CD-R quality (was Re: Shameless CDR vs CD questions)

[Paul Mather]

On 18 Feb 2008, at 1:01 PM, vzenv14m wrote:

> Hi Paul,
> Thanks for the info, a lot of it goes over my head, but with Chris  
> being a
> sound engineer, and a computer freak he'll know what you're saying.   
> He's
> away for a few months, but I expect him home soon.  He'll know what  
> to do.
> I hope all the shows are still up for grabs on the file sharing sites,
> because I don't know how to do that.  Thanks for setting me straight  
> on the
> copying of CDs and CDRs.

It's a lot easier to verify whether your copy of a show is okay when  
you get it from a file sharing site because it is already in data  
format.  As a result, there are extra error checking mechanisms that  
can be incorporated and used to tell whether the audio data has become  
corrupted.  All of the common audio file formats used for lossless  
digital audio trading have associated mechanisms for checking the  
audio data, either externally or as part of the audio file format  
itself.  SHN files, for example, almost always come with MD5 checksum  
files that can be used to determine whether the SHN files have been  
modified (due to data corruption, etc.).  FLAC files (the prevalent  
lossless digital audio trading format nowadays) have strong checksums  
built into file format that can check whether the audio data has  
become corrupted.  MD5 and fingerprint files can also be used to  
compare the audio files to a known authoritative source, to enable you  
to verify that your version is *identical* to it.

So, it's easier to eliminate and detect generational loss when using  
lossless digital audio files that are typically shared on the Internet  
or traded via data discs.  (Lossless digital audio files also make  
excellent archival backup copies, for that same reason.)

Cheers,

Paul.

e-mail: paul at gromit.dlib.vt.edu

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production
  deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid."
         --- Frank Vincent Zappa