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WinTakeAll

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  1. Were you at all alarmed, thinking "what's wrong now", reading this topic title? If so you should agree with the following suggestion: Remove the one startup quote that reads: "Houston, we have a problem" It could so easily be misunderstood to mean that there actually was a problem initialising ImgBurn. Other than that I think the startup quotes are kinda cute, and anyone who doesn't can disable them anyway.
  2. Correct. 16 bits times 2 channels for stereo = 4 bytes. The shifting is always in multiples of such 4-byte samples, so that's the unit the community uses to measure this shifting for any given drive. (If it ever were shifted a non-4-byte multiple the audio would be seriously screwed up, or at least channel-swapped, but fortunately we don't see drives do that. So of course it's important that we don't give users the ability to do anything but shifting in multiples of 4-byte samples either.)
  3. That's exactly what it is. When reading or writing audio data, almost all drives shift the position by a fixed amount that is specific to the make and model of drive. Usually a few hundred samples on reading and a few tens of samples on writing. Your favorite search engine or a quick test should be able to tell the value for your drive. But not the manual. On a few drives, probably including your Lite-On, the read and write offsets are the same but with opposite signs so it appears that you read exactly the same data back that you wrote, with no shifting. This is often described as having a zero combined read/write offset. But in that case you may still find that the data was read with an offset if you write the data back on a different drive, even if that other drive also has a zero combined read/write offset. So the ideal way to deal with it is to find both the read and the write offset and apply each as needed. That's what EAC does. It lets you read your discs on one drive and write them on another with no shifting if you configured your offsets correctly. If there are drives out there that have a zero offset for both reading and writing, I don't know about them. On the other hand it always puzzled me why drive firmware developers don't make sure all drives are like that. I guess they just don't think it matters for audio. (Or is it another feeble RIAA conspiracy against CD copying?) Imagine if a file system worked like this though...
  4. What you don't know is how many thousands of users had a quick look at ImgBurn, found that it lacks the one feature they were looking for - disc copy - and moved on to something else without letting anyone know why. Or how many advanced users use it but won't recommend it to all their muggle friends and family despite the "Ez-Mode Picker" screen supposedly for novices, because that screen lacks the #1 needed feature. Be kind to the muggles. The ones who read manuals or guides are a minority. And the ones who take the trouble to register for the forum and ask are a truly tiny minority. Developers of great software know this and make software that doesn't need manuals or guides: Software where it's intuitively obvious right in the UI how to do the tasks that users want to do. Being donationware, LUK may very well find a decent payback if more people were to go: Wow! This software does just what I wanted it to, it's simple, and it works! Again, I challenge you or anybody to find another suggestion that has a better "how-many-would-use-it" to development-effort ratio. Why limit yourself to such a small audience? ;-) Seriously though, take a look at actual usability studies for software or web sites. It'll be an eye-opener to see what the vast majority of real world users are like. Successful developers know this and deal with it. Hopefully without offending the wiz-kids too much.
  5. It's reasonably simple, really: On writing a track, just either remove the first N samples, or add M zero samples before it to compensate for what actual drives do to the track. Just offer a per-drive setting to specify the number of samples and the sign, and your advanced users will be able to find out the correct value for their drives and make copies that as far as possible remain bit-perfect, even after multiple generations.
  6. Thanks for that suggestion of a workaround. But since write offset is inherently a per-drive parameter, it would make more sense to be able to configure it for your drive in your burner program than to configure it for the .cue file which is meant to remain useful for any drive. So it would still be valuable to see this feature added to ImgBurn.
  7. What I've seen asked before is specifically an on-the-fly copy mode, and I understand that LUK doesn't want to do that. So in this thread I wanted to make an argument for why a "Copy Disc" mode is valuable even if it doesn't include the added bonus, and added development effort, of "on-the-fly" speed. To recap: 1) It really stands out as missing on the "Ez-Mode Picker" screen 2) Without it you can't do unattended copying even with two drives 3) Believe it or not, but a majority of real users find it hard to do a copy as long as it involves multiple steps and choices, even little ones.
  8. I'm 100 % serious about the "far less user friendly" part. It's not just that the current copy process can't be done unattended even with two drives, it's also a fact of life that most users are non-techies and you'd be amazed what small hurdles actually block them from completing tasks in real life. If you look at actual usability studies with real, average users you see dramatic differences in successful completion rate between something like: a) When you want to copy a disc, find that it's called "Copy disc". Then follow on-screen instructions for any additional steps (that don't involve choices) such as "insert a blank disc". When you want to copy a disc, find that it's called "Create image file from disc". Then decide or at least be aware that for certain types of disc .bin/.cue is suitable, for others .iso is. Then pick a temporary destination for your image. Then find that the next step is "Write image file to disc". Then find the image file you just created... So the reality is that users will keep asking for this. And until they get it, ImgBurn is just not the right software for the 95 % or so non-techie world population who still wants to copy a disc. Or for all of us who like unattended copying. And incidentally, copying a disc is probably most common thing anybody wants to do with their CD/DVD burner. But for now, for common users wanting to do this common operation, the bloated ugly Nero that came with the drive in fact remains a better choice, for all its warts. And keep in mind that with this feature added, ImgBurn would still be no less perfect for advanced users.
  9. A suggestion that has come up before in other forms: ImgBurn ought to have a user-friendly one-step disc-to-disc copy mode. I'd like to highlight that this would be a very valuable addition even if it's done without the effort of adding true copy-on-the fly operation for speed. (The on-the-fly part is what's primarily been suggested before and pretty much been turned down by LUK.) The lack of a simple disc copy option really stands out at first glance at the Ez-Mode Picker screen or the Mode menu. Such a common task and it's not there. I challenge anybody to find another suggestion that has a better "how-many-would-use-it" to development-effort ratio. Sure, you can accomplish this by reading and then writing an image, but that really is far less user friendly: You currently can't copy unattended even if you have two drives. That's a big difference if you're making a copy for a visiting friend and you don't really want to sit in front of your computer to monitor the process. Novices (i.e. the majority) will stumble on figuring out and completing the current multi-step-process. They'll look in vain at Ez-Mode Picker screen for an option to copy a disc. They're not likely to want to read a manual or guide. And if they do get started on the current multi-step process they may very well be confused about differences between .bin/.cue and .iso, about where to store your temp image, or even how to find it when you're ready to write it. To conclude, I have to agree with this guy re disc-to-disc copy:
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