Beijing Paradise BBS Backup/PARADISE.ISO/software/BBSDOORW/DA2WAV14.ZIP/CDDA.DOC

Text File | 1995-12-03 | 56.6 KB | 1,166 lines

CDDA Version 1.4 (build 12c) - This is the nineth release of CDDA.

**** NOTE ****
Release 1.0h was the last free release of CDDA.

Since then I have made some drastic changes to the program to
include XA and most importantly CDi.  It is because of the fact
that Phillips in their infinite wisdom want to "license" their
CDi technology, that I must now turn CDDA into shareware.  I am
not happy about having to shell out several hundred dollars to
get ahold of their "GREEN" and "WHITE" books.  The new registration
fee is small, and I don't intend to screw the user with paying a
more than $100US fee before knowing if it may or may not work for them.

I know I've said it before, but this could be the last release of CDDA.
I have so little time to work on it now, that it is taking months just
to get a small bug fix released.  As far as I can tell, it seems to
work fairly well on most machines now, and there is not a lot I can
add in the way of new features.  Unless there is a life threatening
bug found, I can't expect to have the time to put into this program
for a while.  The amount of email I get now is getting to be a problem.
If you want help make sure you send me all the info about it, if you
expect me to respond quickly.  I don't give high priority to messages
like - "Please help.  I can't get your program to work."  If you
don't tell me a LOT more than this, don't expect much in the way of help.

CDDA - What is it?
------------------

CDDA is a DOS PC based utility that allows the user to extract digitally
perfect copies of samples from audio CDs.  It also allows the user
to extract MPEG streams from CDi Digital Video CDs, and VideoCDs, and
XA frames from CD-XA CDs.

Some History
------------

In February 1993, I needed to get some audio samples into digital
form on my PC.  Toshiba had just released the 3401 CDROM drive
which allowed reading of DA frames across the SCSI bus.  Because
there were no programs available to do this, I had to write my
own.  I used it to get the samples, and then left it alone because
I had no idea anyone else wanted to do this.  Some months later
CDGRAB came out, but they wanted much too much money for their
program, so I cleaned up the program and released it as CDDA09A.ZIP.

Note:
Some time later I heard from a very irate person who told me I
couldn't use the name CDDAxxx.zip because he was already using
the name.  I've looked everywhere, used ARCHIE, and asked people
who seem to know every program on the net, and no one has seen
this guy's program.  However, in the interest of keeping peace on
the net, I have changed the distribution file name to DA2WAV1G.ZIP.
The program itself will still be called CDDA.
NB: I finally found this elusive CDDA.  It turns out to be a CD
Duplicate Analyzer to search for duplicate files on two different
CDROMs.

The first release fully supported the Toshiba 3401 CD-ROM drive.  I have
since added a whole bunch more including MSCDEX only. I have given
prerelease versions of my program to people who have to some degree
had success with other drives.  I have no guarantees that this program
will work with your drive.

Since the release of 1.0a I have heard from people who were having
trouble with the NEC 74-1/84-1 drives.  So, I went out and borrowed
one for a few days.  To my surprise the 84-1 didn't work.  The next
thing I did was get the data sheets for the drive sent to me from
the NEC faxback.  There is no mention of being able to read DA frames
on that data sheet.  Next, I reread the NEC programming manual.  It
says about the 74-1/84-1 drives "Read CD-DA is under consideration of
content in the SCSI support commnds".  This suggests that it may
or may not be supported.  Next I called NEC tech support.  They told
me that "reading digital audio through the SCSI port is NOT supported
on the 74-1/84-1 drives.  It is supported on the 3x and 4x drives."
So, for the time being, I will leave in the code to support the 74-1/84-1
drives.  If I don't hear from someone who gets it to work in the
next while, I will remove the support and mention it in this file. I have
also heard from someone who has a NEC 211 drive.  I have no idea what
this drive is other than it is a 2X drive.  This person has had good
success running CDDA.  I have also heard from someone with NEC 210 who
has not had success.  If anyone knows more about programming for NEC
drives please let me know.  To add to the NEC confusion, NEC tech
support is still telling people that the 74-1 and 84-1 drives CAN
read DA frames.  This is just not true.  If NEC can't get their own
tech support staff trained, can you imagine the quality of their drives?

I wanted to be sure that I had full support for all the NEC drives,
so I called tech support again.  This time I had to wait on hold for
over an hour to talk to a tech droid tell me that he didn't know the
answer, but would call me back later in the day with an answer.  That
was six+ months ago and I haven't heard from him.  Next, I tried the email
tech support for NEC.  I got an email back saying that they would look
into it and get back to me right away.  I have sent follow up emails, and
again I haven't heard from them in over six months.  I am not going to
try any more NEC support. Period.  If they can't get their act together
to support their users/developers, then everyone should buy drives
from another vendor.  With all the trouble over the OEM'd 3x drive,
I would think that no one would ever buy a NEC drive again.  BTW, has
anyone heard of a NEC drive since the final version of the 74/84 that
actually works correctly?  I know I haven't, and that includes all the
new 4x and IDE drives.  I you know otherwise let me know.  In the mean
time I might suggest another vendor.

There has been a lot of talk about the Mitsumi drives and whether
they will work with CDDA and like programs.  The bottom line is this:
I talked to an engineer in the CDROM group at Mitsumi, and he told
me that none of their drives will read DA frames, and that none
of their drives ever will.  It appears that Mitsumi is concerned about
the copyright issues of CDDA.  I know we have all heard rumours about
people getting the drives to work, but I trust the word of the head
s/w designer for CDROM drives over a fourth hand rumour.  If your
drive has a part number like FX001D or FX400, then you have a Mitsumi
drive and you won't get DA from your drive.

The reason I have left the Mitsumi in the program is that the Mitsumi drives
WILL read XA/CDi frames.  For that reason, you can extract your MPEG
movies, but you can't extract DA.

