[game_preservation] Archivist's Burden

[Andrew Armstrong]

Cool! It's a shame dd isn't actually more "low level" - ISOBuster on 
Windows can check for read errors, I'm surprised this can't (or at least 
log them).

As for FLAC, heh, the fact it can't be read in iTunes might suck might 
just be because Apple won't support every format (I wish foobar2000 was 
cross platform personally!).

I guess if the entire intention is to get the files in an easy to listen 
to format, I'd suggest adding an simple 128 static bitrate MP3 creation 
line, which would make quick and tiny files in comparison to the 
FLAC/Apple Lossless files (and easier to provide copies of for people). 
Could substitute OGG instead of MP3 because of the patent problems too 
(I don't know what the patent situation for Apple Lossless is 
personally, but for the lossy versions OGG is reasonable and doesn't 
involve a corporate overlord :) ).

I'll think of a good way to lay this out on the wiki and get some info 
up quickly (with of links of course). It needs a "proper look" - so 
addition of the pitfalls, nuances, other orgs working on it, and so forth.

The main thing is always, always to keep something that can be read back 
as the original source, but for CD's this is difficult for the 
videogames side when we get to the "CD check + copy protection" stage of 
PC development, which rely on badly wrecking CD standards, sigh.

Andrew

Mike Melanson wrote:

> Andrew Armstrong wrote:

>> Looking up the dd command it looks pretty simple to get an ISO of a 

>> complete CD and it seems to be able to log enough information - 

>> especially useful for those glaringly obvious read problems some CDs 

>> have (from being poor quality to scratches to mess on them - so the 

>> noerror might even want to be omitted so you can check out any read 

>> errors so the ISO isn't broken).

>>

>> One thing on the error sections, it doesn't seem to have a 

>> "repeatedly try reading data" option - odd, but I presume it does try 

>> more then once.

>

> I've used the 'dd' command on many occasions for this task and it 

> works well. It's not particularly low level. It just reads from the 

> device file, treating it as a regular file, and if there is anything 

> wrong, that's handled at the OS driver level. I have, in fact, gotten 

> faulty ISOs using 'dd' from heavily scratched discs.

>

>> The only site I know that has ISO's (or CD contents more accurately) 

>> is Textfiles, Jason Scott might have an automated solution he's 

>> willing to share, might be worth asking.

>

> This script should take less than 10 minutes to write and debug. I 

> just wanted to make sure I'm on the right track and that I have the 

> technologies covered. I once wrote another Python script that does a 

> similar thing with creating ISO/MP3 rips of Sega CDs that are suitable 

> for emulator play:

>

> http://multimedia.cx/eggs/sega-cd-ripper/

>

>> Oh, for audio too, yeah, FLAC would be the preferable one in my 

>> opinion next to the raw files themselves if you want to save space. 

>> FLAC is open, so it's a pretty good one for standards for getting to 

>> read it back later, lots of tools that read and write them.

>

> FLAC is nice for those reasons. However, the open source FFmpeg 

> program is also able to read and write Apple Lossless directly and 

> most lossless audio compressors perform more or less equally. Encoding 

> to ALAC has the benefit of being able to play directly in iTunes.

>

> Maybe I'll just encode to both formats. Lossless compressors generally 

> share the property of being blindingly fast to encode.

>

> Thanks...

>