[Free-sklyarov-uk] Natalie Imbruglia CD, strange strange CD format

[Jim Peters]

Stephen Nicholson wrote:
> Has anyone tried some ripping tools with this CD yet? (Paranoia, EAC etc).
> If not I'll pick up a copy of the cd in HMV tomorrow and give it a bash.
> It'll be interesting to see if there's any easy way to bypass the
> protection. (Apart from the obviouse line-out --> line-in)

Yes, several people have tried, with mixed results.  For instance,
iTunes on Mac OS 9 seems to work fine.  Some Windows rippers work fine
too, but not others.  (One resulted in a recording with obvious
skipping and bursts of noise at points).  It might also be much more
dependent on the particular CD drive you're using than other
protection mechanisms we've seen.

My portable CD-ROM won't recognise the CD at all, whereas my other
CD-ROM drive will recognise it as a valid CD (most of the time,
anyway), and even bring up a fully-correct TOC.  However, other
machines have demonstrated that there must also be an invalid TOC on
the disk somewhere - in which the track-one info is completely
corrupt.  Which TOC you get seems to depend on your drive and/or
software.

I took the opportunity to wander around Dixons and Currys yesterday,
and tried it in a few DVD players.  Some of them worked fine, but
others also had problems with track 1, just like the PS2.

I've also had a report that there are problems with the built-in MP3
player on Windows 2000 SP2.  This opens up a whole can of worms
regarding software compatability.  If they're going to put software on
an audio disk, how are they going to guarantee us that this will
continue to work for the next five, ten, or twenty years ?  Vinyl
records still work decades after their production, and so will normal
standard-conforming audio CDs, most likely.  But these kinds of custom
software-based CDs aren't likely to work beyond five years, I would
say.  (Even ignoring the issue of poor-quality audio and other
corruption for the moment).

I've had 10+ reports from people on this CD, and I'm hoping to put all
of this together into a report for the web-site when I have a moment.

Jim

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