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Planned For The Next Release * Localization * Support of more CD writers * Improvement of the audio editor * More features to come Whats New Here is my new page layout, hope you like it! The creator was Dean Miles, thanks for creating it! On the occasion of the new page layout, I will also put out the version 0.9b4. This will hopefully fix some 22-May-02 smaller bugs like the burning problem and I also worked something on hanging in the waveform editor. It may be better now, or on the other hand even worse, if you had problems with the previous version please tell your experiences... Meanwhile the work on 0.95pb1 make progress, main change is the language SDK. So, last try ;) All bigger remaining issues (like GUI bug, etc.) are hopefully now fixed, there are some smaller additions and improvements (e.g. assembler FFT, faster spectral display). I hope you like it! 6-March-02 Either uninstall the previous version and use the installer of this one, or just unzip the files over the old ones. For Monkeys Audio DLL support, you need the most recent version of the DLL. There are again some changes in parameter passing... Nearly after every beta there was need for a bug fix, the program is now such complex that even thorough testing 31-January-01 can't find all problems. But now after all severe problems are known, I hurried to bring out 0.9 beta 2 to make the release as stable as the 0.9 beta 1 should have been. Anyway, I hope this will work for you! Finally here is the 0.9 beta 1. I hope this version is quite stable, though it is only tested for some days, no major bugs seem to be left. The many minor bugs and additions will be done in the next versions... The following main changes are made from 0.9pb11 : * GUI restructured, added new buttons, changed button type to flat buttons. Artist and CD information is now directly accessible through the main window. * Profile usage is now easier and can be selected by a drop down box on the main window. For using your old profiles, copy them into the Profiles directory in EACs home. * Updated freedb usage to proto 5. * Configuration Wizard to setup basic drive, encoder and freedb configuration for beginner users. * Option setting for leaving out all advanced features, making it easier for beginners. * Secondary C2 extraction mode (may work better for some kind of erraneous CDs and for some but not every drive. Even if it may be misused for copy protected CDs, using this mode on protected CDs is only allowed when legal in your country). This mode is up to now very basic, and will be improved in upcoming versions. * Manual detection of TOC, usefull if a CD is defective and displays wrong track positions or data tracks instead of audio, EAC will try to detect the CD 21-January-01 structure by analysis. For this, your drive must support Gap Detection mode B. * Uncompressed and compressed extraction is now divided, so compression options will missing "Internal WAV routines". * More placeholders for external command line encoders in "User Defined Encoder" format, see FAQ for details. * Correction of MP+ decoding bug with command line decoder. * New Monkeys Audio (MAC) DLL support, you need at least DLL version 3.94. * Compression queue is saved to harddisk and continued on next EAC session. * Improving Pop Detection to 4 band analysis. * Some more smaller additions... ;)) * Display of actual extraction position in real music time (for error checking) * Small corrections to ID3V2 routines, I hope they will still work ;) * Correction of support for some writers (no Philips/RAW MMC support though) * Many smaller additions and bug fixes Again I hope you will like this version! It is recommended to delete the registry enrty in HKEY_CURRENT_USER in order to prevent problems with previous versions. Work will continue, the next big step will be a localization version, which will help to translate all EAC texts into your own language. But please do not ask when it is ready, it will be finished, when it is finished! Thanks. I originally wanted to put out the next version as 0.9 beta, but now it only got to 0.9 prebeta 10. I force this release out as there were some major improvements and bugfixes that many users asked for day by day. It does not contain all features of 0.9 beta, but it is comes quite near, only some more additions to the wave editor are missing. The following main changes are made from 0.9pb9 : * Again many bug fixes (ID3V2 tag size for VBR header, Ricoh writing, compression in the background, etc.) * It is now possible to specify a different naming scheme for various artist CDs * The power down computer option can now be selected during extraction * Submission of drive features to a central database to share information with other users which don't know the features of their drives or also to combine ones offset if several different results occured on detection. * ID3V2.3.0 tag support (previous version only wrote only ID3V2.4.0, which can't be read correctly by a majority of tag/play utilities) * In order to access more devices on interfaces like USB, Firewire and of course IDE and SCSI drives, EAC is now able to use the ASAPI interface of VOB instead of ASPI or Native SCSI * If you own a multiprocessor system, you can start several encoding threads in the background to speed up compression * To use the newest Fraunhofer FastEnc MP3 encoder on-the-fly, EAC is now able to access the CoolEdit 22-June-01 Pro MP3 PlugIn if copied to the EAC directory (fht.flt) * On external compression, the user defined