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Topic: Dido destroyed (Read 37970 times) previous topic - next topic
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Dido destroyed

Reply #25 –
Quote
There is no proof yet that protected CDs have more clicks than unprotected ones. (unless you select random CDs, count the clicks in all of them, and the probability of getting more clicks in protected ones by chance is inferior to 5 %)

Yep, I know that my experiance with only 4-5 EMI copy protected CDs (In Thailand, only EMI selling copy protected CDs) cannot statistically proof anything. I also aree that we need unconditional t-test with 5% significant level to statistically proof it. (I means randomly selected unprotected and protected CDs and test the hypothesis that there is no difference in mean). I can't do this test because I own only few CD with protection.

I've used shift trick a lot but I just can't believe that there is a copy protection technology that relies on Windows's Autorun.    It's fun to read that story anyway. 

Dido destroyed

Reply #26 –
Well, to sum it up, we know that at least on some computer drives, the CDS200 protection introduce clicks ( http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....howtopic=11504& ). That's the very purpose of introducing errors.

The big question is "do some clicks remain on hifi CD Players" ?

The very strong clicks experienced on computer drives are completely removed on my hifi player. Only little ones remain, about which we are yet unsure if they are caused by the interaction of the protection with a poor pressing, or if they were in the master to begin with.

Case 1 : they are caused by the protection.
-2BDecided, your experience doesn't rule out this hypothesis, because the introduced errors are permanent, and weakens only some given data. Thus if a click occurs because of them, it can only occur at some given positions, and it will be likely to occur with all players.
-The hypothesis will be proven as soon as several examples of protected-clicked / unprotected-unclicked pairs of CD will be found.

Case 2 : they are is the master.
This case is more difficult to prove. The only way I see is to extract the CD with the "c2extract" tool on the EAC site with a C2 accurate drive, and show that the clicks have no C2 flags, because any click caused by the protecton should be flagged as erroneous.

Dido destroyed

Reply #27 –
Dido - Life For Rent (Album) Australian First Release does not have any copy protection at all on it and so far on preliminary listening there are no clicks (but I did this in my car so there was road noise and air-conditioning noise to contend with). Will report if I find any "defects". On a side not I was tempted to buy a CD Single with CP on it and try to see if I can rip it or not, but alas they were inferior artists.

burgering: John Williamson new album has CP on it  I don't think you will find that in that HK store. But then again who would want to copy that? I don't think I would be able to find much songs of his on the Internet.

Pio2001: So there goes compatibility with CD players... if the disc can't work in a player made by the people who created the CD and you can copy it perfectly in your CD drive... what else can it prove but that CP sucks and is a worthless waste of money.

And about that Shift Key "trick" that is just lame... are they gonna sue me if I use DOS to rip the CD?

Regards

AgentMil
-=MusePack... Living Audio Compression=-

Honda - The Power of Dreams

Dido destroyed

Reply #28 –
@AgentMil

It's nice to see a Tiesto fan here.  I just got Nyana yesterday.  It's a good chill out CD kinda like In Search of Sunrise 3.  Definitely recommended.

Dido destroyed

Reply #29 –
Quote
@AgentMil

It's nice to see a Tiesto fan here.  I just got Nyana yesterday.  It's a good chill out CD kinda like In Search of Sunrise 3.  Definitely recommended.

Yeah gonna pick it up tomorrow... I downloaded some tracks off the net. Now I am definitely gonna get it pity its $32AUD here. Don't sue me for downloading some tracks... I am gonna go buy it tomorrow. I will show you the reciept Mr. RIAA.

Regards

AgentMil
-=MusePack... Living Audio Compression=-

Honda - The Power of Dreams

Dido destroyed

Reply #30 –
Quote
Dido - Life For Rent (Album) Australian First Release does not have any copy protection at all on it and so far on preliminary listening there are no clicks (but I did this in my car so there was road noise and air-conditioning noise to contend with).

You've got no chance of hearing them like that!

Use headphones at home.

There's a definite glitch 43 seconds into the first track.