Different ROM revisions cause the drives to do things differently.  One
version may work just fine and others might not.  It is very tough for
me to help with drives that don't work, when I don't have one of
those drives to work with.  If your drive revision is on the bad list,
I don't know what to tell you.  Perhaps you can make a really big
stink with the manufacturer and have them upgrade your rom.
Here is a list of known good and bad rom revisions.  I will add to this
list as I receive reports from the field.  Hint: that means if you get
this program working, please, please, please send me dumps of the
output, so I can update these docs.  You will notice no changes to
this list since the last version of CDDA.  This is because I haven't
received any dumps from people that have the program working.

good                  bad
----                  ---
Sony 561 rev 1.9a     Sony 561 rev 1.7x
Sony 561 rev 1.8p     Sony 561 rev 1.8f
Sony 8012 rev 3.1e    Sony 55s 1.0q
Toshiba rev 0283      Toshiba rev 2732
                      Toshiba rev 3593
NEC 211 rev 1.0       NEC 84-1 rev 1.0
                      NEC 210
(note: I'm giving up on this list because so few people report back
with decent descriptions about what works and what doesn't.  Don't
expect any new additions to this list.)

What drives support DA?
-----------------------

I have heard from many different people who say such-and-such drive
will read DA frames.  The following is a list of which drives which
I understand have the ability to read DA frames, and that I have
included support in CDDA: (thanks to [e-mail]
for starting this list).  Note: My including suport for a drive
does not mean that it is guaranteed to work on your machine.  It
means that I have either heard from someone who has managed to
get it to work or I have the programming manual for the drive and
have included the code to support it.  Certainly don't go out and
buy a specific drive on this list just because I said CDDA might
work.  Be sure to try the drive before you buy.

Apple 300, 300i, 300e (Sony CDU-8003, CDU-8003A, CDU-8012)
Apple CD300+
Chinon CDS-535
COMPAQ CR503/CDU561
DEC RRD42
Goldstar GCDR-540 IDE
HP 4020
NEC CDR 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 900 series
NEC CDR 84-1/74-1 (rumoured with special firmware) (NEC told me that
                   it didn't exist)
Panasonic CR-562B/563B/572/574/581
Pinnacle RCD1000/5030
Pioneer 124/624
Plextor 4Plex/6Plex
Sanyo C3G IDE
Sony CDU-561, CDU-31A, CDU-33A, CDU-55S, CDU-55E, 76E/76S
Toshiba XM3301 (Silicon Graphics)
Toshiba XM3401, XM4101, (XM3501 with 0925 and later firmware), 3601, 5302
Hitachi
Matshita (Panasonic) 503
Yamaha CDR100/102
Kodak PCD225,6x/Philips CDD522/Plasmon RF4100/JVC XRW2001

The code to support the Pinnacle RCD1000 is included in CDDA.  However,
as of this writing, there is a problem with the drive itself that prevents
CDDA from running.  I have heard from tech support that they will
have a ROM revision real soon now that will fix the problem.  If you
have one of these drives I suggest that you call Pinnacle and scream
at them for the fix.

There are a whole slew of new drives coming out with the ATAPI.  A
lot of rumours are floating around as to whether they will work or
not.  Toshiba especially is coming out with a new drive every other
week it seems. Until I can get more detailed results, I will not enter
them in the supported drive list.

You may want to run CDROMINF.EXE and have a look at the output.  If
there no mention of being able to read RAW frames, and/or the
RAW READ SIZE is not 2352, there is no chance that CDDA will work
using the MSCDEX interface.  Also, if it reports that your drive
supports reading RAW, that DOES NOT mean that CDDA will work.  It
all depends upon the person who wrote the driver for your drive.  If
he/she passes DA frames to MSCDEX, you're laughing.  Otherwise,
you're out of luck.

If you have an ATAPI drive then you might also want to run another
program of mine called ATAINF.  It will display a lot of information
about your drive and will tell you if it can read digital audio.  The
file is available from simtel in msdos/cdrom/atainf09.zip

There are rumors that the Mitsumi LU055 drive will work using the
MSCDEX interface, but I have yet to hear specifically what version
drive, and what version driver works.  NO OTHER Mitsumi drives are
supported.  It is not my fault, it is Mitsumi's fault.  Complain
to them not me.

If you know or think you know of other drives, let me know and I will
do some investigating.

What is this new CDi support?
-----------------------------

Phillips has developed a standard for storing about an hour of video and
audio on a standard CD.  The data is really a long MPEG I stream.  CDDA
will allow you to extract either the raw MPEG stream, or just the
video stream.  You can then play back the movies with any of the
standard MPEG file players.  Have a look at the included file CDIFAQ.TXT.
This gives a very basic run down of what CDi is all about.

Phillips has two disc standards: WHITE book and GREEN book.  Green
book was the first standard, but was really only any use if you
were using a real CDi player.  It has a proprietary file system
and most CDROM players won't accept the discs.  Phillips finally
smartened up and decided that they wanted to expand their market
so they came up with the White book standard.  The only difference
is that these new discs come with the file system built around
ISO 9660.  This way most every CDROM drive in the world will allow
you to look at the directory structure.  To get at the movie data
you still need a drive that supports CDi.  Fortunately, as far as
my program is concerned, if your drive supports XA and you have a
White book disc, then you are probably ok.

When you have a White book CD installed, CDDA detects this and will
attempt to display a list of MPEG streams contained on the disc.
They should be displayed as file names from the CD in the form
of /MPEGAV/AVSEQ*.DAT.  It should also give you an idea of the starting
block of the stream if you want to use the /LBA option.

Have a look at the included file CDCOMPAT.TXT.  It is a list from Sigma
Designs (the people who make the RealMagic MPEG card) as to what
CD-ROM drives work with CDi movies and what don't.  Have a look at this
list before yelling at me because your drive doesn't work.

How do I use this program?
--------------------------

This is a command line utility which allows the user to specify the start
and end points of the data transfer and the output type.  The start and
end points may be entered in one of three modes,: LBA, MSF and T (track).
Make sure that you don't use more than one of these modes in the
command line because it really confuses the parser in CDDA.
Logical Block Address mode is the number of the frame from the start of
the disc. Minute, Second, Frame mode specifies the time from the start
of the disc in actual time.  Track mode allows you to dump an entire track
(or song) to disk.  The LBA and MSF are related by the following formula:
    LBA = Minutes * 60 * 75 + Seconds * 75 + Frames - 150
The lead in track is usually 150 because there are usually 2 empty
seconds at the start of a CD, but it can also be any number +- 75 frames
from 150.  A commmon number other than 150 is often 182 or 183.
The Toshiba, NEC and MSCDEX programming manuals define the LBA equation
to be as above with -150 at the end.  The Sony manual is very vague,
and it could be interpreted as either -150 or as -(lead in track).
Since two of the three manuals say clearly -150, I have chosen
-150 for the Sony as well.  I managed to do a fair bit of testing on
a Sony 561 drive, and it appears that the -150 figure is correct.
If anyone has more precise information on the Sony please pass it along.

