Question about Secure Rip Abort settings

[ferrarabrainpan]

I am using the latest version with Ultra Secure ripping enabled, drive tested for accurate rips and boxes checked for FUA and C2 (both of which are supported by my drive according the the test results). Looking at the log for a disc I have repeatedly attempted to rip without errors, I see that the four tracks at the end of the disc that failed have as few as 104 and as many as 841 bad frames, and that Secure Rip is set to abort after 1 unrecoverable frame or if having to re-rip more than 100 frames. (It was set by default to abort after ripping a track for 10 minutes but I increased that to 40 minutes because I have some discs that are just one long track exceeding 60 minutes and the rip speed was so slow the rips kept getting aborted with insecure warnings due to the fact it was taking longer than ten minutes to rip the one single long track on the disc).

So now it occurs to me that I could also change the setting which aborts the rip if there are more than 100 bad frames. And that this might enable my Ultra Secure ripping to successfully recover those bad frames and thereby save me the grief and frustration and expense of having to replace error-prone discs that won't rip securely or purchase another drive to see if it will rip these problem discs securely. FYI I have what I think is a pretty good optical DVD+-RW drive internal to my new Dell XPS desktop and I don't really want to invest in another drive so I've been spending money instead on just replacing the bad discs (which has gotten to be expensive when it is a bad disc from a rare OOP box set).

So I am going to give this a try (bumping up the frame limit from 100 to 500 or 1000) to see what happens. My question is will this compromise the security of the rip, or stress my drive, or adversely affect anything? I guess I had left those abort settings at their default values because it was not suggested to change them in the setup guide which I meticulously read and followed to the letter when I set up CD Ripper. What settings do other users have in those fields, and what is recommended?

(Obviously I do not want to change the setting for unrecoverable frames which is set at 1, or do I? that's another question I pose to you experienced users...)

[ferrarabrainpan]

Re: Question about Secure Rip Abort settings

Looking over the logs for some other failed rips and trying to make sense of the report... Three consecutive attempts to rip a disc with one bad track (final track on disc) and first attempt yielded 132 frames needed reripping so aborted, second attempt showed 840 bad frames on same track and third attempt was over 1400 bad frames so not sure what this means... drive was getting stressed from repeated attempts to rip the disc?

And some other discs that failed to get a secure rip showed only 4 or 7 frames needing reripping but rip was aborted because one of those few frames was unrecoverable. So maybe increasing the maximum allowable frames to rerip wouldn't probably make much difference.

It would be interesting and perhaps helpful to understand the technical details and mechanics involved in ripping a CD to digital files like AIFF which is what I use... like what is a frame and when there are frames needing to be ripped again is that indicative of flaws in the disc or errors and aberrations in the performance of the drive (in which case using a different drive could help)? Although it bugs the hell out of me to get insecure rip results I think it is pretty amazing that it rips securely the vast majority of the time. I haven't done the math but as I go thru my whole CD collection it seems it is better than 95% (could be 98 even) of my discs including old scuffed and discolored discs rip securely and accurately. And when I encounter a bad disc, no matter how many times I eject it and inspect and clean it and try again it keeps failing (though in some cases with a bad disc it will give an error message for one track and then for two tracks on a subsequent attempt). Only once did I find a track that failed to rip securely and it worked successfully on a second attempt in the same drive. And I've tried ripping discs again that were ripped securely the first time just to see if there is some erratic performance issues with my drive and it rips fine every time.

But my settings cause the rip to abort when there is a single unrecoverable frame, so I haven't had the chance to actually listen to what an insecure rip sounds like, like if there are any audible glitches. I did find that those problem discs and tracks that failed to rip played perfectly in my OPPO player (so at least I feel no guilt about selling the unrippable CDs to the record store or trading them in, since nobody but a perfectionist like me is going to find anything wrong with them).

Oh well, any thoughts or responses, I am interested to read them. It's a matter of time before I throw up my hands and just go buy a second drive to use, I keep postponing the purchase because I just can't decide which is the best one to buy that will give me the most likelihood of secure and accurate ripping with those problem discs.

[ferrarabrainpan]

Re: Question about Secure Rip Abort settings

Feel like I am talking aloud to myself here, but in case it means anything I am sharing my questions and findings as I read the logs. One disc where the final four tracks kept failing, sometimes it was aborted due to too many (100+) frames needing to rerip and sometimes because there was one unrecoverable frame. And the reported count of frames for a problem track did not actually increase each time I tried again, it decreased from 104 to 90 to 56, each time there being less frames to rerip but in all cases there was at least one unrecoverable frame therefore the rip is not secure (meaning bit perfect I guess). Still I wonder what all this means, like what is an unrecoverable frame in the context of an audio file that is 16-bit 44.1 khz...