There are quiet clicks during the intake of breath at the start of track 3.
etc etc

Apart from that glitch at 43 seconds, everything I've heard is almost certainly supposed to be on the recording - maybe all the other clicks are just the sound of Dido opening her mouth near to the microphone!

Have you got that glitch at 43 seconds on your copy AgentMil? If you're not sure, we could both post 0:30-0:50 from that track to compare?


The extra clicks on the rip at work (which may be due to copy protection, but could just be the result of a fast burst rip) are only audible during the bonus track - and they're not at all obvious.


But my Philips CD recorder still refuses to accept the disc. I'll return it to the shop when my copy arrives from cdwow.

Cheers,
David.

Dido destroyed

Reply #31 –
The plot thickens!  (Translation: even more mastering stupidity!)

I received my Dido CD from CD-WOW this morning. It's the Australian version, and it cost me £8.99. (Now available from CD-WOW for £6.99!!!).

It has no copy protection on it. Well, at least, it has no sticker on the front, or text on the back. There is no Data Track on this version - it's pure CD-DA.


However, the clicks I hear on my "work" rip (which I was sure I didn't hear at home, but will now have to go and check) are present on this version too. I've checked the one at 43 seconds into the first track, the record clicks in track 3, and the clicks during the bonus track (which I thought I didn't hear on my home rip, but may have missed!) and they're all present.

How on earth was this Australian release mastered?

What is more, this is a different mastering from the UK version. It's fractionally quieter, fractionally quicker, and has been re-dithered (or just truncated). Indeed, the noise-shaped dither of the UK version is still visible on a spectrogram of the Aus version, but there's also standard (not noise shaped) dither or truncation of the last bit. So you've got extra high frequency noise from the initial noise shaping, and then noise/distortion added back into the audible spectral region at the normal -90B noise floor. Worst of both worlds!

Digital silence is still digital silence though. It seems the Aus version was digitally mastered from the UK CD (or at least, the same 16-bit source or pre-master), but why the speed change? Why the level change? I'd think there was an analogue stage in there if it weren't for the digital silence. I'd think it was resampled from a higher sample rate master, using a slightly different resampling algorithm (hence different length) - but it has that 16-bit noise shaped dither on there. Surely any higher sample rate source would be 24-bit? Maybe the master is 16-bit 48kHz. But surely the DRC and limiting would be carried out at 44.1kHz? And the Aus release has the same DRC.

I can find no audible difference between the two versions. Technically, the Australian version appears to be a butchered copy of the UK version, but without the (ineffective) copy protection.


So, I now have found a copy that will play in all my CD players. But why does the album have to be so compressed, distorted etc, and why does the Aus version have an extra "mastering" stage compared to the UK release?

And which version do I keep? Burning my own copy from the UK release would (will!) give me the "best" of both worlds - no copy protection to mess with my CD player, and no extra mastering stage. But which version should I keep so I can say that I legally own it?

Cheers,
David.

Dido destroyed

Reply #32 –
Quote
There's a definite glitch 43 seconds into the first track.

i can hear this as well on the canadian version, just short of 43 seconds. indeed, i doubt this will be picked up with speakers.
Quote
There are quiet clicks during the intake of breath at the start of track 3.

same here. a short burst of clicks is definitely present in my cd.
Quote
maybe all the other clicks are just the sound of Dido opening her mouth near to the microphone!

you might be right. it's kinda difficult to pinpoint the cause, but for sure i can pick up the clicks. here in canada this title does not appear to be protected. there is no warning on the label or anything, and EAC indicated a 100% quality image.

just out of curiousity, on track 3, does anybody notice how aliased the guitar sounds? this is especially noticeable from about 2.50 onwards. does it sound like maybe they ran too much noise reduction over it? maybe some artistic effect?
Be healthy, be kind, grow rich and prosper

Dido destroyed

Reply #33 –
Quote
But which version should I keep so I can say that I legally own it?

i would say the UK version. try to reach BMG and tell them you can't play the CD in your car and that it's skipping at home. maybe they will send an unprotected copy. i heard EMI is doing it here in canada. people complained to them directly and they sent back a non-protected version.
Be healthy, be kind, grow rich and prosper

Dido destroyed

Reply #34 –
Quote
and why does the Aus version have an extra "mastering" stage compared to the UK release?

