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MakeCD 2.3

MakeCD There's been little in the shareware domain to master and cut recordable 'gold' 'CDR' disks on the Amiga. There's 'Burn It' reviewed in next month's issue and this newcomer from Germany called MakeCD. There's also the expensive and faithful MasterISO from Asimware but if you're looking to buy a cheap CD cutter to make some gold disks on an amateur basis, MakeCD is the right price.

Complex interface


Unlike MasterISO, MakeCD doesn't require it's own screen. It uses the Triton GUI library which is slightly clunky but a great improvement over MasterISO. Thankfully with version 2.3 the authors have taken some criticisms on board and simplified the main page. At first the interface looks a little complex, but most everything is laid out in a logical fashion. There's a MUI-style help bubble which usefully appears over each gadget as the mouse hovers over it. Luckily this can be turned off.

MakeCD The main page shows a list of tracks. As soon as one is added, the Source and Target sections become active. It's here that a birds nest of configuration options hide. The Track type can be data, digital audio or the lesser used 'XA' style tracks, used for PhotoCDs and such forth. The Source can either be read from an image file on HD or, in the case of a data track, be read directly from the Amiga filing system. That's right, this is the only CD mastering package that doesn't need to build a temp file first, it can master on the fly to a CD writer. A great saviour of time and disk space if your machine is fast enough to handle it.

MakeCD can even copy a track off another (supported) SCSI CD-ROM directly to the target. The target can also be set as either a temporary file, a spooling style device such as a tape backup or the obvious; direct to a CD writer. This is a highly flexible approach. MakeCD is also happy to read CD digital audio directly from a CD or play it on the fly. One of the greatest aspects of MakeCD is it's facility to save particular settings as projects. These can be loaded in later to restore the settings, paths and so on to create the particular kind of CD. Exactly what's needed for anything more than casual CD-R writing and something sorely missing in MasterISO.

Impressive features


MakeCD MakeCD's feature list is impressive when it comes to building ISO images also. ISO 9660 is the filing system which is standard on CD-ROMs however it only handles upper case filenames and some other silly restrictions, useless for Amigas. Luckily there's RockRidge extensions which record the extra information. MakeCD has a mass of options in this regard and can be confusing in this area. The documentation isn't 100% on these aspects and needs to be improved.

It's possible to generate virtually any kind of ISO image possible. The danger is that you may run into bugs in the Commodore filing system like we did with CUCD10. In fact 2.3 incorporates a fix for this problem, or a 'workaround' as it's called because it's a non-standard way of doing things to avoid a bug in another program. In this case the bugs in the Commodore CDFS. The specifics are that the Commodore CDFS requires the ISO 9660 path tables to be in uppercase regardless of the filenames themselves. MakeCD 2.3 will always generate a CommodoreCDFS compatible ISO volume now. The fact that this problem went unnoticed for so long is testament to how many Amiga CD-ROM users installed far better CD filing systems such as AmiCDFS. CD's mastered with MakeCD can record Amiga specific details such as the 'script' and 'pure' file flags. You will need a modern CD filing system such as the PD AmiCDFS to read them though.

MakeCD uses a superb modular approach to provide the functions for building ISO images and the drivers for various CD Writers on the market. A driver could simple be dropped in and suddenly the package will support that writer. MakeCD 2.3 supports many of the big boys of the CD Writer scene and the authors have a pro-active policy of generating drivers for more. You might like to check the MakeCD site to check the current supported list of drives. 2.3 now has support for the brand new E-IDE CD-R writers, apparently the standard is far more rigid than SCSI so the drivers should work with untested E-IDE drives such as Yamaha's new CDR401, quad speed E-IDE CD-R.

MakeCD A key factor in writing CDs is performance of your Amiga. The CPU power and speed of the SCSI system are very important but things like reading/writing from different interfaces can help matters. Unlike MasterISO, the MakeCD authors don't guarantee a limited set of systems, instead they've shown which systems are reported to have worked and which ones have not. Many examples can be seen in the documentation and their home page. Generally it's highly efficient but still not quite to the level of MasterISO from my experience. MakeCD's sophisticated async IO reading/writing may be to blame for exibiting some SCSI problems ahead of MasterISO's far simpler design.

Professional package


All up, MakeCD 2.3 is an extremely professional package with a very sensible approach to pricing. For the ability to cut CDs which aren't going to be published, the fee is a highly reasonable 75DM or around 30 pounds. A total steal for a package of this quality. If you want to enter the professional arena, the cost is 300DM or around 120 pounds. Still excellent value for money, not the least considering the features and cost of a similar package on the PC for example.

To say i'm impressed by MakeCD is an understatement, the package does virtually everything and yet the authors are committed to making it even better with support the disk-at-once writing coming soon. The operate a very useful mailing list in which some top advice on writing CD-Rs can be found and naturally bugs/suggestion reports made to the authors. A similar effort on the PC would be worth many hundreds of pounds, this makes CD Writing on an Amiga highly attractive. MakeCD is a professional Amiga application to be proud of.

Click on MakeCD23.lha to download from Wuarchive Aminet.

Alternatively, look in your local Aminet mirror for disk/cdrom/MakeCD23.lha

5 star Time to get that CD cutter, MakeCD rocks!

Mat Bettinson - Technical Editor of CU Amiga Magazine

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