The /ADAPTER option allows you to manually set the number of SCSI
Adapter that has the CDROM drive you want to use.  This is useful i
if my software incorrectly guesses which adapter your drive is using,
or if you have more than one adapter in your system.

The /ID option allows you to manually set the SCSI ID of the CDROM
drive you want to use.  This is useful if my software incorrectly
guesses your drive's ID, or if you have more than one CDROM drive
in your system.

The /LUN option allows you to manually set the SCSI LUN of the CDROM
drive you want to use.  This is useful if my software incorrectly
guesses your drive's LUN, or if you have a multi-CD drive in your system
like the 6 Pack from Pioneer.

The /MSC option allows you to manually set the MSCDEX drive letter of
the CDROM drive you want to use.  This is useful if my software incorrectly
guesses your drive's ID, or if you have more than one CDROM drive
in your system.  This option does not force the software into
the /M option.

The /M option forces the software to use only MSCDEX commands.  This
may or may not work with your drive.  If you don't have a SCSI CDROM
drive with ASPI drivers, this is your only hope.  This option would
be used with the Panasonic CR-562/563, Sony CDU-31A/33A drives.

The /ATAPI option is to bypass the device driver and MSCDEX for
the DA specific portion of CDDA.  This new code is very preliminary
and will probably hang your ATAPI drive once and a while.  I wrote
this code to show that a drive can or cannot read DA, regardless of
what the driver says.  If you find that using the /M option does
not work with your ATAPI drive, try using the /ATAPI.  If it runs,
even for a few frames, then your drive is not the problem when using
/M, it is your device driver.  It is at this point that you need to
start screaming to your vendor about crappy software.  If /ATAPI
doesn't work, and you have looked at the output of ATAINF which
says your drive doesn't support DA, then you are really out of luck.
ATAPI is followed by two parameters the IO address of the controller
card, and the device number. eg. /ATAPI 170:1  The IO address can
be one of the following 1f0 170 1e8 168, and the device can be either
0 (master) or 1 (slave).  You need to remember to use the /M option
in addition to the /ATAPI option otherwise CDDA assumes that you
are using a SCSI drive.

The /NJC option forces the software to not do any jitter correction
to the data read from the CD.  This means that the program will run
faster, but that the files created cannot be guaranteed to be 100%
perfect copies.

The /P option starts the CDROM drive playing the selected range of
audio out either the headphone jack on the front or out the line level
jack on the back.

The /BLOCK option allows you to set the number of blocks to be read
from the CD at a time.  Before version 1.4a this was fixed at 10.  You
can set it as high as 56 (assuming no overlap) to increase the
performance of CDDA by as much as 40%.  This magic number of 56 is
the same as 128K of memory which appears for many systems to be a
magic number for the maximum number of frames you can read at a time.
Associated with this option is the /OVERLAP option which allows you
to specify the number of blocks overlap at the start and end of
each read from the disc to be used in the jitter correction.  Before
version 1.4a the overlap was fixed at 3.  Many of the newer drives
can run with an overlap of 1 to give higher performance, and many of
the old drives often need an overlap of 3 or higher.  If you are getting
jitter values which are always less than 275 then you should be able to
use a jitter value of 1 or 2.  If you are getting too large jitter
errors, then you can try making the overlap larger than 3 to see if
that fixes the problem.  Remember that the memory buffer for reading
frames is 56 blocks long.  The formula for /BLOCK and /OVERLAP is
 (overlap*2)+block <= 56.  You may have to play with the /BLOCK values
to find ones that work optimally on your machine.
When you are using CDi or XA modes the maximum value for /BLOCK has
been fixed to 26, and the /OVERLAP values are always 0.  Since there
is no need for jitter correction with CDi and XA the extended block
size for DA is not necessary.  The magic number of 26 also applies to
Windows 95.  If you use anything more than that it tends to crash.
Play with values larger than 26 under Win95 at your own risk.

The /CDIVIDEO and /CDIRAW options are to be used when you have a CDi
movie disc.  /CDIVIDEO allows you to extract just the video portion
of the MPEG stream.  /CDIRAW allows you to extract the entire
MPEG audio/video stream.  If you use a program like VMPEG, or have
a RealMagic card, then you will be able to play the movies from
hard disk instead of from the CD.

One thing to remember when using the CDi options:  CDDA must hunt through
the disc to find the start of the stream.  A good way to figure out
where the streams start is to look at the dump from CDROMINF.  If you
have a White book disc, then the streams start at the same point
as the tracks 2 and up.  Track 1 is for the file system and support
files, and tracks 2 and up are for the MPEG.  If you have a Green
book disc, then you will have to choose a start point which is
early enough in the disc to find the stream start.  Often the streams
start around LBA 3400.  There may be more than one stream on a
Green book disc.

If you are using a White book disc, your best bet is to use the /T
option, if you have enough disc space.

When you want to play the MPEG files that you have extracted, your
best be is to use a program like VMPEG.  The latest version now also
plays the audio.  Remember that you are going to need a lot of computing
muscle to do the MPEG decoding.  Have a look at the following news post
about CDi.

From: [e-mail] (David Oseas)
Newsgroups: comp.multimedia
Subject: Re: Wanted:CD-i mpeg files viewer without mpeg card
Date: 11 May 1995 17:38:08 GMT
Organization: Philips Media
Lines: 23
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <3oti21$[e-mail]>
References: <3od40u$[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
NNTP-Posting-Host: gneiss.aimla.com

In article [e-mail], [e-mail] (Alexandre GEAY) writes:
>i want to play sound from CD-i mpeg files with the video!
>

I want the Cray-X/MP you're planning on running it on!

Seriously, I don't know of any computer system that is capable of
demultiplexing the bitstream off disc & decoding the video and
audio in sync (i.e. real time) using a software-only solution.

Your best bet is a hardware decoder.  Prices are dropping fast.
I've seen boards with a MSRP of $179.