encoder can use any file extension, Ogg Vorbis and RKAU are now supported as external command line encoders * Using Undo in processing waveform is now optional * EAC now uses FreeDB exclusively, to update your server list, use the "Get active FreeDB server list" function * Interpolation - Replace Frequency works fine now (I am quite satisfied with it now :) * EAC is able to use LAME.EXE (.MP3) and MPPDEC.EXE (.MP+ and .MPC) for decompression and for on-the-fly writing of CDs. Just copy the executables to the EAC directory. For MP3 decompression with LAME.EXE it is also necessary to either not having the MP3 Fraunhofer codec installed or to select the option in the compression options. Beware : You need the most actual versions of both programs as previous versions introduced errors in the decompression (sometimes even total trash). So decode a file once using EAC to make sure it is decoded correctly! * Some more smaller additions... ;)) Hope you will like this version! I also tried to use the SHN Decoder shortn32.exe for on-the-fly decompression/writing in EAC, but the decompressor has some bugs making this impossible. It allows to write the decompressed output to the StdOut pipe, but it does not set the binary mode correctly. You could try it by yourself by decompressing using "shortn32 -x abc.shn - >abc.wav" , it will change endian and channels all over the file... As the 0.9pb8 version of EAC caused many new problems, I decided to put out a new release in order to fix most of them. I strongly recommend to download this version if you already use 0.9pb8. 16-February-01 Please note that this version store its options no longer in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key, but now use HKEY_CURRENT_USER. No options are transported to the new location, so if you want to use your old options set, save an option profile with your current version and import that into 0.9pb9. I just want to tell everybody that I have decided not to answer the registrations cards anymore (only those who contain extras ;) This is mainly because it takes too much of my time (which should better be spend in development) and I have lost tracking over the registrations in the last four weeks 5-November-01 (because of a holiday and a water damage in my rooms). The registrations itself are fine, but I can't decide anymore whether I already have answered or not. As I have collected registrations before I have answered them, the last eight weeks registrations will be without answer also. So from now on, please accept that I will not answer the registration cards anymore, sorry about this! I will be on holiday from 12th September to 26th September, so please don't send registrations nor emails to me during this time, as it would be much work to come 7-September-01 up to them. I hope Ireland will be as nice as last time, now I will have a close look at Cork and Kerry :)) I hope some persons in the mailing list will standing in for me and try to answer all questions that might occur there. At the moment I build up a CD-ROM drive feature database for inclusion in EAC. For that purpose I need more submissions of features. So I ask everybody to please test and submit the drive features of EAC. "Detect Read Features", "Examine C2 Feature" (if C2 was detected by the first test and using a scratchy CD) and "Offset Detection" (using as much CDs from the list). Please test all of your 7-July-01 drives, even if you personally don't use it for extraction, and also please try to detect offsets (which shouldn't be important to most users, but I would like to have a complete database). Up to now I am in need of many more offset tests, the amount of feature tests are already ok. I would really appreciate your help, thanks! PS: If you disabled submission, it can be enabled again in EAC Options / Tools. As the 0.9pb10 version of EAC caused again many new problems, mainly not detecting drives anymore, I released a new version quickly. I strongly recommend to download 27-June-01 this version if you already use 0.9pb10. Of course I tested 0.9pb10 on my system but never encountered any problems. I use version 4.57 of ASPI, perhaps different versions make problems. Sorry about that... I originally wanted to put out the next version as 0.9 beta, but now it only got to 0.9 prebeta 10. I force this release out as there were some major improvements and bugfixes that many users asked for day by day. It does not contain all features of 0.9 beta, but it is comes quite near, only some more additions to the wave editor are missing. The following main changes are made from 0.9pb9 : * Again many bug fixes (ID3V2 tag size for VBR header, Ricoh writing, compression in the background, etc.) * It is now possible to specify a different naming scheme for various artist CDs * The power down computer option can now be selected during extraction * Submission of drive features to a central database to share information with other users which don't know the features of their drives or also to combine ones offset if several different results occured on detection. * ID3V2.3.0 tag support (previous version only wrote only ID3V2.4.0, which can't be read correctly by a majority of tag/play utilities) * In order to access more devices on interfaces like USB, Firewire and of course IDE and SCSI drives, EAC is now able to use the ASAPI interface of VOB instead of ASPI or Native SCSI * If you own a multiprocessor system, you can start several encoding threads in the background to speed up compression * To use the newest Fraunhofer FastEnc MP3 encoder on-the-fly, EAC is