Make ISO image file of Audio CD?

[Ken852]

Hello,

I have some Audio CD discs I would like to make ISO image files of. I have a few questions if you don't mind me asking. As an example, I will use a CD-R disc of "The Face" album by "Infinite Mass".

0 bytes free of 0 bytes

When I insert the CD and go to "This PC" in Windows, it says that 0 bytes are free out of 0 bytes.

Does anyone have an explanation for this?

However when I enter the "Discovery" mode in ImgBurn, it says the size is 434,108,416 bytes.

I'm asking because I'm concerned that the disc is not being read correctly for some reason.

ISO is not an appropriate container format

If I switch over to "Read" mode in ImgBurn and try to make an "ISO" file rather than the default "BIN" file by selecting ISO as the file name extension, I get a funny little error message.

 

Quote

 

As Yoda would say, "Hmm. Failed in your attempt to outsmart me, you have.

ISO is not an appropriate container format for the current disc.

Reason: The disc contains multiple tracks.

Regardless of what you have selected for the file extension, I will not create a true (MODE1/2048) ISO image!

The file will be created with a '.bin' extension instead.

 

I don't quite understand why this is a problem. Can someone explain please? Why is ISO inappropriate, and what makes BIN appropriate?

 

[dbminter]

The 0 bytes being detected for an Audio CD by File Explorer is normal.  Technically, an Audio CD has no "data" as typically defined by Windows.  It's a proprietary format created long before PC's became popular.  So, PC's had to retro fit support for them.  So, while they're read on stand alone CD players because they were created for them, Windows had to adapt to read Audio CD's.  It can play them, but it can't read "data" off of them with proprietary software like Windows Media Player or any other CD ripper.  Any Audio CD that has data on in when you insert it into a PC is actually a Mixed Mode disc.  It has one Track for audio tracks and a Track for the data.  When inserted into the PC, the PC can detect the data track as data, but won't recognize the audio tracks portion in File Explorer.

 

As for why ISO is not used for Audio CD, it just isn't.  CUE files are necessary for properly accessing Audio CD tracks, and CUE is used in association with BIN as brothered pairs.  So, that would be my guess as to why ISO isn't supported.

[Ken852]

Thanks for your reply @dbminter

I created this Audio CD myself some years ago, but I no longer have the original CD. I thought I made a mistake when I burned it, but I have now seen the same behavior for other original Audio CD releases (0 bytes used, 0 bytes free).

Do Audio CD discs have a file system? You will notice it says "CDFS" and this I understand to mean "Compact Disc File System". But if I open such disc in File Explorer all I can see are these 44 byte "CDA" files, one for each audio track. When I read on the web about it, I'm told that these in fact do not exist at all, but are created by the operating system.

Audio CD is still an enigma to me, but let's say I go along with making a BIN file. How would I be able to mount a BIN file in Windows 10? Also, would it still be an exact replica of the physical disc just like ISO files are? I also don't quite understand the purpose of these extra CUE files. Is it safe to delete them afterwards?

 

[dbminter]

To paraphrase Seth Brundle from The Fly, the computer is giving us its interpretation of an Audio CD.  It doesn't have a "file system" per se, but in order for Windows software to play the actual audio tracks on the CD, it needs the CDA's which are generated by the interface.  I believe CDA is Compact Disc Audio.  They're links to the actual tracks natively on the CD.

 

As far as I know, there is no native way to mount a BIN file in Windows.  I use an external application called Virtual CloneDrive.  It creates virtual drives in the system where you can mount ISO, BIN, etc. as virtual drives.  I use it for CD discs.  You mount the BIN file.  You can delete the CUE files, but they may be necessary for proper writing later.   CloneDrive mounts BIN files so CUE files are not necessary for mounting.  And, for burning in ImgBurn, CUE files are generally necessary for certain Audio CD properties, like, I believe, CD Text.  And, I believe, though I'm not sure, if necessary, you can create new CUE files from existing BIN files with the Tools option to Create CUE file, but you may lose certain properties.

[Ken852]

So I have following files now in my documents folder.

Infinite Mass - The Face.bin

Infinite Mass - The Face.cdt

Infinite Mass - The Face.cue

At the moment, CUE files are associated to VLC media player. However it doesn't seem to be able to open them or to play them ("VLC could not identify the audio or video codec"). I tried the Media > Open Disc, as well as Media > Open File option in VLC. I will have to try this Virtual CloneDrive. If I understood correctly this program will allow me to mound the BIN/CUE file and then I will be able to use the Open Disc option in VLC and point at this virtual drive?