Alternatively, get a CD-i player with a DigitalVideo cartridge--
then you'll be able to play all CD-i discs, including the ones
we're showing at E3 this week.  ;-)

---
David Oseas, ([e-mail])                [CD-i, MPEG & Amiga guru]
Sr. Software Engineer, InSight Entertainment Group
Philips Media, Los Angeles, CA                  Tel: [phone]
  [OPINIONS ARE MY OWN & DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT PHILIPS POLICIES]


One last thing about CDi.  You may see messages during the dump
about unknown subheaders.  This is fairly normal.  If you do get these
messages, dump them to disk and send them to me.  I will include
checking in a later version of the program.  There is a very long list
of subheaders, and I have only added the ones I have seen in the 3 CDi
discs I have.

For the options /S /E /F which expect a following parameter, remember that
there needs to be a space between the letter and the parameter.  ie if you
enter /S01:10:10, it would come up as an error, but if you entered
/S 01:10:10, it would be correct.  For the MSF mode, there need to
be 2 digits for each of minutes, seconds and frames or it will come up as
an error.  When entering the filename with the /F, don't include an
extension, as the software automagically adds the extension for you.

At there are several file formats supported. WAVE (.WAV) and Binary (.CDA)
are the types for DA, .XA for XA, and MPG for raw CDi and MPV for
MPEG video. There is also the option to dump the data in HEX format out
to the STDOUT device.

The binary format has the audio samples stored in the order Left LSB,
Left MSB, Right LSB, Right MSB.  The samples are 16 bit 44.1 KHz stereo.

I am not expecting to add options to output files in 8-bit or 22.05 KHz.
This is not as simple as just throwing away samples, as this causes
aliasing in the output files.  Correcting this is way beyond the
scope of this program.

I am not planning to add many more formats because there
are plenty of other programs out there that will do the conversions much
better than I can.  Besides, the whole purpose of this program was to
get the raw data out to the hard disk, not duplicate SOX.

On every CD there is a bit which defines if copying a particular track is
permitted or prohibited.  CDDA checks this bit and will not continue
with the dump to disk.  I have included an override option /O which forces
the user to explicitly specify and to knowingly copy a copy prohibited
song.  Have look at the file ROYALTY.TXT included in this distribution,
which was honourably pinched from the program CDGRAB.  It is a list
of most country's contacts for paying royalties.  I have heard from
a couple of people who have actually tried to pay the royalites.  They
have had nothing but trouble.  My understanding is that the producer
has the final say on royalties, and that you must deal with him/her
as well.

One thing to remember is that audio/video fills up the hard disk fast.  It
takes between 9 and 10 megabytes per minute.  Because of this I
put in a check to make sure that you will have enough space to put the
requested samples.  As well there is the /U option which will give you
an estimate of how much disk space will be used without actually dumping
the data to disk.

Examples
--------

CDDA /MSF /S 10:14:36 /E 13:55:11 /F outfile /W
will dump using MSF mode from 10:14:36 to 13:55:11 to a WAV file

CDDA /LBA /S 106232 /E 109443 /F outfile /B
will dump using MSF mode from 106232 to 109443 to a Binary file

CDDA /T 2 /F outfile /W /O
will dump the entire track 2 to a WAV file with the override mode on

CDDA /T 2 /U
will display the estimated disk space for all of track 2

CDDA /T 2 /H
will dump the entire track 2 in HEX to STDOUT

CDDA /T 2 /M /F outfile /W /O
will dump the entire track 2 using MSCDEX interface only

CDDA /T 2 /F outfile /W /O /NJC
will dump the entire track 2 using no jitter correction

CDDA /T 2 /MSC G /ID 4 /F outfile /W /O
will dump the entire track 2 from MSCDEX drive G, SCSI ID 4 CDROM drive

CDDA /T 2 /CDIVIDEO /F outfile /O
will dump the entire track 2 in MPEG video to outfile.MPV

CDDA /T 2 /CDIRAW /F outfile /O
will dump the entire track 2 in MPEG raw audio/video to outfile.MPG

CDDA /LBA /S 2345 /E 3456 /XA /F outfile /O
will dump track 2345-3456 in to outfile.XA

CDDA /T 1 /F outfile /O /M /W /ATAPI 170:0
will dump track 1 to outfile.WAV using mscdex and atapi only modes


What is this jitter business?
-----------------------------

The following is a post made over a year and a half ago which discusses
the technical reason for a CDROM drives difficulty in accurately
positioning itself on an audio CD.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom,aus.cdrom
From: [e-mail] (Adrie Koolen)
Subject: Re: Reading Audio CDs - Why is it so complicated?
Keywords: cd, cd-rom, cdrom, audio, sampling, naivety
Organization: Philips Consumer Electronics, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1993 08:23:53 GMT
Lines: 63

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Elliott) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Diemo Schwarz) writes:
>|> What I don't understand is:
>|> Why should it be so difficult to extract pure audio data from a CD?
>
>It isn't.  The problem is that the SCSI controllers in most CD-ROM
>drives simply don't support it.
>
>|> The medium is structured by tracks and indices, isn't it?
>
>Yes.

Note that the `tracks' on a CD aren't layed out like tracks on a hard disk.
The track and index are just numbers that are stored with each sector on
the CD (in the Q-subchannel packet). The start address of a track is stored
in the Table Of Contents on the CD, indices are not. Indices are normally
not used, except index 0 for the 2 seconds pause at the start of each
track.

The REAL structure of the CD medium is a large continuous spiral, starting
at the center of the CD (at 46mm diameter). Finding a specific sector is
not as trivial as it is on a hard disk. You'll have to employ a kind of
binary search algorithm. Finding the start position of a specific index
is even more difficult as you don't even know where it starts.

>|> And every CD player somehow manages to ship the data from the disc to
>|> the D/A converter, doesn't it?

But at the DAC, they don't know which sector the sample came from or what
the relative position the sample takes in a sector.

>|> So, what's the difference between reading data CDs and music CDs?
>
>The format of the data, to put it simply.

Well, most decoders used in audio CD players, output a stream of samples
and sub-channel data, mostly used for their time code. As the decoder has
to adjust the spindle speed, it uses a FIFO to store the data. If the
FIFO fills up, the spindle motor is slowed down, if it gets empty, the
motor is sped up. The sub-channel data normally doesn't pass through the
FIFO, but goes directly to a microcontroller. That way, the microcontroller
can't be sure that it knows the exact address of the data, coming out of
the FIFO.

