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Topic: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop (Read 3548 times) previous topic - next topic
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AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Hi!

As a part of my spare time I help a local non-profit thrift shop in Sweden with their IT and other technical stuff. They are gifted a lot of CDs and vinyl from people. Some of them especially vinyls are quiet valuable and some CD boxes are collectibles.

Now, the shop have a tendency to trash CDs that are perfectly well, but have minute scratches hardly visible to the eye. Scratches that is taken care of by the normal CIRC error correction. When these CDs are collectibles it’s sad to see them get trashed.
I grabbed a €150/SEK1500 Springsteen box heading for the trash since one of the discs had some very small scratches. EAC ripped it perfectly well, but of course with a CIRC error correction notice. I also ran it through cdparanoia with the same perfect result. Case closed. The box was put up for sale.

A solution for this would be to have a simple ”checking station” for the less computer savvy personell. A PC with some software that automates the process of just reading the CD. No conversion or any saved audio files. Like ARM/Automated Ripping Machine but only for reading (not converting) AudioCDs. I suppose people who sell CDs on ebay run this sort of test when they claim ”no errors”?

- put a disc in the CD reader
- let it read the whole CD. Log the result
- eject the CD and show the result on the screen. Include a notice in the jewel case with the result.
- repeat

Any suggestions on how to build this? Windows, Linux or macOS. I have some old PCs and Macs to run it on. I’ve started tinkering with abcde on a Debian machine.

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #1 –
Quote from: gunverth on
I suppose people who sell CDs on ebay run this sort of test when they claim ”no errors”?
Cynical perhaps, but I doubt it.  More likely they let the customer do the test and complain, which would result in a lower reject rate.

Why bother?  A lot of manufacturing these days has only perfunctory testing and treat the user as the final test station.
It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #2 –
Quote from: fooball on
Quote from: gunverth on
I suppose people who sell CDs on ebay run this sort of test when they claim ”no errors”?
…
Why bother? …
Well…getting it sold with a proof the disc is 100% OK is better than trashing it. This is for collectibles, not €1\10SEK discs. Customers always check for scratches and some of them starts haggling at PoS. This Sweden so a verbal promise is a written contract. ;-)

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #3 –
IIRC, CUETools once configured to do so, will retain the settings necessary to produce such a report. Users simply insert the CD and click "Go". A bit of training would be necessary to read the report, but the information is all there.

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #4 –
I don't know if there is any perfect check because sometimes a disc is OK on one reader but fails on another.    Audio CD players seem to be better at error correction and error hiding than CD drives and software.

That said, CueRipper or EAC, either with AccurateRip should be a reasonable check.

As a quick check after burning a CD or DVD I run Nero DiscSpeed (which  you can find free on the Internet) and it hasn't failed me yet.    It's pretty fast and it shows a graph of reading speed.   It will show a "glitch" in the graph when it gets an error and has to re-try.   (I don't use it routinely on commercial discs.)

Checking visually isn't very reliable.  The data-layer is on the top and they are read through the full-thickness of the disc.    They can be easily damaged from the label side and it can be harder to see.    And you can't polish-out scratches on the top...  It just does more damage.

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #5 –
Find a cheap 2nd hand robot loader from this list:

https://dbpoweramp.com/batch-ripper.htm

and use batch ripper, it can be set to reject a disc if not verified by accuraterip, you would end with a pile of good disc and a pile of bad.
 

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #7 –
Does Swedish law allow user to get help ripping their CDs and selling the CD with an AccurateRip verified file?
(Though I can only imagine the malware vandalism if you allow them to plug stuff into your computer.)

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #8 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Does Swedish law allow user to get help ripping their CDs and selling the CD with an AccurateRip verified file?
(Though I can only imagine the malware vandalism if you allow them to plug stuff into your computer.)
That would be EU law. Not sure about that and it’s not my purpose anyway. This project is only for QC personell doing a quick check for data integrity of some valuable but scratched discs. I think I have found a ”recipe” with cdparanoia on debian that just reads, checks and logs: ’cdparanoia -qpXL 1- /dev/null’

AccuriteRip hasn’t been helpful for anyone I know. The pressings sold here very often doesnt match the database, so it’s more or less ”worthless”.

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #10 –
I ended up using the ”qscan” command in qpxtool to show results from each disc. The results are then written by hand on a preprinted sticker and put on the jewel case. Now working on running that command automatically on disc insertion och eject when done. Will post here when this works. I’m a Mac/Linux guy not very familiar with command line scripts on Windows.

qscan -d [device] -t errc

Other software tested.
EAC: not meant for simple quality check as for all other rippers. You’re supposed to rip, not just read the disc. Cluttered interface not feasable for ”normal users”
Opti Drive Control: would be nice if weren’t for stability problems (clean Win7, Win10, Win11). Developer not reachable.
VSO Inspector: no report on C1, C2 or CU. Just good, somewhat good or bad disc.

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #11 –
Quote from: gunverth on
Now working on running that command automatically on disc insertion och eject when done. ...not very familiar with command line scripts on Windows.
I'm not sure how you could achieve that with a .bat / .com.  You would need the script to call other executables (like you have called qscan) with "wait for disc insertion and exit when done" and "eject disk" functionality.

Then your script becomes simply:

:START
waitfordisc
qscan -d [device] -t errc
ejectdisc
goto START

It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #12 –
To follow up on that, I've done a little googling (you may be able to adapt these)...

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29162632/how-detect-current-dvd-running-in-disk-rive-using-batch-code

Quote
This is a slightly adapted version of my answer to your last question. It looks for CD/DVD-drives and checks, if there is a valid disc inserted.

As I know, there is no possibilty to check if a movie is currently played from this drive.

Code: [Select]
(for /f  %%d IN ('wmic logicaldisk where drivetype^=5 get deviceid^|findstr :') DO dir %%d >nul 2>1 && (echo %%d ready) || (echo %%d no disc))>disc.txt

For your purposes I *think* this becomes:

Code: [Select]
:WAIT
dir [drive letter] >nul 2>1 || goto WAIT

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

Quote
Examples of what you can do with NirCmd

Open the door of J: CD-ROM drive   nircmd.exe cdrom open j:

...or Wizmo: https://www.grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm

If the output of qscan is console text, that can be redirected to a file and then sent to a printer.

My preferred reference for all matters .bat is https://ss64.com/nt/syntax.html
It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #14 –
Code: [Select]
@echo off
:START
nircmd cdrom open [drive]
echo Please insert CD...
:WAIT
dir [drive] >nul 2>1 || goto WAIT
qscan -d [drive] -t errc
goto START
It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.

Re: AudioCD checking station for thrift shop

Reply #15 –
Quote from: Porcus on
Cannot you use Windows' AutoPlay?
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/automatically-starting-dvds-in-windows-10/49cb607c-f93d-402d-a46c-59715cca8f36
If you wanted to have the scan run from the Windows desktop, sure... but I guess the modus operandi is to have it dedicated.
It's your privilege to disagree, but that doesn't make you right and me wrong.