Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

[joeyc410]

Hi all,

I’m just curious about an issue I’ve had over the years. I have a number of discs from the early 2000s when copy protection was a real issue. What these discs have in common is that they cannot be ripped at all. Every single track returns an error. What’s also strange is that they are in the AccurateRip database. I posted about this here before in regard to one particular disc and was told that I “needed a different drive”. I don’t understand why my drive can accurately rip hundreds of other discs but not a certain few. The only explanation I can think of is that these discs have copy protection, but if so, how are other people submitting them to AccurateRip? It’s disappointing because I don’t know I’m going to run into this issue until after I buy these discs and I don’t have another drive, and I don’t want to buy another drive only to potentially find that these discs still cannot be ripped.

Recently, I had one of these discs return a result saying that somewhere around 14,000 out of 22,000 frames needed to be reread, but then the next track just returns an error, then the next, and the next, and so on. This happens despite there being no scratches or minimal wear to the discs. I’ve purchased multiple copies of the same release to try to experiment and I get the same results for both copies.

Anyone know why this happens?

[schmidj]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

There were a number of different attempts at copy protection used, most commonly in the early 2000's. Do Google searches and you can read about some of the techniques that were tried, and the names of many of the CDs. Almost all of the CDs were re-issued later without copy protection, as people came up with various ways of defeating it and the record companies came up with other ways of dealing with "illegal" downloads (most of which looked to make criminals out of some of their better customers and in my opinion has much to do with the downfall of the music business). So the accuraterip numbers may well be from the un-copy protected versions of the CDs. Also, the manufacturers of some of the computer drives modified their firmware to be able to read the CD despite the copy protection.

I recently have run into a few copy protected discs (the jewel case insert even says so) in a large batch of used CDs I acquired. One of them wouldn't play in most of my drives, but ripped without error in a newer BD recorder drive I owned.

And then I found a copy of the Charley Pride CD which was one of the first "protected" CDs issued (and has been re-released un-protected). I couldn't get any of my various pieces of ripping software to recognize it as an audio CD (even with covering up the data files which was supposed to "un-protect" it. Then I tried ripping it in VLC Media Player. I was able to recover all the audio tracks, but only one track at a time. I'm sure it would have been simpler to look for a used un-protected copy on eBay, but I took it on as a challenge to be able to get it to play on my computer.

Also there is a "defective by design" burst ripping option in the security settings of the dBpoweramp ripper that rips some protected CDs. And finally, I've run into others that ripped with a bunch of rerips (set the maximum number of allowed rerips and any timeout setting high enough to not error out). Just to see what happened, I let a couple of those rip all night. They came back with some tracks "insecure", but I listened to the results. Most tracks had no error audible to me, a couple of tracks had a minor obvious fault (click or momentary dip in the audio) not bad enough to discard the track. I've also ripped some apparently protected CDs in burst mode, again, in most cases the errors were not audible even though they didn't match the database checksum.


The ultimate way to "defeat" copy protection is to play it in an ordinary CD player, not a computer, and record the audio on your computer using audio editing software like Audacity. If you want to get what the record companies intended to be a bit perfect copy, find a CD player with a digital output (like were often used in radio stations) and get a USB audio interface with a digital input. But if you play the CD on an analog CD player of any decent quality (even a pretty cheap consumer one) and use even an inexpensive audio interface (or even the line input jacks built into your computer if it has them) you will be hard put to hear any significant difference in the end result.

That is the stupid thing about the whole copy protection business. They couldn't stop the analog output of an ordinary CD player from functioning (as otherwise your CD would just be a coaster, no-one would be able to play it), and there was nothing to stop anyone from recording the analog output on any type of recorder and ending up with a copy that for all intents and purposes sounded just like the original. When the record company people finally realized that, and when people began to be more interested in downloads (no matter whether the original source of the download was digital or analog) they shifted their efforts to trying to shut down the "napsters" of the world and attempting to sue the people who used them.

I'm not promoting or in favor of stealing the intellectual property of others, certainly the Napsters of the world were on the wrong side of the copyright laws. But if you look at the relations between most musicians and the record companies they contract with, you'll see that the business model used by most record companies is no friend of most musicians. Just ask Taylor Swift about that. So their efforts at suing the downloaders was not about protecting the interests of their artists (or songwriters) but rather at protecting their own bottom line, and you see where the whole music business has gone. You will find almost any piece of music on YouTube, usually put there by the record company which owns the copyright, you can watch it for free, the record company collects part of the advertising income that Google gets for the adjacent ads, and the musicians and writers (who sold their song to a publisher) get next to nothing.