To circumvent this problem, the address of a sector is also stored in the
data itself, together with a 12 bytes sync pattern. This way, one can
determine the starting of a sector and its address just by looking at the
data coming out of the FIFO.

Here's the real problem: audio sectors don't have this sync pattern, nor
the address of the sector, in the data area of a sector. Most CDROM drives
use chips that are coming from audio players. The first CDROM drives were
just modified audio CD players.

To read audio sectors on a CDROM drive, you'll need a special decoder or
you'll need to connect a standard decoder with some custom hardware to
generate pulses to indicate the start of a sector and to synchronize the
sub-channel packets with the real 2352 bytes of data.

I hope that this explains it a bit.

Adrie Koolen ([e-mail])
Philips Consumer Electronics, Eindhoven, the Netherlands
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


Because of this, most every CDROM drive that can read DA frames cannot
accurately return to the exact same location on the disc every time.
It will usually return within a few samples either way.  It took
a lot of time and thought to write the code to correct for the
"jitter" efficiently.  My first try brought the transfer rate
to a crawl.  I have been refining the process to the point that
it barely has any computing overhead, but still I have to read most
every frame twice.  I am still working on getting this to work
faster.  Some people have reported an 8x slowdown from 0.9a to
1.0a.  I have no explaination for that large a difference.
It is nowhere near that large on my machine, as I see only about 3x.
I do agree that it is still much too slow. I have made a number of
improvements in 1.0e and 1.0g that help with this slow down including making
the receive buffer as large as possible (64K) when using real mode drivers
like ASPI and MSCDEX.  I have also added the /NJC option for those who
cannot wait for their files to be created, or for those whose drives
are generating "Jitter greater than 5 frames" errors.  This error
means that the software has become lost on the CD because the drive
was unable to return to within 5 frames of its last postion.



What kind of help is there?
---------------------------

There is very limited help from the command line for CDDA.  You can get
the "USAGE" by just typing CDDA.e.g.:

C:>CDDA

Usage: CDDA /(mode)  [/O] /S <start> /E <end> /F filename
           [/ID <cd-rom scsi id>][/MSC <mscdex drive letter>].
modes are LBA, MSF, T, U, H, NJC, M, XA, CDIRAW, CDIVIDEO
/MSF - times in minute, second, frame format (MM:SS:FF)
/LBA - times in Logical Block Address format (xxxxxx)
/T   - send whole track to file
/S   - Start time
/E   - End time
/P   - play the selected range
/U   - estimated disk usage required for data
/H   - hex dump of sectors to stdout
/B   - write to file in Binary format
/W   - write to file in WAV format
/O   - override copy protection bit
/M   - override ASPI interface and use MSCDEX
/NJC - do not perform jitter correction
/MSC - override MSCDEX find first CD-ROM
/ID  - override ASPI find first CD-ROM
/LUN - override ASPI find first CD-ROM
/ADAPTER - override ASPI find first CD-ROM
/BLOCK - override the number of blocks to read at a time
/OVERLAP - override the overlap of blocks read for jitter correction
/ATAPI - force drive to bypass device driver
/XA  - read raw CD-XA frames
/CDIVIDEO  - read plain MPEG video from a CDi disc
/CDIRAW    - read raw MPEG video/audio from a CDi disc
Binary mode extension CDA will automagically added to the filename
Wave format extension WAV will automagically added to the filename
CDi raw format extension MPG will automagically added to the filename
CDi video format extension MPV will automagically added to the filename
XA format extension XA will automagically added to the filename
e.g. CDDA /MSF /S 10:14:36 /E 13:55:11 /F outfile /W
e.g. CDDA /LBA /S 106232 /E 109443 /F outfile /B
e.g. CDDA /T 2 /F outfile /W /O


Copying and Registration (does he mean this costs $$$?)
-------------------------------------------------------

I am allowing full freedom to copy this program.
It IS a fully functional version.
It is NOT Crippleware!
There is NOT a pro version available for an unreasonable sum of money.
As I said at the start of this file, I am now forced to start asking
for a small amount of money for this program.  If you use it, then
you need to register it.

If you don't agree with the new shareware policy, then you can:
a) use the program anyway and violate the copyright
b) go back and use version 1.0h which will remain freeware
c) don't use the program at all

I would rather keep this program Freeware, but when it starts costing
me money to develop new features, then I have to draw the line.

The registration fee for using CDDA is now $15 US.  I believe that
this is a fair amount given the amount that the program does.  As
well, if you don't need the new features and bug fixes, then
use the old version.

I won't be asking for a fee every time a new version comes out.  This
fee will give you a lifetime (as long as I bug fix and add features)
of free updates via the Internet.  I will also notify registered users
of any new versions for a year.

My mail address is:

      Jim McLaughlin
      449 Viewmount Dr.
      Nepean, Ontario
      Canada
      K2E 7P1

If you have any questions, my email address is [e-mail], but RTFM
before you start sending me then questions.

I would also like to try and keep all the files together and unchanged
in the archive, so if you are passing this around don't change the files.
In this distribution the files contained are:

CDDA.EXE - the program itself
CDDA.DOC - this document file
ROYALTY.TXT - the list of people to whom you should pay royalties
CDROMINF.EXE - the MSCDEX exerciser program
CDROMINF.DOC - the text file describing CDROMINF
MSCTEST.EXE - the test program for MSCDEX only access reading DA
TOSHTEST.EXE - the test program for TOSHIBA drives reading DA
TOSH_RST.EXE - the program to reset TOSHIBA drives after fatal errors
TOSHREPR.EXE - the program to restore the sectors/track on a damaged HD
NECTEST.EXE - the test program for NEC drives reading DA
SONYTEST.EXE - the test program for SONY drives reading DA
CHINTEST.EXE - the test program for CHINON drives reading DA
SCSIPING.EXE - the program which uses ASPI to search for SCSI drives
CDCOMPAT.TXT - a list from Sigma Designs of drives which support CDi
CDIFAQ.TXT - the short CDi FAQ
CDIMOVIE.TXT - the most up to date movie list from Philips
SYWTBACD.TXT - so you want to buy a CDROM?  my commentary on all the vendors
VIDEOCD.TXT - the VCD FAQ from Philips
XADRIVE.TXT - the list from Kodak of drives which support CD-XA


If you are one of those Shareware houses, I don't want to see this program
available for $6.99 plus shipping and handling.  I don't like seeing
the average Joe getting burned for a 10 cent disk, 1 cent label and 2 cents
worth of labour to make the disk, especially when he can get 600+ Meg
of really good stuff from something like the Simtel CD for $25 (thanks to
Robert Bruce for starting the cheap archive business).