What is this CDT file? With "CD" in it, it sounds important. Where do I use this?

 

[dbminter]

I've not used VLC in a long time.  I abandoned it because of it's high bug count and failure to do a lot of things it claimed it could.  I use Media Player Classic Home Cinema instead.  So, I can't say how VLC would load a mounted CD image.  However, that sounds about it.  If you were to mount an Audio CD BIN as a virtual drive, VLC should then play it like any other Audio CD.

 

.CDT is the file for exporting CD Text from an Audio CD containing CD Text as a raw dump.  Another reason to burn with CUE files instead of loading BIN files directly into ImgBurn, I would think.  See this thread:

 

[Ken852]

In regard to VLC, I have used it for many years and it can usually play anything I throw at it. But I only recently discovered that it does not support DVDs that contain multiple angles. After reading the discussion on the VLC forum my understanding is that VLC had this feature at one point, but it was removed in a later release because it was not reliable enough, and the team could not figure out how to properly implement this, claiming that it's mainly due to lack of DVDs with multiple angles that they could use for testing purposes. Someone made a list of quite a few titles that have multiple angles. I don't think they have done anything in that regard since, and this was an old discussion.

In that discussion, someone mentioned MPC or Media Player Classic and now I have one called "MPC-BE x64 1.5.6". I'm not sure if this is the same you're using, there appear to exist different editions of this program. But I can tell you this much, this one does support multiple angles! It's not a reason enough for me to abandon VLC, but it's certainly nice to see that there are some good options out there (and no one said I have to replace one with the other, they can co-exist).

Back on topic of CDT, thanks for the link! So a CDT file contains the CD-TEXT data in full ("raw dump") and as found on the original disc. I assume this means that all the characters and perhaps the casing is preserved as well? This can be used for burning a new disc that's as close as possible to the original disc. But if you have no intention of making copies of it, or if you need to make edits to the CD-TEXT data, then you have no need for this extra CDT file? So CD-TEXT data is not something that fits in a BIN file?

Just for the sake of it, I inserted a "Football Game" promotional CD by Sony and "Ubi Soft". This too is a "CDFS" according to Windows, but unlike Audio CD in my example, this is not a 0 byte entity. It says that 315 MB are used.

One thing I noticed in ImgBurn is that this one only contains a single track.

TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-224DB SB00 (SATA)
Current Profile: CD-ROM

Disc Information:
Status: Complete
State of Last Session: Complete
Erasable: No
Sessions: 1
Sectors: 161,663
Size: 331,085,824 bytes
Time: 35:57:38 (MM:SS:FF)

TOC Information:
Session 1... (LBA: 0 / 00:02:00)
-> Track 01  (Mode 1, LBA: 0 / 00:02:00)
-> LeadOut  (LBA: 161663 / 35:57:38)

I understand that this disc has different content on it. But is it because of number of tracks on it or the type of tracks on it that ImgBurn can create ISO files of this disc, but not of Audio CD discs? I'm still puzzled about why we can't simply just use ISO files to store the contents of any kind of disc, CD or DVD, music or data. Anyway, I'm off to install Virtual CloneDrive.

 

[dbminter]

If by the casing you mean the CD cover art, no, CD Text does not contain that.  It's just the text that some hardware and software players can recognize for displaying the name of a track being played or the CD being played.

 

I take it this Sony/Ubisoft football game disc is a Playstation 1 disc?  Those are a unique beast.  Some have 2 different tracks on them.  One track is a data track which contains the actual game itself.  The other is an audio track containing audio files the game plays from disc.

 

As for why ImgBurn creates CUE/BIN, it just does.  LUK must have had a reason for creating Audio CD's in that format.  I think even Alcohol 120% saves Audio CD's as BIN/CUE, but don't quote me exactly on that.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

An ISO is dumb. It's a basic 2048 bytes per sector (purely 'user data') dump of the disc. It knows nothing of sessions, tracks, indexes etc and is always assumed to be single session, single track.

Audio discs are complex. 2352 bytes per sector and you have the option of multiple tracks and multiple index points. That's why BIN/CUE is used. The CUE file is required for all of the extra info about the disc and the BIN is a 2352 bytes per sector dump of the disc. Without the CUE, your BIN file is useless - do not delete it.