OK I am done enumerating and pondering here, unless or until anyone has anything to offer in reply. Thanks to anyone who reads me.

[Oggy]

Re: Question about Secure Rip Abort settings

Have you tried ripping the disc with c2 pointers turned off?

[ferrarabrainpan]

Re: Question about Secure Rip Abort settings

I tried that once before with a disc and it made no difference with C2 on or off but that was because the rip was being aborted because it took too long to rip the track (hour-long track) before I got wise and increased the maximum allowable rip time for a single track.

So I just tried ripping one of my problem discs (FYI it is CD4 in the box set of The Doors Complete Studio Recordings, which I have bought two copies of and both of them had the same errors cropping up on tracks 5 and 8 of that one disc), with C2 on and then with C2 off.

With C2 ON track 5 was logged as Inaccurate (confidence 40) / Insecure [Pass 1, Ultra 1 to 1, Re-Rip 6 Frames] and track 8 was logged as Inaccurate (confidence 40) / Insecure [Pass 1, Ultra 1 to 1, Re-Rip 6 Frames], and both rips were aborted because of one or more unrecoverable frames.

With C2 OFF track 5 was logged as Accurate (confidence 2) / [Pass 1 & 2, Ultra 1 to 1, Re-Rip 1 Frames] and ripped securely without being aborted, whereas track 8 was logged as Inaccurate (confidence 40) / Secure (Warning) [Pass 1 & 2, Ultra 1 to 1, Re-Rip 1 Frames] so ripped securely but not accurately.

This is interesting to me. Can anyone tell me how to interpret these findings? With C2 ON both problem tracks were flagged as inaccurate and insecure and aborted. With C2 OFF one track ripped securely and accurately (but with a low confidence of 2 compared to accurate confidence of 19 or 20 for the non-problem tracks on the same disc, and the other track ripped securely without being aborted but was deemed inaccurate with a confidence of 40.

How do I interpret these figures? I am happy to get a secure rip if it is in fact truly secure. Is turning C2 off just a way to get the drive to pass over errors without detecting them (thus casting doubt on its rating as "secure")? Or does having C2 on actually introduce a possibly false/unreliable report of errors? This is an important question to answer. When I set up secure ripping I followed the guidelines to determine if my drive really supports C2 (using the CD with black marker triangle written across the playback side according to instructions) and running the test in the secure settings window, and it showed conclusively that my drive does support C2 (I have no idea what the maker claims for this model as to whether it is designated as C2-equipped or not). And I went on the recommendation to check the box for C2 if the drive supports this feature. Is C2 a desirable or necessary feature in getting a secure rip from an audio CD? Or is it not?

Second, what about accuracy confidence ratings. With this disc, where I encountered errors in the same two tracks on two different copies of the same disc in mint condition, could a rip be considered accurate because the results mirror those of other users whose discs reproduced the same errors due to a mastering or manufacturing defect across multiple copies in the production run?

I know I have encountered a fair number of inaccurate rips because the disc was incorrectly identified when I inserted it in the drive, even though I entered in all the correct ID data associated with the disc (this happens most frequently on CDs with only one track, such as many modern classical or experimental CDs I own which get ID tagged as some New Age CD I never heard of).

If I could boil this long winded post down to one question, it's this: Is it better to leave C2 on or off if what I want is a truly secure and bit perfect rip? (Seems dubious to simply turn it off so as to deceive myself into thinking the rip is secure when it is actually not secure).

[mville]

Re: Question about Secure Rip Abort settings

Feel like I am talking aloud to myself here, but in case it means anything I am sharing my questions and findings as I read the logs. One disc where the final four tracks kept failing, sometimes it was aborted due to too many (100+) frames needing to rerip and sometimes because there was one unrecoverable frame. And the reported count of frames for a problem track did not actually increase each time I tried again, it decreased from 104 to 90 to 56, each time there being less frames to rerip but in all cases there was at least one unrecoverable frame therefore the rip is not secure (meaning bit perfect I guess). Still I wonder what all this means, like what is an unrecoverable frame in the context of an audio file that is 16-bit 44.1 khz...

It sounds like you are over-thinking this, as the findings simply tell you there are errors ripping some of your CDs.

As you have been advised before, the best solution for CDs that produce errors, is to try ripping in another optical drive (from a different manufacturer, usually costing no more than £20). Sourcing another copy of the disc may not work for you, as the errors you encounter on a CD may exist in ALL pressings of that CD.

Some CDs have errors. When played in a CD player, error correction and then interpolation occurs in attempt to re-create missing samples. Often the end user will not hear the errors. CD Ripper however, is trying to get bit-perfect rips from a disc, but as you will have to accept, it is not always possible.

If you are getting AccurateRips with C2 error pointers set to Off, then personally, I would leave it Off.