How do I rip from a virtual CD/DVD-Rom?

[Spiel1]

I've been using the bdPoweramp CD Ripper for a few years and finally managed to rip my entire CD collection to Flac. Now I'm starting on my vinyl and cassette collection that I'm ripping to .wav and then intend to convert to Flac.

I'm still tweaking that process, but by happy coincidence I found that when I burned the .wav to a CD and then opened that in CD Ripper, song and album information did get recognized (at least for some of the more common stuff), saving me a lot of work in terms of data entry. I have a fairly complex Naming system that I spent considerable time refining, and being able to use the ripper to both populate and organize the data according to my naming specification is a fantastic bonus.

But here's the rub:

I don't want to replicate my LPs/Cassettes on CDs. Those are already in a usable format, but my intent was to create virtual CD images (ISO format) and bundle those together and burn to DVDs as an additional backup.

What I really want to do is to mount an ISO image (I use MagicDisk) and rip directly from that and skip burning to CD altogether. The ripper sees the virtual drive, but is unable to read from it (just asks for the CD to be inserted without detecting the content). The Technical virtual drive info in the ripper looks like this:

Manufacturer: MagicISO
CD Drive: Virtual DVD-ROM
Firmware: 1.0A
Serial:
Maximum Speed: 5645 KB/sec (x32)
Current Speed: 5645 KB/sec (x32)
Spin-down After: Never
Buffer Size: 512 KB
Accurate Stream: Yes
C2 Error Pointers: Yes
Reads ISRC: Yes
Reads UPC: Yes

I've tried to tweak settings, but can't get the ripper to read the virtual drive. I've been able to burn to a R/W CD that I re-use, but this is time consuming and seems to me, should be unnecessary. Any help in this matter would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Spiel

[Spoon]

Re: How do I rip from a virtual CD/DVD-Rom?

Try setting the communication method under options to 'Windows Built-in'

[Spiel1]

Re: How do I rip from a virtual CD/DVD-Rom?

Thanks for the quick reply.

When I do that (Communication = Windows Internal [For Limited Accounts]), the ripper does not seem to recognize the drive (displays 'J: [-]' for the drive name and all Technical info is blank). I have upgraded from 13.1 to 14. So no dice on that one. Anything else I should try?

[Spiel1]

Re: How do I rip from a virtual CD/DVD-Rom?

FYI - I've tried Virtual CD v10 in addition to MagicISO and used both virtual CD ROMs and mounted ISO images without any success. Other players and/or tools do not seem to have any problems with the virtual drives. It appears that the ripper is looking at some physical characteristics that are either missing or returning something unexpected.

[Spoon]

Re: How do I rip from a virtual CD/DVD-Rom?

Rippers use low-level SCSI commands to communicate with the cd drive, it is not file based like the other programs.

[Spiel1]

Re: How do I rip from a virtual CD/DVD-Rom?

Any chance of adding a Communication selection that would allow for file base reading - something like 'Windows File based'?

[Spoon]

Re: How do I rip from a virtual CD/DVD-Rom?

It is not possible to read audio CDs that way.

[Spiel1]

Re: How do I rip from a virtual CD/DVD-Rom?

I thought perhaps it was possible to "dumb down" the read mechanism to allow for reading from a virtual drive. There is no problem playing the .wav files from the virtual/ISO mounted drives. Anyway, thanks for your help - I'm a bit bummed that this cannot be done, and a bit surprised that this has not come up before (surely I'm not only one to rip LPs to (virtual) CDs), but oh well...

Thanks again.

[Spiel1]

Re: How do I rip from a virtual CD/DVD-Rom?

Update.

After some playing around, I found that music burned as Audio CDs ripped fine from a virtual drive - it's the ISO and other data (as opposed to music) formats that cause problems.

So my workflow is roughly this for anyone working on ripping LPs/Cassettes:

1. I use LP Recorder to record one side at a time, and then use LP Ripper to split into individual .wav tracks and trim off leading/trailing quiet zones. I do not concern myself with Meta data at this stage – just name the top file so I can identify album, artist, and side number – the tracks get a number added automatically.

2. I then use the Image Editor of Daemon Tools Pro to create an Audio CD image that is saved as an .mdx file, and then mounted as a virtual CD also using Daemon Tools. An alternative would be to burn the .wav files, using LP Burner or any other suitable tool, to a virtual CD (Virtual CD 10, Alcohol 120% or others).

3. With the image mounted in the virtual drive, open dBpoweramp and select the virtual drive. Assuming the CD image was generated as an Audio CD, dBpoweramp should have no problem ripping it using whatever encoder and naming format you prefer. I have Communication = SCSI Pass Through, same as when ripping from a physical drive. In most cases Meta data is found requiring only minimal editing and selection of cover art. I have Accurate Rip turned off and do not submit ripped LPs to avoid polluting the database.

In general, this is working out pretty good. The CD images are not, and cannot be, ISO images, but I don't think that matters for most folks as long as you have an image that can be mounted and ripped without having to add physical CDs into the mix.

Spiel