Guest User

Untitled

a guest
Aug 30th, 2010
771
0
Never
Not a member of Pastebin yet? Sign Up, it unlocks many cool features!
text 5.88 KB | None | 0 0
  1. The official Darkwater method is to dump it three or more times with CDRWin or ImgBurn and make sure that the dumps are all identical. We also scan the image with CDMage to make sure there are no errors in the data track. When somebody new joins the team we audit their work with TAU analyzer to make sure they are submitting rips from iso/MP3 burns. I think I am now the top Saturn dumper at DW, and there are several additional quality control steps that I perform on all my dumps:
  2. 1) I dump 4 times. But this really doesn't add anything. If you can dump it 3 times and get the same SHA1 code you can dump it 4 times. Only once in all my dumping did I ever get two erroneous dumps to match, and I knew those were bad because they failed the CDMage scan. Three matching dumps is adequate.
  3. 2) I compare the audio tracks from the CDRwin dump to ExactAudioCopy rips. If I get the 3 matching dumps then the EAC comparison always passes, so I feel confident that the other dumps by DW members who don't do the EAC comparison are also good. EAC is the gold standard for audio extraction and it is used by Tosec as part of their process. Borisz also performs this step on his dumps. (He actually introduced me to it.)
  4.  
  5. The weakness of the DW method is that we have no guarantee that any particular team member has actually followed the process. Also, the process has changed a bit over the years so I can't speak to what checks were performed in the early days. In the very beginning they did MP3 based rips, but all of those were thrown out. Indeed, I have personally done a CD Mage scan on every single image on the Darkwater server, and I did find a few images in the Japanese section that had to be thrown out. CD Mage scans verify the data portion of the disc is good, but they don't check the audio.
  6.  
  7. Tosec's method is quite good. What I really like about them is that they will not release an image until it has been ripped by two separate members with identical results, which guarantees that the process is followed. Of course, that meant they weren't compatible with my goals of immediate release of all the Saturn USA collection, since I couldn't guarantee that I could find somebody to do the second rip. The other problem is that they use a specific and very old version of EAC for their audio rips. That particular version is known to have a bug that affects a few ms of the audio track, and all of their CD rips are so affected. The error is correctable and they have plans to release a patch program that will fix everybody's rips without having to redownload them. I was going to rip for both Tosec and Darkwater, but when I discovered the EAC issue I lost interest. Their method is more labor intensive than the DW method and I didn't like the fact that it introduced a known error however insignificant it might be.
  8.  
  9. Both Tosec and DW do not archive the last few ms of audio data on the last audio track if it is written into the leadout. In my experience of a random sample of 10 U.S. Saturn CD's, approximately one third of them wrote data into the leadout. If that bothers you, then Redump is your group. They obsess over it. I contend that no human can tell if they have or have not heard the last 15 ms of audio on the last audio track of a disc. Actually it is usually considerably less than 15 ms that is at issue.
  10.  
  11. That said, the first time I encountered the missing audio issue (it showed up in my EAC verification) I tried the Redump technique. At the time they were encouraging the use of a program called PerfectRip for Saturn dumping that no longer seems to be part of their repertoire. PerfectRip managed to drop the last few ms of audio as well. Their method is quite a bit more labor intensive and fiddly than DW's, so I didn't see the point if they weren't going to get better results. Maybe they have since addressed that issue, but those last few ms just aren't worth the extra hassle to me.
  12.  
  13. I also have a strong preference for the bin/cue format DW uses because:
  14. 1) It includes the ECC data which allows other people to run a CD Mage scan and verify that you did indeed do an accurate dump.
  15. 2) All images only have two files, which makes maintenance and renaming easier.
  16. 3) Every time you introduce a seam in the image by splitting it up into multiple tracks you increase the possibility of error in stitching the data back together. Historically this has been a frequent source of bugs in the various dumping programs. Bin/cue is seamless, iso/wav has multiple seams in each image.
  17.  
  18. Tosec/Redump people like the iso/wav format because it sheds the ECC code which makes the image smaller. Redumpers have a strong preference for the pakkiso compression format. I've had two people do pakkiso/winrar comparisons, and one reported that pakkiso was a few percent better and the other reported that winrar was a few percent better. I guess it depends which version of the software you are using.
  19.  
  20. In summary, there is no most accurate version. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. IMHO, all three of the major groups do a great job, and I have no qualms about using any of their images if a DW version is not yet available for a specific title, but at this point there is a DW image for everything I that I personally care about in the Saturn world. I do have a format preference for bin/cue, but opinions will differ on that.
  21.  
  22. If you are a Europhile, I would also like to commend KingofCosmos's complete European Saturn collection to you. That collection uses a mix of sources and methodologies to fill out the collection (Tosec+redump+darkwater+private known good dumps), but the assembler of the collection was and is obsessive about quality, so you needn't have any qualms about using it.
  23.  
  24. I'm an American Hyperspin user, so for my own personal collection, I only care about the USA and unique-to-Europe game discs, and those are all in the Darkwater torrent now.
  25.  
  26. Hope this helps.
  27.  
  28. --StarControl
Advertisement
Add Comment
Please, Sign In to add comment