
These are not real physical Audio CDs they have burned data with the same organistion.

Rainbow Books - Wikipedia
Compact Disc manufacturing - Wikipedia
Compact disc - Wikipedia

Helmut said:

"Is it so much harder to generate an image file rather than burn to a real physical Audio CD."

A physical Audio CD consists of 'land' and 'pits' which is covered in a reflective layer. The difference in height is ¼λ of the reading laser wavelength hence you get an out of phase lower reflection effect due to the difference in path length of ½λ.
That is how a CD player reads the digital data.

Therefore you cannot "burn to a real physical Audio CD", they have to be manufactured. This is the original Red Book standard.

You can only burn to a CD-R or CD-RW which have a dye layer which varies in reflectivity to represent the digital data, this is Orange Book standard.
These are not real physical Audio CDs they have burned data with the same organistion.

Rainbow Books - Wikipedia
Compact Disc manufacturing - Wikipedia
Compact disc - Wikipedia

Hi there
OK that's not really what I meant -- these things will play on typical CD players so whether it's an actual "Real physical CD" or another physical device which plays on the hardware wasn't at all the point at issue.

The real question I was asking is why does the software always insist on writing to a "Physical device" whereas NERO can write to an image file (.nrg) which you can then use software to mount as a "Virtual CD" -- and it displays the same data as the original (proper physical CD) e.g trk1.cda etc etc

That's the point I was making is why do all the 1000's of Free Audio and Video converters out there apart from NERO (paid) always insist on writing to a physical device instead of being able to use an "image recorder".

I'm referring here to "Consumer / home" type software -- I'm sure there's pro studio gear out there for doing all sorts of things --but that's in another league entirely.

(The other great use for CD audio image files is you can store them as CD audio archives - and if you want to re-burn to physical media you've got the exact copy. Once you've say ripped a few CD's and tagged them and created a myriad of playlists it's a lot of work if you want to re-create the original Audio CD again).

It might be OK to rip some to MP3 for playing on phones etc -- but I'd always want to keep the original music in the original format uncompressed -- then you can do whatever you want with it - once you've compressed music and the original has gone you are left with the inferior copies.


Cheers
jimbo

Fabler2 said:

Ashampoo burning studios 6 free does it apparently Link

Yup, it does. You'll need to register for an account to get the free key and will get spammed from time to time but you can always uninscribe at any time.

Hi there
thanks
the problem with this is there's nagware, spam etc and regular license activations even for the free one. I really hate the idea of these "regular calling Home" programs and nagware asking you to "Go Pro" etc.

The other problem is it "creates a Disc image" FROM a physical Disc --the whole point of my exercise is to CREATE an AUDIO CD image from any sort of Audio files (including M4A) and then save as an Audio CD image which I can then mount as a "Virtual physical Audio CD" -- I then copy those to MD's -- doing it that way avoids the DRM with SONY's hideous software - MD simple burner just copies "CD image" to MD -- around 8 - 10 on a Hi-MD minidisc -- DRM free.

So I don't at any stage of the process need any physical CD's -- I've already ripped all those to my NAS music folders already.

So It's NERO for me -- it's not that expensive, has been around since "The age of the Dinosaurs" , is a decent German company whose products have stood the rest of time and work so I've gone with that -- it does exactly what I need and wasn't that expensive either.

Cheers
jimbo

Hi folks

Thanks for suggestions :

I know this is solved

but

1) imgburn will burn to iso but not as "audio disk" so --->Fail

2) ashampoo free (apart from having to register etc ) will only burn audio to bin/cue" which is itself a pain so -->partial fail.
It also won't burn things like M4A to audio CD.

3) the weird internal Audio disc format if you choose that over bin/cue isn't recognized as an audio CD when you try and mount in Windows

So NERO seems the only option and as I had an old W7 license (works on W10 and Win XP as well) it does what I need and that's what I've chosen.

Thanks for the other suggestions --still mystified though as to why this type of software can't write to an "Image file" which can be recognized as an audio CD even though it's not a physical disc. Nero Audio image files for example can be written to CD-R / CD-RW physical discs if you want physical media to be playable on any sort of reasonably modern CD player including most car systems.

My reason though was to get music DRM free from Computer to Minidisc via MD simple burner -- you need to create an Audio CD (a virtual one is fine) and then transfer that to the MD -- at standard LP2 mode 4 -6 CD's will copy (DRM Free) to 1 Hi-MD minidisc, up to 40 CD's for MP3 audio CD's and 16 - 20 in LP4 mode (perfectly OK for audio books etc).

Cheers
jimbo

Fabler2 said:

Hello jimbo45.. Knew Ashampoo free would do it. It's been a while since I used it but it will create isos of MP3 and M4A files.
Short list of how to,

create a disk image from a project
MP3 CD/DVD/Blu-ray Disc
add
select files and folders(*.*) in file type box (not necessary if MP3)
select your M4A files
select next
select save disk image
Defaults to C:\Users\xxxxx\Documents\mydiscimage.iso
Copy to desktop and change name.
Burnt the .iso successfully to CD

Hi there
the issue is does Windows mount that .iso image as an audio disc -- not whether the iso can be burned to a physical drive.
My MD burner software needs a physical Audio CD or a "Virtual one" that windows can mount as an Audio CD.

Anyway the thing is solved as far as I am concerned -- I appreciate all the suggestions and am always willing to try things out -- that's how we learn etc.

Sometimes peoples suggestions work well, sometimes ones own findings work best - "The Wonders of the Internet".

Cheers
jimbo