[plug] CUE/BIN vs ISO

[Cameron Patrick]

On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 05:55:50PM +0800, James Devenish wrote:

| The BIN is probably really simple (e.g. the 'surface' of the CD, as you
| mentioned, with all the raw bits like error correction codes). The CUE
| file then preserves the "metadata" about the contents of the BIN file in
| a convenient manner (then again...wouldn't the BIN file contain all the
| data, too?).

That's not my understanding... I thought that the CUE was a text file
which said "track 1 is data starting from the 0th byte of something.bin,
track 2 is audio starting from the 199238532th byte of something.bin,
track 3 is ......".  The CUE file can also reference a bunch of files,
which is handy in the case of burning audio CDs from a heap of WAVs, and
probably define other metadata which escapes me at the moment.

Anyway, my point was that the BIN /doesn't/ store all the raw error
correction bits, which AFAIK can't even be read on most drives and
involve quirky stuff like expanding 8-bit bytes into 14-bit codes that
have on average roughly the same number of 1s as 0s to stop bits of the
disc from being too reflective or not reflective enough or something
(2nd-hand explanation, might be way off here).  Another reason the BIN
file doesn't contain everything and that the CUE is separate is the
history of the format, which IIRC was from a Windows program (WinDAO?)
which specialised in burning audio CDs; the CUE file spec was designed
to be produced easily by plug-ins to wave editors or even by hand if
necessary.

NB Please take all of the above with a slightly larger cellar full of
salt than my usual pronouncements.

Cheers,

Cameron.