ImgBurn can also create a CCD file - which is very similar in function to the CUE file. VirtualCloneDrive doesn't actually (fully) support BIN/CUE, which is why ImgBurn can make CCD/IMG - VCDs native format.

 

[dbminter]

Oh, I forgot about the CloneCD format file, .CCD.

[Ken852]

In regard to CDT files, I meant things like "INFINITE MASS" vs. "Infinite Mass". That kind of casing. I don't know if this is a thing with CD-TEXT, but I assume you can use both upper and lower case letters. I don't have much experience with CD-TEXT myself. I was just reflecting on what it means to keep text as close as possible to the original, when making copies presumably.

As for the game disc, it's a PC game. I think this one can be saved to an ISO file. But I do have some old Playstation games. I tried inserting one in and it looks like it will be saved as a BIN/CUE file combo.

I think I may be missing the point with these BIN/CUE files. Can you actually use such files as a virtual disc? Or is the purpose of these purely as a backup so you can reproduce the contents should the original discs go bad or go missing?

I have Virtual CloneDrive 5.5.2.0 installed now, and when I mount "Infinite Mass - The Face.bin" I can't seem to browse the contents in File Explorer, nor can I play it back in VLC media player.

Quote

Windows can't access this disc
The disc might be corrupt. Make sure that the disc uses a format that Windows recognizes. If the disc is unfromatted, you need to format it before using it.

I'm currently in the process of creating an IMG file instead. This should create the CCD file as well, if I understood correctly. Hopefully this format will work better with Virtual CloneDrive.

But again, I may be missing the point in all this. Do these files serve purely as a backup, or can you actually go on to use them in other programs as if you had a physical disc? If it's purely for backup, I might as well just rip the audio tracks and turn them into MP3 files or keep them as WAV files.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Ken852

[Ken852]

16 hours ago, LIGHTNING UK! said:

Audio discs are complex. 2352 bytes per sector and you have the option of multiple tracks and multiple index points.

How do you figure it's 2352 bytes per sector? I'm just curious. I have seen mentions of 2048 bytes per sector for CD discs on various forums and other places. For the disc I used in my example the reported size is 434108416 bytes and number of sectors is 211967. That comes out to 2048 bytes per sector. I'm no expert, but that would seem fitting for an ISO file? I know nothing about sessions, tracks and indexes. So in regard to these details it may be more fitting to use BIN/CUE files.

 

[dbminter]

CD Text allows for a mixture of upper and lower cases.

 

BIN can be mounted in CloneDrive, but it isn't necessarily guaranteed to work properly.  That's why you need a .CCD file for them.  I forget if CCD is enabled by default in ImgBurn when creating a disc image of a CD.  Try creating an image of the Audio CD and mount the .CCD file it plays.  I don't know about VLC, but Media Player Classic Home Cinema plays Audio CD's mounted this way.

 

As for being unable to access the mounted image contents in File Explorer, you are attempting to read from the CloneDrive letter, right?  Not just trying to double click the BIN and see if File Explorer opens the contents like ISO's do?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

How do you figure it's 2352 bytes per sector? I'm just curious. I have seen mentions of 2048 bytes per sector for CD discs on various forums and other places. For the disc I used in my example the reported size is 434108416 bytes and number of sectors is 211967. That comes out to 2048 bytes per sector. I'm no expert, but that would seem fitting for an ISO file? I know nothing about sessions, tracks and indexes. So in regard to these details it may be more fitting to use BIN/CUE files.

 

That’s just what CDDA is. Check the MMC specs for optical drives and the various types of sectors used for what can be stored on a CD.

 

Please just take it from me that the program is telling the truth. Don’t attempt to read an audio disc to a single file that you’ve given the ‘iso’ extension to. It won’t work... in anything.

 

Bin/cue is very common for anything CD related. Bin/cue can be mounted in lots of virtual drive programs (the main one is / was Daemon Tools).

 

Virtual CloneDrive is by the same people that made CloneCD, hence why it supports CCD/IMG instead, rather than Bin/cue.

 

A virtual drive program that can fully process a bin/cue combo and emulate an optical drive/disc with it will be usable in the same way as if you had the original disc in a real optical drive.

[Ken852]

7 hours ago, dbminter said:

BIN can be mounted in CloneDrive, but it isn't necessarily guaranteed to work properly.  That's why you need a .CCD file for them.  I forget if CCD is enabled by default in ImgBurn when creating a disc image of a CD.