I think this the answer is quite simple: The sales department gave the UK rights to another department in the same company/label and the AUS rights to an Australian company. The Australian company did not want to pay for the UK mastering, so they did it themselves.

I am affraid this happens all the time in most businesses.

Dido destroyed

Reply #35 –
Quote
The plot thickens!  (Translation: even more mastering stupidity!)

I received my Dido CD from CD-WOW this morning. It's the Australian version, and it cost me £8.99. (Now available from CD-WOW for £6.99!!!).

It has no copy protection on it. Well, at least, it has no sticker on the front, or text on the back. There is no Data Track on this version - it's pure CD-DA.


However, the clicks I hear on my "work" rip (which I was sure I didn't hear at home, but will now have to go and check) are present on this version too. I've checked the one at 43 seconds into the first track, the record clicks in track 3, and the clicks during the bonus track (which I thought I didn't hear on my home rip, but may have missed!) and they're all present.

How on earth was this Australian release mastered?

What is more, this is a different mastering from the UK version. It's fractionally quieter, fractionally quicker, and has been re-dithered (or just truncated). Indeed, the noise-shaped dither of the UK version is still visible on a spectrogram of the Aus version, but there's also standard (not noise shaped) dither or truncation of the last bit. So you've got extra high frequency noise from the initial noise shaping, and then noise/distortion added back into the audible spectral region at the normal -90B noise floor. Worst of both worlds!

Digital silence is still digital silence though. It seems the Aus version was digitally mastered from the UK CD (or at least, the same 16-bit source or pre-master), but why the speed change? Why the level change? I'd think there was an analogue stage in there if it weren't for the digital silence. I'd think it was resampled from a higher sample rate master, using a slightly different resampling algorithm (hence different length) - but it has that 16-bit noise shaped dither on there. Surely any higher sample rate source would be 24-bit? Maybe the master is 16-bit 48kHz. But surely the DRC and limiting would be carried out at 44.1kHz? And the Aus release has the same DRC.

I can find no audible difference between the two versions. Technically, the Australian version appears to be a butchered copy of the UK version, but without the (ineffective) copy protection.


So, I now have found a copy that will play in all my CD players. But why does the album have to be so compressed, distorted etc, and why does the Aus version have an extra "mastering" stage compared to the UK release?

And which version do I keep? Burning my own copy from the UK release would (will!) give me the "best" of both worlds - no copy protection to mess with my CD player, and no extra mastering stage. But which version should I keep so I can say that I legally own it?

Cheers,
David.

How big is the speed difference? +0.2273%?
In this case a simple 11:12 resampling from 48 kHz was done, which gave
44000 Hz sample rate which is played by 44100 Hz by a CD player.
Diocletian

Time Travel Agency
Book a journey to the Diocletian Palace. Not today!

Dido destroyed

Reply #36 –
Are there any good online sources for Copy protected CD info?  Amazon doesn't indicate that any of these CDs are copy protected.  The only good online retailer I've found so far is Tower Records, it seems that CDs using copy protection are indicated with an * Asterisk.

Is there any definitive info on what different protections do, and what is used on certain discs?

I don't think I've run across any CDs that use these scemes, but I unknowingly ripped "The Neptunes - Clones" mentioned earlier in the thread the other day without so much as a hiccup!  I also don't recall seeing any advisories on the packaging.

Dido destroyed

Reply #37 –
Quote
Quote
But which version should I keep so I can say that I legally own it?

i would say the UK version. try to reach BMG and tell them you can't play the CD in your car and that it's skipping at home. maybe they will send an unprotected copy. i heard EMI is doing it here in canada. people complained to them directly and they sent back a non-protected version.

