bad CD's or copy protection?

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bad CD's or copy protection?

2009-09-23 06:17:24

hey everyone... so i just ripped over 100 CD's (re-ripping my collection), using the same EAC settings, everything... and out of those 100+, i have only had problems with 2 CD's. neither CD is scratched, or has any physical imperfections... they are pristine (i usually only take them out once to rip them, then put them back in there... where they rest for eternity hehe).

i cannot determine wtf is wrong here, or what to do to get past it. the two CD's are Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil & TOOL - 10,000 days. I can't fathom what could be causing CRC errors on these other than some type of copy protection or something about these that my drive has problems with. For Avenged Sevenfold, it keeps bombing out on track 10.... saying suspicious position at 0:35. I have listened to the CD and the rip, and I cannot hear any type of deformity in sound or anything out of the ordinary. the CD is brand new -- it literally went from the case to the CD tray in my computer, retail, wrapped in standard plastic+seal, etc. here is the log for that one:

Code: [Select]

Track 10
 
      Filename X:\Avenged_Sevenfold-City_Of_Evil-2005\10-Avenged Sevenfold-Betrayed.wav
 
      Suspicious position 0:00:35
 
      Peak level 98.8 %
      Track quality 99.8 %
      Test CRC 670AF2AB
      Copy CRC 8A1D7AE7
      Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 77)  [FB1B6A2C], AccurateRip returned [89146E8D]
      Copy finished

it says the same suspicious position at 0:35 every time, same track, and returns different CRC's it seems each time. here is what I have tried:
-ripping with EAC & with dbPowerAmp (same result)
-ripping in different modes (burst, etc)
-changing the error checking level
-cut off C2
-tried <removed> to see if it was copy protection causing it... didn't help
-used both internal and nero aspi layer
-tried copy WAV and create CUE (single WAV) and also ripping track-by-track

i am utterly stumped. other than to call this a bad sector or something on the disc i got... i have yet to try it on another drive, but i will do that when i can

and as for the TOOL cd, it will reach a certain point and it will just take FOREVER to read through a certain point... hours.. and i get read errors. the TOOL rip was done a while ago, between other rips.. and i have many successful rips since it.. so i know it's not the drive just going bad on these last 2. furthermore -- i have successfully ripped this SAME physical cd on my previous computer, with no errors... so i'm quite positive the CD itself isn't bad.

so for the expert opinions -- what the hell is going on with these two? copy protection or drive just having some random awkward problem with reading 2 spots on 2 CDs? literally, have done hundreds of rips with this drive with no errors. heeelp!

edit: oh, just in case you're curious about the drive info/settings itself (it's actually a Samsung branded drive, with latest SB04 firmware):

Code: [Select]

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 5 from 4. May 2009

EAC extraction logfile from 23. September 2009, 0:35

Avenged Sevenfold / City of Evil

Used drive  : TSSTcorpCDDVDW SH-S203B   Adapter: 0  ID: 3

Read mode               : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache      : No
Make use of C2 pointers : Yes

Read offset correction                      : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #1 – 2009-09-23 08:10:19

Possibly just a problematic area of the disc which isn't out of the ordinary for some discs, even though yours is brand new.

Perhaps turning on EAC's ability to defeat the audio cache is something to try even if your drive "doesn't cache audio data." And/or set a speed limit on the drive to rip that track much slower like 8X speed, or do a Burst Mode Test & Copy again with a speed limit. Or rip that track/disc with another drive altogether.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #2 – 2009-09-23 10:45:41

Could be a manufacturing problem. I have a similar CD (New Model Army - Thunder And Consolation Reissue Bonus Disc) that I'm unable to rip correctly on my drive. I even bought a second copy of the disc, and that one has errors too. Both discs are brand new, not scratched, there are no visible flaws on them. Must be something wrong with the pressing, I guess.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #3 – 2009-09-23 13:08:50

I saw the same thing happen on a couple of "Billy Joel - Greatest Hits Vol III". They were brand new, but refused to rip - probably a bad pressing.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #4 – 2009-09-23 16:46:50

"10,000 Days" is known to be problematic. ( Link to previous discussion )

Seems to me there is some sort of half-baked copy protection involved. Typical of that time period.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #5 – 2009-09-23 18:35:57

I agree that this is probably a manufacturing defect or damage.

Quote

...neither CD is scratched, or has any physical imperfections... they are pristine (i usually only take them out once to rip them...

I'm not sure how big a scratch/defect has to be before it damages the data... It might be too small to see with the naked eye. And, CDs can be scratched from the top where the damage is harder to see/detect. (The data layer is on top, and is read through the full thickness of the polycarbonate.)

Quote

I have listened to the CD and the rip, and I cannot hear any type of deformity in sound or anything out of the ordinary.

In that case I wouldn't worry about it that one... Well, I'd try not to worry about it. In cases like this, I'll usually burn a new "defect free" backup.