now able to access the CoolEdit 22-June-01 Pro MP3 PlugIn if copied to the EAC directory (fht.flt) * On external compression, the user defined encoder can use any file extension, Ogg Vorbis and RKAU are now supported as external command line encoders * Using Undo in processing waveform is now optional * EAC now uses FreeDB exclusively, to update your server list, use the "Get active FreeDB server list" function * Interpolation - Replace Frequency works fine now (I am quite satisfied with it now :) * EAC is able to use LAME.EXE (.MP3) and MPPDEC.EXE (.MP+ and .MPC) for decompression and for on-the-fly writing of CDs. Just copy the executables to the EAC directory. For MP3 decompression with LAME.EXE it is also necessary to either not having the MP3 Fraunhofer codec installed or to select the option in the compression options. Beware : You need the most actual versions of both programs as previous versions introduced errors in the decompression (sometimes even total trash). So decode a file once using EAC to make sure it is decoded correctly! * Some more smaller additions... ;)) Hope you will like this version! I also tried to use the SHN Decoder shortn32.exe for on-the-fly decompression/writing in EAC, but the decompressor has some bugs making this impossible. It allows to write the decompressed output to the StdOut pipe, but it does not set the binary mode correctly. You could try it by yourself by decompressing using "shortn32 -x abc.shn - >abc.wav" , it will change endian and channels all over the file... As the 0.9pb8 version of EAC caused many new problems, I decided to put out a new release in order to fix most of them. I strongly recommend to download this version if you already use 0.9pb8. 16-February-01 Please note that this version store its options no longer in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key, but now use HKEY_CURRENT_USER. No options are transported to the new location, so if you want to use your old options set, save an option profile with your current version and import that into 0.9pb9. This version is also a big bugfix release, but also incorporates many new features, I hope you will like it! I will really try to give out a new version more often from now on (I know, I promised so already earlier ;) The following main changes are made from 0.9pb7 : * Again many bug fixes (File naming, CD writer module, etc.) * Automatic creation of CUE sheets from WAV images * Splitting of WAV images according to their CUE sheets * Option not to open external commandline encoder window 26-January-01 * ID3V2 tag support (before you start reporting that the tags are unreadable, please not that EAC support already ID3V2.4.0, but most other actual applications don't) * MP+ command line encoder support * WAV editor could use RAM for temporary data * Finally, C2 support for the PlexWriter series (only the newer modells) * Many, many smaller additions and corrections... The next version will be probably 0.9beta. I hope you will like the new version, please be patient for the next one, I have only some spare time for EAC... Sorry to say that I had to add some ad banners to these pages. This become necessary as until now I paid all webspace and internet costs by myself the last 2 years (which are per month $10 for the webspace and around $10-$20 for internet usage). Not only that I haven't 19-November-00 earned anything by EAC, even more I put actually money into it. And I will soon get DSL, so costs will increase even more. I thought about how to get some income for all expenses, and making EAC shareware or something like that isn't favored by me (and probably also not by you ;) So it seemed the best way adding some banners to my site, sorry for any inconvenience! As the last version still contained many new bugs, I release a new prebeta version with most of these bugs fixed. Additionally I already implemented some smaller new features. Hope this will work better... The following changes are made from 0.9pb6 : * Again many bug fixes (LAME DLL fixes, Compression 10-October-00 crash, ID3V1.1 Tag corrections, etc.) * Visiual CUE sheet editor in the wave editor * On the fly burning of Monkeys Audio sound files * Queuing of compression tasks in the background on extraction (as option, need probably some tests) Next updates will still take some more time, I am pretty busy at the moment. Sorry that I didn't released a new version so far, but I had plenty of work at the university and in my job. But now 0.9pb6 is finally finished. I removed many bugs lately, but of course there will be still plenty of them... I decided that this release and all future prebeta releases will be available again to all users, it should be stable enough to not having piles of bug reports. Further this version has ToolTips for most option dialogs that should help beginner users. From now on there will be more frequent, but smaller updates as mainly audio editor features will be improved for the next version. It is possible that the one or other feature is not perfect yet, so please report any bugs to the mailing list. The following changes are made from 0.9pb5 : * Many bug fixes (Plextor 40x Multisession (I hope it is gone), etc.) * Support for Sony (HP) writers 29-August-00 * ToolTips help for most option dialogs * Additional options for LAME and Gogo DLL encoder * Creation of offset CDs for determing the combined read/write offset or the absolute read offset (if you know the write offset of your drive) * More improvements to the write layout editor * BurnProof support for Plextor 1210 * Correct offset correction