I phoned and emailed EMI a few times now about this Jane's Addiction - Strays CD and still no word from them. Perhaps I'll phone again right now, heh.

Dido destroyed

Reply #38 –
Quote
I don't think I've run across any CDs that use these scemes, but I unknowingly ripped "The Neptunes - Clones" mentioned earlier in the thread the other day without so much as a hiccup!  I also don't recall seeing any advisories on the packaging.

is the standard Philips Compact Disc Digital Audio logo on the CD or on the jewel case? It likely isn't protected if it is, because Philips isn't allowing the use of this logo on such discs because they don't meet Red Book standards.

Dido destroyed

Reply #39 –
Is there a website out there yet that names and shames these poorly mastered albums? I have probably 20+ CDs from this year that have similar distortion and clicking. It pisses me off, far more so than copy protection does (that's just a minor nuisance).
daefeatures.co.uk

Dido destroyed

Reply #40 –
Quote
@AgentMil

It's nice to see a Tiesto fan here.  I just got Nyana yesterday.  It's a good chill out CD kinda like In Search of Sunrise 3.  Definitely recommended.

np: [Nyana (Mixed by DJ Tiësto) (Disc 1 - Outdoor) (2003)] #01:M. Mayer/Love Is Stronger Than Pride (6:49/7:05)<192kbps Musepack>

B)

There's a lot of us Tiësto fans here.  A bit more up-beat than chillout, tho.

Dido destroyed

Reply #41 –
The australian version can have been mastered from the protected UK CD, thus featuring the same clicks. It can be an analog copy (hence the speed difference, distortion, dither, etc), or an asynchronous digital copy (read "recorded with a resampling device").
It can have been copied from the same 24/96 master with different downsampling devices (thus different dither, distortion etc).

I see that you are unsure about the protection (no data track visible, no label, but...). Just use a C2 capable drive and check for C2 errors, with Nero CD-Speed quality check, for example.

But at this point, I think that you should check if the clicks of the protected version are C2 flagged. If they are not, they are not due to the protection.

Download the DAEQuality kit from http://www.exactaudiocopy.de , use the "c2extract" program to rip the CD, with a C2 capable drive. Get a binary file editor, and open the file with the "c2" extension, that was generated by c2extract. One bit stands for one byte of the wav file. Open the wav file in a wav editor. Find the click. Get its position in samples. For example sample 64000. One sample is 4 bytes (16 bits  left 16 bits right), thus stands for 4 bits in the C2 file, thus half a byte.
Go to the 32000th byte of the C2 file. If it begins, in binary, by something else than 0000, the click is a read error caused by the protecton.

Dido destroyed

Reply #42 –
Quote
There's a lot of us Tiësto fans here.  A bit more up-beat than chillout, tho.

Hehe yea, I must have been listening to the Indoor CD when I wrote that.  I also just picked up Magik Five which is an awesome CD.

BTW, can I ask you how you tag your trance songs?  Here is how I do it:

TITLE = Solar Factor - Urban Shakedown (Original Mix)
TRACKNUMBER = 13
ARTIST = DJ Tiësto
DATE = 2003
GENRE = Trance
COMMENT = PlexTools 2.07, Musepack 1.14
ALBUM = Nyana (CD 1 - Outdoor)

I wonder if there's a better way.  Doing it this way makes the Title quite long.

Dido destroyed

Reply #43 –
Heh I love the Nyana Album got it a couple days back... Anyone here like Corsten stuff? What about the tracks Corsten did with Tiesto?

About that Dido album I will try them with headphones once I am back from dinner, this is a strange development.

Regards

AgentMil
-=MusePack... Living Audio Compression=-

Honda - The Power of Dreams

Dido destroyed

Reply #44 –
Thanks for your advice Pio2001!


I downloaded the DAEQuality kit from the exact audio copy website.

I ran it on the Dido disc. It stalled at 90.2%, so I killed it. The resulting .wav file wouldn't load into Cool Edit Pro, but Winamp would happily play it, so I used the disk writer plug-in to generate a valid .wav file. I could probably have fixed the header manually, but this required less effort!