[joeyc410]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

There were a number of different attempts at copy protection used, most commonly in the early 2000's. Do Google searches and you can read about some of the techniques that were tried, and the names of many of the CDs. Almost all of the CDs were re-issued later without copy protection, as people came up with various ways of defeating it and the record companies came up with other ways of dealing with "illegal" downloads (most of which looked to make criminals out of some of their better customers and in my opinion has much to do with the downfall of the music business). So the accuraterip numbers may well be from the un-copy protected versions of the CDs. Also, the manufacturers of some of the computer drives modified their firmware to be able to read the CD despite the copy protection.

I recently have run into a few copy protected discs (the jewel case insert even says so) in a large batch of used CDs I acquired. One of them wouldn't play in most of my drives, but ripped without error in a newer BD recorder drive I owned.

And then I found a copy of the Charley Pride CD which was one of the first "protected" CDs issued (and has been re-released un-protected). I couldn't get any of my various pieces of ripping software to recognize it as an audio CD (even with covering up the data files which was supposed to "un-protect" it. Then I tried ripping it in VLC Media Player. I was able to recover all the audio tracks, but only one track at a time. I'm sure it would have been simpler to look for a used un-protected copy on eBay, but I took it on as a challenge to be able to get it to play on my computer.

Also there is a "defective by design" burst ripping option in the security settings of the dBpoweramp ripper that rips some protected CDs. And finally, I've run into others that ripped with a bunch of rerips (set the maximum number of allowed rerips and any timeout setting high enough to not error out). Just to see what happened, I let a couple of those rip all night. They came back with some tracks "insecure", but I listened to the results. Most tracks had no error audible to me, a couple of tracks had a minor obvious fault (click or momentary dip in the audio) not bad enough to discard the track. I've also ripped some apparently protected CDs in burst mode, again, in most cases the errors were not audible even though they didn't match the database checksum.


The ultimate way to "defeat" copy protection is to play it in an ordinary CD player, not a computer, and record the audio on your computer using audio editing software like Audacity. If you want to get what the record companies intended to be a bit perfect copy, find a CD player with a digital output (like were often used in radio stations) and get a USB audio interface with a digital input. But if you play the CD on an analog CD player of any decent quality (even a pretty cheap consumer one) and use even an inexpensive audio interface (or even the line input jacks built into your computer if it has them) you will be hard put to hear any significant difference in the end result.

That is the stupid thing about the whole copy protection business. They couldn't stop the analog output of an ordinary CD player from functioning (as otherwise your CD would just be a coaster, no-one would be able to play it), and there was nothing to stop anyone from recording the analog output on any type of recorder and ending up with a copy that for all intents and purposes sounded just like the original. When the record company people finally realized that, and when people began to be more interested in downloads (no matter whether the original source of the download was digital or analog) they shifted their efforts to trying to shut down the "napsters" of the world and attempting to sue the people who used them.

I'm not promoting or in favor of stealing the intellectual property of others, certainly the Napsters of the world were on the wrong side of the copyright laws. But if you look at the relations between most musicians and the record companies they contract with, you'll see that the business model used by most record companies is no friend of most musicians. Just ask Taylor Swift about that. So their efforts at suing the downloaders was not about protecting the interests of their artists (or songwriters) but rather at protecting their own bottom line, and you see where the whole music business has gone. You will find almost any piece of music on YouTube, usually put there by the record company which owns the copyright, you can watch it for free, the record company collects part of the advertising income that Google gets for the adjacent ads, and the musicians and writers (who sold their song to a publisher) get next to nothing.

Thank you for this informative answer. What's also frustrating is trying to ask sellers on Discogs and eBay if they know if a disc can be ripped, and they say yes, but they just use iTunes, unaware of the fact that the disc can be riddled with errors and they don't know it.

Downloads can sometimes prove to be advantageous over CD rips, especially when it comes to Bandcamp, but in a lot of cases, you're better off buying the CD because you'll get a crappy vinyl rip or an old quiet file instead of what the music is supposed to sound like.

[joeyc410]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

Do you know why certain CDs (like the ones I mentioned originally) can be ripped with iTunes or Windows Media Player but end up returning errors in EAC or dBpoweramp?

[schmidj]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

AFAIK, neither Itunes nor WMP have any error checking at all. Although, I recall that if you had a low bitrate copy of a track that Itunes would sometimes replace it for free with a higher bitrate copy from their library when you played it, and therefore if your low bitrate copy had errors in it, you'd end up listening to the higher bitrate error free copy. I don't know how that works or if it is still in effect now.