How to get hold of me for help.
-------------------------------
If you want to mail me about problems or to tell me I'm going to rot in
HE double hockey sticks for helping to copy music, put your message in
a file and copy it to the NUL device. :>

If you want to make suggestions or want to send compliments you can contact
me at the address below.

If you encounter trouble with the program CDDA, try and run the included
test program most suited to your drive.  There are four test programs:
one for each of the Toshiba, Sony and NEC type drives, and one which
is a MSCDEX only version.  These programs are scaled down versions of
CDDA and use the command line to specify the drive letter and ID.
The programs TOSHTEST, SONYTEST and NEC test take a single command
line argument.  It is -n, where n is the SCSI id of the drive.
eg. c:>toshtest -3
This will run TOSHTEST on the SCSI drive id 3.  Beware that selecting
the wrong scsi id number for these test programs might (it has
happened before) screw up your hard disk if 1) the hard disk is
SCSI, 2) the id you use is the one for your hard disk, and 3) your
hard disk supports permanently changing the sectors per track via
software.

To fix this problem, use the program called TOSH_RST.  It is used to reset
a Toshiba drive after CDDA has stopped with a fatal error.  It uses
the same command line argument as the TOSHTEST program.

There is also the program SCSIPING.  It searchs for are reports all devices
connected to the SCSI controller.  It uses the ASPI interface.


If you would like assistance in solving problems, please include all
dumps from all the related programs.  You should be able to
run the programs like this and get the dumps in a text file:
CDDA /T 2 /W /O /F testfile >dumpfile.txt

I have real difficulty in tracking down problems without these
dumps.  In the past the majority of people asking for help just send
along a short note telling me my program doesn't work, and what
they remember the error messages saying.  This just doesn't cut it.
I have to have the dumps to help.

The bottom line - RTFM before writing me.  Also read the alt.cd-rom
FAQ.  many of your questions can be answered by reading.
EMAIL: [e-mail]

Things on my wish list of new functions
---------------------------------------

I want to add support for other CDROM drives that can read DA sectors
over the SCSI, but I don't have access to these drives.  If someone could
supply me with the programming information, I could try and do up a new
version of CDDA, if I ever get some spare time.

Questions I have received since the release of 0.9a and 1.0a
------------------------------------------------------------

Why is the program so slow?
This program is so slow because of any one or more of the following:
1. My poor programming skills.
2. Many of the CDROM drives only read DA frames in 1X mode even though
   they may transfer data at 2X or 3X or faster.
3. The amount of computing to do jitter correction.
4. Reordering the bytes from the CD to the WAV file.
5. Having to read 16 frames for every 10 actually written to disk to
   allow for up to three frames of jitter.  This has been improved
   with the use of /block and /overlap
6. When there is more than three frames of jitter, I slightly shift
   the aim of the search and reread the problem frames.
7. My Toshiba seems to have a magic number of 10 frames, that if I
   read more than that at a time it takes 2-3 times longer than
   reading in bunches of 10 or less.  I don't understand it.  Since I
   have to read ahead 3 frames and behind 3 frames every time I read
   a block from the drive to correct for jitter, I can't very well
   keep my reads under 11 frames.  Other drives may have similar
   thresholds.
8. If you are using MSCDEX only, make sure that the /m:xx option on the
   MSCDEX line of your autoexec.bat is set to at least 20.  Any less
   than this, and CDDA will end up reading in 2 possibly discontinous
   chunks.  This will add greatly to the time to read data.
9. Many drives are happy reading contiguous frames from the disc.  If you
   ask it to move it's start point to a frame that it has just read, it
   may take a very long time to get itself all lined up to start reading
   again.  A good example of this is the Philips CDR drive that reads
   with /NJC at 2x speed but takes 6 times longer than the range selected
   if it keeps having to resychronize itself.

What is ASPI?
ASPI stands for Advanced SCSI Programming Interface.  It was developed
by Adaptec, and has been adopted by many SCSI card manufacturers as
a standard SCSI programming interface.  If you want more information
on ASPI call Adaptec [phone].

When I use /T, the start and ends of the track are a couple of
seconds away from where I think they should be.  Why is this?
In version 0.9a, there was a deep rooted bug which caused this.  I
have fixed it (I hope), and this should no longer be a problem.

When I play back my samples, why are there pops and clicks?
These pops and clicks can come from two places:
1. version 0.9a did NOT handle the jitter problem, it is handled now.
2. your sound card can't handle 16-bit 44.1 KHz samples.  Try using SOX
   or a similar program to change the sample to 22.05 or 11.025 KHz
   samples and try again.
3. Many CDs have been mastered from digital sources.  In this case the
   source may have been synthesized digitally which gives absolutely
   perfect sounds which are very repetitive and exactly the same.  When
   this happens, it may possibly confuse the jitter correction routines.
   There is not a lot I can do about it at the moment, and there is less
   that any of the other programs like mine can do.

The program stops with the error xxx.  What is wrong?
The 0.9a release had very limited error reporting.  I thought that
if it worked on my machine it work on everybody's.  This version
has much more error reporting.  As I understand it, CDDA will
not necessarily work correctly if SMARTDRV is installed.  This has
been the source of a lot of trouble.  As well some people have been
having trouble using CDDA in a DOS window in Windows.  I think
there may be a problem when being used with a DPMI manager installed.
So, the bottom line is DON'T run CDDA under Windows.