Rather than using a binary editor, I loaded the c2 file into Cool Edit Pro as raw PCM, 22.05kHZ sampled, 8-bit mono. This ensured that the time display matched the audio file, and I assume any non-zero "samples" in this file represent C2 errors.


The .wav file ripped by c2extract.exe contained new clicks. These new clicks did correspond to the C2 errors. However, all the clicks I had noticed in my previous rips did not correspond to C2 errors.

So, the clicks I heard previously were not due to the copy protection.


Looking in the previous rips at the positions of the C2 errors, they were both invisible and inaudible. I thought some were visible as spikes above 20kHz, but I think this was just due to peak limiting and clipping.


In the c2extract.exe rip, all the C2 errors I checked gave rise to audible clicks. However, some of these clicks were still not as loud as those already present on the recording!

If you go here:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....howtopic=14204&
The second picture illustrates this point. The click due to the copy protection is quieter and at a higher frequency than the click which is on the recording anyway.


So, there you have it. The clicks I heard are not due to copy protection. As there is no visible evidence of the C2 errors on any of my rips (except the rip made with c2extract), I can't determine if the Australian re-master comes from a clean source, or a source with (corrected) C2 errors.

Cheers,
David.

P.S. if anyone is in any doubt that too much DRC has been used on this album, take a look at the second picture here:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....howtopic=14204&

Track 2 looks like it has been taken from a very compressed mix (a future CD single release?) and reduced in level slightly to fit the dynamics of the album. See how the hyper-compressed (almost flat-line) signal is linearly faded down slightly during the track? So even the pitiful dynamic range of the album (with the RMS level just 6dB below the peak level) is further reduced by including a mix with even less dynamic range, and making it quieter, but no more dynamic.
 

Dido destroyed

Reply #45 –
Quote
How big is the speed difference? +0.2273%?
In this case a simple 11:12 resampling from 48 kHz was done, which gave
44000 Hz sample rate which is played by 44100 Hz by a CD player.

The Australian release is 0.00013815% faster.

I think Pio is probably correct - it went through an asynchronous sample rate converter that wasn't supposed to do anything, but did.

This list of shoddy practices that this CD (and probably every other pop CD) has been through just gets longer and longer!

If this is how they treat music, it makes talk of DVD-A, SACD etc completely pointless.

Cheers,
David.

Dido destroyed

Reply #46 –
Quote
If this is how they treat music, it makes talk of DVD-A, SACD etc completely pointless.

Possibly the most sensible thing i've heard on these boards re. higher quality formats.

I'm going to listen to Nightfly by Donald Fagen, a properly mastered cd...

Dido destroyed

Reply #47 –
Quote
If this is how they treat music, it makes talk of DVD-A, SACD etc completely pointless.

No, it makes complete sense. The mastering of new music has generally gone from good to terrible the past few years. Soon they will release properly mastered SACDs/DVD-As and you will buy them. Not only will they make copying harder, but they will resell a lot of music.

Dido destroyed

Reply #48 –
Quote
Quote
If this is how they treat music, it makes talk of DVD-A, SACD etc completely pointless.

No, it makes complete sense. The mastering of new music has generally gone from good to terrible the past few years. Soon they will release properly mastered SACDs/DVD-As and you will buy them.

Well, I mentioned that in my first post.

But that assumes that there's anyone left in the industry that still knows how to "properly master" something (there are, but not the majority it seems), and that the multi-track session tapes or pre-master are good enough to stand "proper mixing and mastering" (unlikely in this case).

Cheers,
David.

Dido destroyed

Reply #49 –
Thank you for the testing.
The strange part is that you got more clicks with c2extract than with a full speed burst mode rip, while c2extract actually performs a full speed burst mode rip !

Could you try again with the same drive/same computer as c2extract, but with a ripper in burst mode, ripping the whole CD as a range ? Just to rule out the drive infulence (using the same drive), the reading mode (by tracks / by range) or the unlikely early aging of the CD (ripping again).