Quote

...and as for the TOOL cd, it will reach a certain point and it will just take FOREVER to read through a certain point... hours.. and i get read errors. the TOOL rip was done a while ago, between other rips..

It wouldn't hurt to try on a different computer. And, if you can get a good rip on a different computer/drive, I recomend burning a backup. Or, if you can play the CD, you can make an analog rip (at least for the "bad" tracks"). I suppose the last option is to replace the CD and hope for a better pressing.

Quote

i have successfully ripped this SAME physical cd on my previous computer, with no errors...

Maybe it's time to think about making a lossless archive so you'll never have to re-rip again? I have not done that myself, but I have all of my MP3s backed-up.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #6 – 2009-09-25 22:14:26

Quote from: Chinch on 2009-09-23 06:17:24

i have successfully ripped this SAME physical cd on my previous computer, with no errors... so i'm quite positive the CD itself isn't bad.

Sounds a bit like my problem with one CD. Check the following post I made: Strange problem reading a CD accurately, balance problem?, it's a link straight to the solution/explanation (check the first post in that topic if you want to know more). Try the Nero DiscSpeed rev speed lowering trick I used with my CD successfully. Don't trust the EAC "select speed" option at all.. what I've seen myself and read elsewhere, it's quite odd and doesn't seem to be working for some.. and besides, that's for lowering the "read speed", not the "revving speed" which helped in my case. I.e. EAC could read your CD with e.g. very slow 0.2X read speed but it might rev up the drive up to the maximum speed at the same time.

Some CD's are just either badly manufactured and/or sensitive to high speed (revving) reading of CD's. I've seen this happen with "Acid Jazz" label released CD's (e.g. JTQ, Corduroy).. even the production quality of the front & back covers were sometimes really bad (e.g. back cover spine text alignment gone awry, back cover protruding out of the spine, etc.).

HTH

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #7 – 2009-09-26 00:49:50

thanks everyone for the great input! i haven't had the time to try any of the suggestions yet (although i did try to reduce rip speed and cut off cache regardless (drive does not cache)... i did not try the speed reduction in nero drivespeed... i didn't know there was even a diff between read speed and rev speed.. will def. check that out. i will also try ripping on different drives. building a new computer now and have 2 diff cd-rom's in it.

thank you UPS for turning my 3 day delivery into a 9 day delivery! (yes, the CPU, motherboard and PSU were shipped monday morning.. and i won't get them until next tues/wed cause they shipped them across the country to the midwest somewhere (all they had to do was send about 100 miles and it would be here)... idiots. so i won't be playing with my new computer this week.

interested in seeing how much of a diff there will be in encoding speed.. particularly on h264.

but i'll give a better response later on when i get more time....

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #8 – 2009-09-26 07:37:29

FWIW, I have had similar issues but have managed to overcome them by using a different drive. I have 6 drives to choose from for exactly this situation. There is no one overall best drive of the 6 for ripping either. I have found though, that for discs with copy protection, that a very old Sony CD only dive works very well.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #9 – 2009-09-27 01:30:58

I have come across a few of such discs as well.

Your best options (as per my experience) is:

1. Limit your drive to absolute slowest speed in EAC and rip with Burst or maybe Sync

2. Try another drive (incl. #1)

3. Return the CD as a defective product. You might be able to contact the label directly regarding this.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #10 – 2009-09-28 18:08:30

I am having also a big problem with a new clean CD here. In standalone Aiwa CD player it plays just fine, but as for my Lite On SOHR5238S, I am not able to rip the last track without AUDIABLE errors at the end of the track... I'm generally not using EAC for ripping (since there's no point of using it really) but I gave it a try and it was not able to read certain sectors on the CD anyway... In Nero, the drive's BIOS managed to finish the job but clearly had problems around the critical points slowing down under 1x speed, and the audio IS corrupted, sadly, Goldwave refused to rip it saying it cannot read audio data... As a curiosity I also tried my DVD drive and it simply made a completely wrong copy of the track (consisting mostly of corrupted audio) even it looked like it did the job well, since it ripped at constant speed.

I am sure this must be bad pressing. The question is, can we rip it without audiable errors as the standalone CD player sounds?

update:

Yes, I managed to make a good rip of the bad track as well! In NERO simply set the reading speed to 1x. Although the drive's BIOS will read faster (it was about 4x in average) it will give much better results!!! Fantastic. Now there are no audiable errors. I still wonder what's the difference between max. read speed and slowing down and constant slow speed.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #11 – 2009-09-29 09:11:05

>EAC for ripping (since there's no point of using it really)

Point is: EAC would normally inform of a ripping error, where as with non-secure rippers you would have to listen to the track very carefully.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #12 – 2009-10-08 15:00:05

I have had this exact problem with a couple of my cds. I am also backing up my entire collection to lossless and plan on storing my cds. The discs I am having a problem with are not brand new but careful inspection of the disc surfaces shows little to no scratching and very minor where it is.