When will you release an OS/2 version?
I have no interest in writing a version for OS/2. Period.  However,
if you are running Warp, then you already have VASPI, and CDDA should
run just fine.  If you are using an earlier version, then
there is a program from Adaptec called VASPI, which will allow
you to run CDDA in a DOS window.  I got the following email with
the how-to for OS/2 from Stefan Eichner ([e-mail]):

> 1. Your CONFIG.SYS has to include the follow lines:
> [...]
> BASEDEV=TMV1SCSI.ADD
> BASEDEV=OS2ASPI.DMD
> REM DEVICE=C:\OS2\OS2CDROM.DMD /Q
> E=C:\OS2\MDOS\VASPI.SYS
> [...]
> !If no OS2CDROM.DMD is loaded you can't read Data-CDs!
>
> 2. Add to the autoexec.bat the start-comand for MSCDEX2.EXE
> (e.g. C:\MSCDEX2.EXE /D:MSCD001 /L:H /m:10 /v)
>
> 3. Change the settings of the DOS-Session on the WPS:
> DOS_DEVICE=C:\TSLRCDR.SYS /d:mscd001 /p:3
>
> Now CDDA works great!!!
VASPIBET.ZIP is available from ftp.cdrom.com

When will you release a Windows version?
I have no interest in writing a Windows version.  I don't have the time,
and I don't think Windows is a particularly good OS (if you can call
it an OS).  I have had a couple of offers to help, but I have been
too busy with the rest of my life to work on it.  Don't hold your
breath.  The word from the beta testers is that CDDA runs just fine
in a DOS window under Windows 95.

When will you release a UNIX version?
Never.  Although I run LINUX on my machine, I have no interest in
rewriting CDDA.  There is a program called CD-DA for Linux, which
should work with the Toshiba drives.  It is available from Sunsite.

When will you be writing a version for my CDROM drive?
Getting the programming information from CDROM drive manufacturers is
like pulling teeth.  I've been hunting for this stuff for over two
years, and have only managed to get the programming manuals for
Toshiba, Chinon and Sony.  If you have a drive and it does support DA frames,
I need the programming manual.  I also need about 5 or 6 extra hours
in each day.

I have a Toshiba drive.  Why doesn't your program work?
It appears that different ROM revisions cause the drives to work
differently.  For instance, my Toshiba 3401 is revision 0283.  I have
heard from people who have ROMs older and newer that can't use
my program.  I have also heard that Toshiba has changed the programming
interface on newer drives, but it is not reflected in their SCSI
programming manual.  I just don't know what is wrong.

Why doesn't your program work with my ASPI driver?
Several vendors supply ASPI drivers for their SCSI cards.  However,
all drivers are not created equal.  I have heard from people who
have had trouble with just about every SCSI card on the planet.  I
only have Adaptec's EZSCSI to do my testing.  I'll try and do my
best on case by case basis, but I really don't have any spare time.
I also hear from a number of people who have trouble using the Adaptec
1520/22 controllers.  It appears that the delay in doing polled IO from
this card screws up my view of how the controller and drive interact.
Don't expect any fixes soon.

CDROMINF works on my machine, so why doesn't CDDA?
CDROMINF only uses MSCDEX calls, and CDDA also uses ASPI calls.  It
is these ASPI calls that do the meat of the program.  If ASPI isn't
on your machine, or doesn't work correctly, then CDDA will never work.
Your only other choice is to try the /M option and use only
MSCDEX commands.  This is unlikely to help any SCSI drive owners.
Before writing me and asking for your drive to be supported, do a
little legwork first.  Call the manufacturer and ask for the programming
information.  Second, run all the test programs included with this
release.  These programs don't check for the drive type before trying
to read DA frames.  If any of these pass, let me know and I can
add your drive based on the programming information of an existing
drive.  It has happened before, so it might happen again.


Why are there tons of zeros at the beginning and end of my track?
Most every audio track has some silence at the beginning and
end.  This silence is actually digital silence which is all
zeros for the samples.

Can I use CDDA to read from DAT drives?
As far as I know there are only a couple of DAT drives out there
that allow reading of digital audio through SCSI.  In theory, I could
add that feature to CDDA, but since I don't have one of those drive,
and I don't have the programming manuals either, I seems very unlikely
that this will ever happen.  It also seems that these drive vendors
have taken out support for reading DA.  Their story is that people
were putting cheap quality audio tapes in the drives and screwing
up the drives.  So they took out the feature.  My guess is that they
were getting pressure from the record companies.  If you really
need to do this then get yourself a Silicon Graphics machine.  They
make sure that this feature is available in their package.  Don't
forget to mortgage your house to pay for it.

Sometimes CDDA doesn't work when I first put in a CD. Why?
I don't know.  Some people have reported that CDDA works better after
a new CD is put in the drive if you use some other utility to play and
then stop the CD.  This seems to force some sanity into some drivers.

Can you change CDDA to read the song titles from my audio CD?
There are no song titles recorded on an audio CD.  The following
is a post which explains this better than I can.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [e-mail] (Dave Platt)
Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom
Subject: Re: Ascii Track data on Audio CDs
Keywords: Audio CD Ascii Track
Date: 23 Feb 93 19:16:03 GMT
Organization: New Technologies Group, Inc.  Palo Alto CA
Lines: 41

>A friend told me that encoded on Audio CDs are the track titles, CD title,
>credits and even a bitmap image of the cover art.  Can anyone confirm or
>deny this?  If it is true, how does a programmer get to this information?

In general, this is _not_ true.

The disc table-of-contents has information about the total disc length,
number of tracks, and the starting time of each track.  It has no room
for human-readable text and there is no provision in the standards for
such, as far as I've ever been able to find out.

The audio tracks have "subcode" information associated with each frame
(75 frames per second).  The P subcode bit is used for primitive
track-signalling flags, and is rarely interpreted by modern CD players.
The Q subcode contains some useful information: control (type,
preemphasis, and copy-protect fields), address information, index
numbers, and sometimes the disc catalog/barcode number or the ISRC code
(serial number, country, year, owner ID) of the recording.  Still, no
room for text or artwork.

The R,S,T,U,V,W bits in the subcode can be used in a variety of ways.
The most popular de facto standard is for CD+G graphics.  These provide
a sort of slow-scan video (288x192 pixels, max of 4096 colors using an
encoded color lookup table).  The CD+G graphics can include almost
anything... lyrics, still photos from concert footage, and copies of the
cover artwork are all quite possible and have been done.

Only a relatively small percentage of audio CDs have CD+G graphics.

Some CD players have a "subcode out" jack which can be fed to an
external decoder.