BIN files as well as IMG files are assocaited to Virtual CloneDrive at the moment. So if I double click a BIN to mount it or go down to the icon on the system tray, it appears to be mounted, but Windows gives me that error message I quoted previously.

Thank you! It turns out CCD is not enabled in ImgBurn by default. It's in Settings > Read > Page 1. So it makes BIN/CUE files by default, and I guess it makes BIN/CCD files once you check that box. I have not tried it yet.

7 hours ago, dbminter said:

As for being unable to access the mounted image contents in File Explorer, you are attempting to read from the CloneDrive letter, right?  Not just trying to double click the BIN and see if File Explorer opens the contents like ISO's do?

I first double click on the BIN which is associated to Virtual CloneDrive, and then I go to "This PC" and right click on drive letter D for Virtual CloneDrive and select Open (I'm trying to avoid auto-play).

 

[Ken852]

7 hours ago, LIGHTNING UK! said:

Bin/cue is very common for anything CD related. Bin/cue can be mounted in lots of virtual drive programs (the main one is / was Daemon Tools).

Virtual CloneDrive is by the same people that made CloneCD, hence why it supports CCD/IMG instead, rather than Bin/cue.

A virtual drive program that can fully process a bin/cue combo and emulate an optical drive/disc with it will be usable in the same way as if you had the original disc in a real optical drive.

Is there any advantage to using IMG/CCD over BIN/CUE?

I have installed Daemon Tools Lite 10.14 and I was able to mount the BIN/CUE files and have it present as Audio CD in File Explorer and have it play some tunes off of it in VLC.

I'm supposed to point Daemon Tools at the CUE file rather than the BIN file? By trying to mount the BIN file, I got the same error as I got previously using Virtual CloneDrive ("disc might be corrupt"). But selecting the CUE file instead made all the difference! I can tell now why I must keep the CUE files. Good lesson!

Similarly, with IMG/CCD files I need to point at the CCD file rather than the IMG file? I had ImgBurn write a second set of files for me, this time selecting IMG for file destination. It made IMG/CUE files instead. Little did I know I have to enable the CCD box in settings. Thanks @dbminter!

It's past midnight here, I will do some more testing in the evening tomorrow today.

Edited March 15, 2021 by Ken852

[LIGHTNING UK!]

2 minutes ago, Ken852 said:

Is there any advantage to using IMG/CCD over BIN/CUE?

I have installed Daemon Tools Lite 10.14 and I was able to mount the BIN/CUE files and have it present as Audio CD in File Explorer and have it play some tunes off of it in VLC.

I'm supposed to point Daemon Tools at the CUE file rather than the BIN file? By trying to mount the BIN file, I got the same error as I got previously using Virtual CloneDrive ("disc might be corrupt"). But selecting the CUE file instead made all the difference! I can tell now why I must keep the CUE files. Good lesson!

Similarly, with IMG/CCD files I need to point at the CCD file rather than the IMG file? I had ImgBurn write a second set of files for me, this time selecting IMG for file destination. It made IMG/CUE files instead. Little did I know I have to enable the CCD box in settings. Thanks @dbmin

It's past midnight here, I will do some more testing in evening tomorrow.

Not where ImgBurn is concerned, no.

BIN/CUE is what ImgBurn started off supporting for CD images. I added support for CCD purely so people had the option of using VirtualCloneDrive instead of DAEMON Tools.

Yes, you should always point the tools at the info files (CUE/CCD/MDS etc) rather than the data files (BIN/IMG/MDF). Otherwise, you're just giving them a load of data without any info on how to interpret it.

[Ken852]

I have now made both BIN/CUE files and IMG/CUE files as well as IMG/CCD files. Each set of files in their own folder so I don't confuse them. Looking at these files and comparing them, the BIN and IMG files appear to be identical? They are same size, and they have same MD5 hash. The only thing that differs are the CUE and CCD files.

The CUE file from the BIN/CUE set only differs in file name reference compared to the CUE file in the IMG/CUE set.

CUE in BIN/CUE set:

CDTEXTFILE "Infinite Mass - The Face.cdt"
TITLE "The Face"
PERFORMER "Infinite Mass"
FILE "Infinite Mass - The Face.bin" BINARY
...

CUE in IMG/CUE set:

CDTEXTFILE "Infinite Mass - The Face.cdt"
TITLE "The Face"
PERFORMER "Infinite Mass"
FILE "Infinite Mass - The Face.img" BINARY
...

In the IMG/CCD set there is also an additional CUE file which is identical to the CUE file in the IMG/CUE set.