Both dBpoweramp and EAC when used in secure mode use accuraterip, which compares a checksum calculated for each track against a database checksum value from other people who have ripped the same CD. If the checksums match, basically the rips, every sample in the rips, are identical. The chances of having a damaged CD with the same error in it (unless it is a manufacturing flaw pressed into many CDs) are infinitesimal. I don't remember the exact probability, but I recall you are more likely to be struck by lightning than to have a bad CD track with the same error(s) as someone else's bad CD. And if several people have all gotten the same checksum for the track, then it is multiply infinitesimal.

Given that, one frame of a CD is 1/75th of a second. One sample is 1/44,100th of a second. And a CD player (or ripper if it is configured so) interpolates from adjacent samples if a sample (or probably several adjacent samples, I don't have the detailed specs) can't be read. You can have an awful lot of messed up samples as long as there aren't too many in a row and never hear a defect. And, frankly, with some genres of music, at least I can't tell whether what I just heard was a defect or part of the music! So your WMP rip may sound perfectly good to your ear, as a burst rip in dBPA might, even though it is full of errors as detected by the secure rip of dBpa; or it might not.

The big advantage of dBpa's secure ripping system is that it warns you when there are possibly audible errors. You know the tracks that pass as secure are bit accurate copies of the original. You know that there might, and the important word here is might, have an audible error and you have a choice, either accept the error (presumably after listening to the ripped copy with the error or just assuming that a one or two frame error is very unlikely to be audible), or obtaining another copy of the CD and ripping it and hoping for a clean rip of the replacement CD.

I've gotten a number of bad used CDs on eBay, even from places that claim to have "quality control". But almost all of them will quickly refund you if you contact them, and if they won't, in many cases eBay will refund you if the vendor doesn't. The sad issue for me is that all too often the really bad, unplayable CD is rather rare. I still have several I search for every day on eBay because the first copy I got has bad tracks.

[GBrown]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

AFAIK, neither Itunes nor WMP have any error checking at all.

You can turn on error checking in the iTunes preferences. I have no idea what it does for this, but the rip time becomes very long. Even on clean discs that dbPoweramp can rip quickly in secure mode.

[joeyc410]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

I've gotten a number of bad used CDs on eBay, even from places that claim to have "quality control". But almost all of them will quickly refund you if you contact them, and if they won't, in many cases eBay will refund you if the vendor doesn't. The sad issue for me is that all too often the really bad, unplayable CD is rather rare. I still have several I search for every day on eBay because the first copy I got has bad tracks.

I find myself in this exact situation every now and then and it's rather saddening but hoorah for all the discs that are easily obtainable.

[joeyc410]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

You can turn on error checking in the iTunes preferences. I have no idea what it does for this, but the rip time becomes very long. Even on clean discs that dbPoweramp can rip quickly in secure mode.

Isn't it supposedly not very good? Everything I read about it says it misses lots of errors.

[garym]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

Isn't it supposedly not very good? Everything I read about it says it misses lots of errors.

correct. nobody I know who cares about getting secure rips of their CDs uses iTunes or WMP for ripping.

[BOOTP]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

AFAIK, neither Itunes nor WMP have any error checking at all.

Windows Media Player also had a checkbox on a per drive basis for ripping called 'Use error correction'. Made the rip time a lot longer so was probably re-reading frames.

[GBrown]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

I wouldn't use it myself either, I was just commenting that iTunes does have some form of error correction. How it works or what it does, I don't know. But it takes significantly longer to rip any disc, good or bad. So I assume it isn't using any kind of intelligence for only applying it to bad reads.

[garym]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

I wouldn't use it myself either, I was just commenting that iTunes does have some form of error correction. How it works or what it does, I don't know. But it takes significantly longer to rip any disc, good or bad. So I assume it isn't using any kind of intelligence for only applying it to bad reads.

Understand. And yes, I agree. I am 99.999% sure that iTunes does not match to AccurateRip database. It is just doing rerips of frames where it notes errors.

[mville]

Re: Some discs give errors for every track despite being in AR and in good condition

What's also frustrating is trying to ask sellers on Discogs and eBay if they know if a disc can be ripped, and they say yes, but they just use iTunes, unaware of the fact that the disc can be riddled with errors and they don't know it.

You can't expect sellers to know whether a disc has errors or not. They are sales people, selling CDs etc. released by Record Companies/Labels, assuming that the product they are selling is good to go.

Although Record Companies/Labels control the final studio masters, mostly use 3rd party companies to produce the playback media from the masters. It is at this point that most errors occur and the quality control falls down, as producing media is not a perfect science.

This is why error correction is built into the digital data on optical discs and CD Player firmware, so that disc playback is/seems perfect to the listener, but where smart ripping software, will identify bit data errors.