Some CD-ROM drives allow the subcode data to be read over the SCSI (or
other) communication bus while the drive is playing audio CDs through
its built-in DACs.  Some [fewer] drives allow both the audio data and
the subcode to be retrieved over the bus and manipulated by the host
computer.  Details vary;  see your drive reference manual.
--
Dave Platt                                                VOICE: [phone]
              Domain: [e-mail]      UUCP: ...netcomsv!ntg!dplatt
 USNAIL: New Technologies Group Inc. 2470 Embarcardero Way, Palo Alto CA 94303

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Changes in version 1.4a from version 1.3a
- made several changes to help the "quiet music" problem when there are
  stretches of very quiet music, the digital master often is cleaned
  up and digital silence is put in its place, or when a digital organ
  is used as the only instrument the repeating digitally perfect notes
  can confuse CDDA
- added support for the DEC RDD42, the COMPAQ CR503/CDU561, the Kodak
  6X writer, HP 4020 writer, Pinnacle 5030, Yamaha 102, Panasonic 572/574/581
- introduced the /block and /overlap commands to allow for customizing
  the recording on difficult machines - also has the side effect of
  cutting the record times by 40%
- fixed a typo in the Plasmon drive name
- added the /ATAPI command to try and bypass the device driver and MSCDEX
  on IDE drives
- fixed a bug that caused incorrect disk free values when the drive letter
  was specified as a captial instead of lower case
- added some more robust code to retry disc reads on some of the less
  fatal errors
- rewrote the drive search routines in conjunction with adding the /ADAPTER
  command
- fixed a bug which only appears when you use a CD+ CD instead of the
  older style discs

Changes in version 1.3a from version 1.2a
- fixed a couple of bugs in the new Philips code
- made several changes to the jitter correction routines to speed them,
  as well CDDA has a better chance of working now with drives with
  bad jitter problems
- fixed a typo in calculating the end of disc
- now compiled in 386 code mode instead of the old 8086 code mode

Changes in version 1.2a from version 1.1a
- fixed another memory allocation bug which cause the program to hang
  for no apparent reason on some machines
- added support for Pioneer, Kodak, Philips, Pinnacle, Plasmon, Yamaha
  Ricoh and JVC drives
- added doc files on movie lists, CDi compatible drives and XA compatible
  drives
- added the /P option to allow playing out the head phone jack the select
  range of audio instead of saving to disk
- added the /LUN option to override the LUN=0 default - useful when
  using the 6Pack from Pioneer
- included my commentary on the purchasing of CDROM drives - is not very
  complimentary to most vendors


Changes in version 1.1a from version 1.0h
- a minor bug in the count of bytes written to disk has been fixed.
- support for CDi discs - both white and green book
- support for XA discs
- no longer freeware
- official word from Mitsumi says that they have not and will not
  ever support reading DA frames with their drives.


Changes in version 1.0h from version 1.0g
- bug in displaying the sense data has been fixed.
- a major bug that caused the program to hang at random has been fixed.
- Mitsumi 4x, Sony 55E, Sony 8012 drive types added
- Plextor (Texel drives 3028 and 5028 have been removed.  I included
  them based on a rumour I heard.  I have since received the programming
  manual for these drives, and they do not support reading DA frames.


Changes in version 1.0g from version 1.0e
(version 1.0f was not formally released)
- ISRC code display added
- option NJC added
- Hitachi, Teac, Matshita drive types added
- bug in MSCTEST concerning empty buffers fixed


Changes in version 1.0e from version 1.0a
(versions 1.0b to 1.0d were not formally released)
- UPC code display added for NEC drives
- Toshiba mode select to return the drive to normal operation after
  reading DA frames had a conflict with EZSCSI drivers - this has
  been fixed
- length of WAV file did not always match length contained in header -
  this has been fixed
- added support for the Chinon CDS-535 drive (since I don't have one
  of these drives, this is untested)
- added support for the Plextor 3028/5028 drives (since I don't have one
  of these drives, this is untested)
- there was a bug which on some machines would allocate memory wrong
  when using the /M option, and would fill the file with zeros - this
  has been fixed
- program TOSH_RST was added for users of the Toshiba drives who
  have CDDA exit with a major error.  It resets the drive back to
  normal operation
- there was a bug on some machines that would allow the user to run
  CDDA fine, but the respective test program would fail.  It appeared
  mostly on the SONYTEST and NECTEST programs - this has been fixed
- during running with NEC drives extra debug messages were printed -
  this has been fixed
- the jitter correction routine has been rewritten - CDDA now runs
  about twice as fast as 1.0a did on my machine
- a problem with one version of the Sony rom has a peculiar failure
  which may be corrected by a rewrite of the sector search routine
- a problem with copy permitted discs sometimes required /O in order
  to dump to disk
- when the last track of a disc or the last LBA or the last MSF was
  selected to be dumped, some drives actually only allow reading
  of the second to last frame, and not the last frame.  since there
  is virtually no sound on the last frame of the disc, I have forced
  the program to stop at the next to last frame

Known bugs:
- the Pinnacle and Philips CDR drives seem to have a problem with
  the CDi discs.  I am working on the problem, so contact me if you
  have one of these drives and I'll give you an update.
- someone has reported the program failing on a very large drive
  with very large amounts of disk space available.  The specific
  example was a 250M drive with 235M free.  It would appear that
  there is a bug in the Borland dfree routines.  I will be looking
  into the problem, except for the fact that my drive is only
  100M, so I can't duplicate it.
- a couple of people have reported that the WAV files created are
  not compatible.  I can't say much except that in one case the
  file size written in the WAV header was incorrect, and I don't know
  why.  I have however found that really large WAV files (>10M) often
  confuse some players.  I have seen a file work correctly on a couple
  of players, and not on others.  My guess is that some players out
  there are not interpreting WAV files correctly, or are not expecting
  very large files.
- one person reported that running the test programs on their machine
  and specifying a hard drive instead of a CD-ROM drive causes the
  number of bytes per sector to be changed permanently on the drive
  I don't know if this was just a fluke, but be careful.  I have
  included the program TOSHREPR.EXE.  This program will reset the
  sectors per track to 512 when you accidentally run TOSHTEST on a hard
  drive instead of the CDROM drive.  This problem appears to manifest
  itself on hard drives manufactured by DEC.  If you use these drives
  be careful when running TOSHTEST.
- one person reported that having more than one CDROM drive means
  trouble for the /T mode.  I'm looking into it, but don't have an
  answer yet.

Wish list: (which may or may not get implemented)
- have start and end times include offset from beginning of track
- more CD-ROM drives supported
- add a /I mode which will do an image of the entire disc to a file
- add more support for intrepting hard error messages
- add a /DUMP mode which will dump all screen output to a file as
  well for those who can't use the >