I have several drives and computers to choose from
Desktop:
Plextor PX-230A
NEC 2510A

Laptop:
MATSHITABD-CMB UJ130A

The following discs fail on all drives, in both EAC and dBpoweramp.
Say Anything-In Defense (Disc 1) *disc 2 is fine
Margot & The Nuclear So And So's-Dust Of Retreat

All discs/programs find the same "bad" spots on each disc. I imagine this is because of bad pressings because I have ripped very scratched discs with no problems on my dependable PX-230A.

Thanks for the tips, I will try to slow down the speed of my drives and retry. Otherwise I might have to burst copy the individual tracks in question. Sort of sucks since I'm archiving, but I'd rather have an actual backup.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #13 – 2009-10-08 15:13:26

If you can't get a working rip of them, you should return them immediately to the store or try to contact the record company (I've had luck with that in the past).

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #14 – 2009-10-08 17:44:51

.... but mention audible glitches, not that you can't get a working rip....

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #15 – 2009-10-09 14:19:04

i tried Nero Disc Speed last night and it did no good; it didn't slow my drive down at all while using EAC.

i turned on Paranoid Mode and I got a good copy of the track. i'm OK with this method actually. as long as i can capture the rest of the disc with Secure Mode and grab the problem track with Paranoid mode this is acceptable.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #16 – 2009-10-09 18:13:47

How did you try the Nero DiscSpeed trick?

Here's how I do it:

Open EAC (& set it in secure mode)
Open DiscSpeed and its "disc quality" tab
Select the lowest speed available in the "settings" dropdown box (I've 8x)
Click "start" and wait until the "spin up drive" is over
Switch to EAC and start to rip
Switch back to DiscSpeed and click "stop"

Now EAC rips my CD's with low rev speed (& with low read speed).

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #17 – 2009-10-09 18:50:39

I did not try it exactly like that I will try that here shortly.

What version of the program are you using? I noticed that the final nero version is 4.x but there is an Opti Control verion 5.x (I guess this is a code-branch).

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #18 – 2009-10-09 18:58:24

I'm using DiscSpeed 4.11.4.0.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #19 – 2009-10-09 22:02:38

Thanks for the idea. I tried that and my problem track still isn't verified with AccurateRip. The rest of the disc is so I'm OK with having this one track not verified (since there are no audible errors).

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #20 – 2009-10-09 23:10:28

NP, too bad that it didn't work for that CD. Could work with others though. I've had at least 3 CD's already (found this trick recently) that were correctly ripped thanks to that DiscSpeed trick.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #21 – 2009-10-19 07:21:36

just to follow-up with this, i finally got my new computer put together, and i was able to successfully rip this CD finally.

I also noticed the new drive reads the ISRC codes correctly (the old one read them corrupt)... so now i feel the need to regenerate all my cue files...

which means i have to re-embed them in my flac archives.. which means i have to also delete those tags stored with that info... what a nightmare.

but at least this one works

btw, just fyi the new drive is a Samsung SH-S223B, aka TSSTcorp. here is what i options i used to rip it, and i did not have to change drive speed or anything:

Code: [Select]

Used drive  : TSSTcorpCDDVDW SH-S223B   Adapter: 0  ID: 1
 
 Read mode               : Secure
 Utilize accurate stream : Yes
 Defeat audio cache      : No
 Make use of C2 pointers : Yes
 
 Read offset correction                      : 6
 Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out          : No
 Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
 Delete leading and trailing silent blocks   : No
 Null samples used in CRC calculations       : Yes
 Used interface                              : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
 
 Peak level 100.0 %
 Range quality 100.0 %
 Test CRC 7F80B9BA
 Copy CRC 7F80B9BA
 Copy OK

Avenged Sevenfold - City Of Evil - 2005.cue: rip accurate (113/113)

to me, by all means this could be considered a 'perfect rip', quality 100%, test & copy CRC's match, and 113/133 matches on AR.

so obviously it's a drive or firmware thing i guess. with my old drive. just though i'd update the post if anyone was curious.

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #22 – 2009-10-19 18:30:59

Quote from: Chinch on 2009-10-19 07:21:36

Code: [Select]

Avenged Sevenfold - City Of Evil - 2005.cue: rip accurate (113/113)

Where did this come from?

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #23 – 2009-10-19 20:29:16

CUETools cmdline tool?

bad CD's or copy protection?

Reply #24 – 2009-10-19 23:24:02

Quote from: greynol on 2009-10-19 18:30:59

Quote from: Chinch on 2009-10-19 07:21:36
Code: [Select]
Avenged Sevenfold - City Of Evil - 2005.cue: rip accurate (113/113)
Where did this come from?

oh... sorry there.. i just copied and pasted that line from the CUETools results, that wasn't actually part of the EAC log. didn't mean to confuse, just was trying to keep it compact, so i only pasted
the relevant parts of the log/cuetools results... enough to show what settings were used, that the test & copy CRC's matched, and the CD checked out as accurate.

used CueTools for the result of AR because it checks against other offsets as well.. EAC's match count was about 80... CUEtools matched 113.

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