[plug] CUE/BIN vs ISO

[Craig Ringer]

> So the link you gave earlier, which I'd read before and just served to confuse 
> me, suggests that CD copy programs like Nero actually do the equivalent of 
> mounting the disk and copying the files it can see. It'll miss off audio data 
> if it happens to be there.

I expect that it'll take a binary image of the ISO9660 filesystem on the 
disk, and probably merge in any later sessions.

> A CUE/BIN generator actually takes audio with it, like a 'dd' would.

Hmm... I thought that `dd` would give you an image of the first (and 
usually only) ISO9660 image on the disk, not an image of the entire 
disk, probaby with the later sessions (if any) merged in. I think you 
need apps that can use the scsi-generic cdrw interface to read the 
entire disc, or at least apps that know the ioctls to get audio data off 
the CD.

> What puzzles me is why CUE/BIN is necessary. It sounds like a complex way of 
> doing something very simple - just copying the binary image on the media.

Sort-of. You can't, AFAIK, just send an image to a CD writer. You have 
to send a table of contents that tells it what tracks it's creating, 
where, and what type (data, audio, etc), then send it the data. As such, 
you need the 'cue' file to store that table of contents and such, and 
the 'bin' file for the data. Sure, you could append one to the other, 
but for some reason they chose not to.