11 hours ago, LIGHTNING UK! said:

I added support for CCD purely so people had the option of using VirtualCloneDrive instead of DAEMON Tools.

Why use Virtual CloneDrive instead of Daemon Tools? So basically... that "CCD" checkbox is a selector button for using VirtualCloneDrive or Daemon Tools later on? Looking at these files and seeing that they are just text files, I would say that Virtual CloneDrive / CloneCD team decided to invent the CCD file just for the fun of it. I mean why reinvent the wheel?

In any case, now that I know how to work with these files, I can tell that Daemon Tools can properly read all of them. But Virtual CloneDrive seems to be a simpler and more easy to use program.

 

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Unfortunately, there’s no way to specify the name of the data file when using CCD. That’s why ImgBurn has to rename its usual ‘bin’ file to ‘img’. The CUE file can then just be told to use the img file.
Back when ImgBurn (or perhaps its predecessor) came about, DAEMON Tools was a much simpler application. It grew and grew, had a few driver issues (which slowed down real optical drives) and people liked the basic nature of virtual clone drive. There’s no doubt that Daemon tools is more capable and fully featured (both in terms of features and its ability to faithfully emulate a physical drive), but if VCD works for you, that’s great.

[Ken852]

I will test them both and see which one is the keeper. I very much enjoy the simplicity of VCD.

I would like to just briefly touch on the question of using ISO files. As I was researching how to image old Playstation games I came across this video tutorial...

In this video, the guy is using ImgBurn and a program called CDmage. He uses ImgBurn to create an ISO file of the Doom game, and then uses CDmage to extract a BIN/CUE file set from that, and then deletes the ISO file. I found this a bit weird and it unnecessary. Because when I insert a Playstation game, ImgBurn suggests using the BIN/CUE format straight away. Why is he doing this extra step? From the looks of it, he is also using ImgBurn 2.5.8.0 but the site he's referencing in the video has ImgBurn 2.1.0.0 listed. So my question is, did the older versions of ImgBurn in fact use ISO as the default format when imaging Playstation games?

So this got me thinking. The video is a bit dated, but it shows that BIN/CUE files are favored over ISO files for Playstation games. And if they are good enough for Playstation games, why would they not be a good fit for Audio CD discs? Right?

[dbminter]

Near as I remember, PS1 discs had separate tracks for data and audio.  One track was an audio track for things like music and audio files being played in game.  So, it would have to be BIN/CUE since it has an audio track in it.  However, there are other applications like Alcohol 120% that, I think, read PS1 discs to their own file format.  In fact, some PS1 games can't be read by ImgBurn and some drives, so I always threw them at Alcohol.  Or Alcohol may also have used BIN/CUE; I haven't used it in like 10 years.

[Ken852]

I am probably among the last people on Earth to be archiving their optical disc collection.

But better late than never, I suppose. I have not written any optical disc in years, and I only have some experience working with ISO files. So I don't know what works best for what kind of disc and content. I just assumed that ISO would work well for everything. Guess if I was wrong!

Thanks to you both for taking time to help me out!

 

[dbminter]

I am probably one of the last people on Earth still burning DVD's. 

 

[Ken852]

On 3/16/2021 at 5:02 PM, LIGHTNING UK! said:

Unfortunately, there’s no way to specify the name of the data file when using CCD. That’s why ImgBurn has to rename its usual ‘bin’ file to ‘img’. The CUE file can then just be told to use the img file.

I have 3 files like this...

020227_1913.CCD
020227_1913.CUE
020227_1913.IMG

If I rename the IMG file, I can make an edit in the CUE file file to reflect the new data file name. But I seem to be out of luck editing the CCD file? There is no reference to the IMG file?

020227_1913.CCD
020227_1913.CUE
020227.IMG

This will result in errors in both Virtual CloneDrive and Daemon Tools if I just rename the IMG file like this.

CCD in Virtual CloneDrive

CUE in Daemon Tools

CCD in Daemon Tools

I can correct the error for CUE files in Daemon Tools by pointing to the new IMG name. How do I do the same for the CCD files?

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by Ken852

[Ken852]

Never mind! I got this!

I just had to rename the CCD file!

So CCD files don't use any internal reference to the IMG file. The name of the CCD file itself is used as a reference.

020227.CCD
020227_1913.CUE
020227.IMG

So this would solve the first and third error above for CCD files. (For the second error the CUE file needs to be edited.)

Edited March 21, 2021 by Ken852