for MP3 compression and decompression * Drag and drop from the explorer to EAC (Main window will compress (WAV) or call the write module (CUE), the write window will add files as index 1 (WAV) or load a cue sheet (CUE)) * ID3 V1.1 support * Direct (without previous decompression) MP3 and compressed WAV write support * Support for writing under Win2000 for IDE drives (that work under Win98) * More new features, too many to mention... I just uploaded a bugfixed 0.9pb4 version, mainly the native SCSI functions did not work that well. I hope to have fixed it now, please tell me about your experiences. This version will in every case switch the interface to ASPI (if installed), so if you want to test the native 8-May-00 interface you have to explicit select it. I named this version to 0.9pb5 as otherwise there would be again version naming conflicts when exchanging informations. I also quickly added some more compression features, like Gogo DLL on-the-fly compression, Shorten and Monkey's Audio external commandline compressors. Today I release the 0.9pb4 to the public, but this was the last prebeta version I released to the public, the next ones will be non-public again. It was really a mistake to let anybody download 0.9pb3 without most people knowing what "prebeta" really means... Many think it is a full working version, but it wasn't and also this one will contain many bugs, that's why it is called prebeta. I just put up this version to remove most bugs of the last version. The following changes are made from 0.9pb3 : * Many bug fixes (sound output, CDDB, LAME, cd write, MMC C2, etc.) * Support for some more writers * CD-Text write support * FAAC (both versions) support * Native SCSI support for WinNT/2000 24-March-00 * Many improvements to the CD write layout editor * Some more new features... Hope you enjoy it! The SCSI native interface could be still buggy, on my computer sometimes the data was not transferred correctly. This is visible e.g. in displaying only one track (track number 00!) with other wrong informations. This could happen after working minutes or hours without any problem. I don't know why this happens, if anybody can recreate a situation where this always occurs, please tell me... Everything else should be quite clear, if there are questions please use the forum or the mailing list. I am on holiday from 26.3. to 16.4 visiting USA for a car trip around Texas, Colorado, Nevada, California... So please do not send any registration cards nor emails (whatever kind), as my mailboxes would explode otherwise during these three weeks... ;) Thanks! Some people reported problems with the LAME DLL. It works flawless for me, so those should try to redownload it. Albert Faber just released a bugfixed LAME DLL with his CDex 1.20, download it and try that DLL. If it does still 30-December-99 not work, please contact me again. The problems on SCSI bus reset during writing are still unsolved, I just removed the SCSI1HLP.VXD from my windows/system/iosubsys directory, I hope this would help somehow. Here comes a official released 0.9pb3. This is because many users complaint about the information(!) dialog. I just don't want to read these mails anymore... I don't think that that warning message was so important, if I had knew what troubles it would cause, I probably never implemented it, making lots of users work with older versions. Enough for that, this version should remove many problems with older EAC versions like the Win2000 file dialog box bug. Please remark that this is only a prerelease without any documentation and no support. Everybody who tested 0.9pb1 and pb2 should test this version on new/old bugs 23-December-99 and report me about it. I hope everything will work, as I implemented many features "last-minute". Don't ask me about features that don't work, as not everything is implemented yet. There are many additions like LAME support (EXE and DLL), index based extraction, cool down feature, etc. The next prebeta version will be unofficial again, the 0.9b final is planned for march 2000. If you have a question, please use either my mailing list or my forum, but do not bother me directly. If there you found a real(!) bug, then please contact me. Now I wish all of you merry chrismas and a happy new year! Peace to the world! I'm sorry that again a time-out message pop up so early... I hope there are no severe problems, as EAC crashes Windows on some systems when displaying this message. If there are such problems, contact me... I finished the second prebeta version of EAC 0.9, now more CD writer should work. It will now be tested by my beta testers. There was a severe bug in ALL secure extraction routines, I found it because it was occuring more often in the new C2 extraction mode... Further there are many bugfixes and some additions, hope you will like them. I already announced a utility to gather CD informations for EAC offset detection routines. If you own a Plextor PX32 then please help me and send me as many cd infos from common(!), well-known CDs using this program. It will create a file in the current directory for every CD catalogized. Please send me as many CD infos as possible 11-November-99 (you should compress them with WinZIP into an archive before sending it), and please fill all information fields you will be asked by the program! There will be most probably a third prebeta version before the release of the official 0.9 beta, so I don't expect that version before the new year! I will soon get the opportunity to test EAC on Win 2000 RC2, to find that annoying file dialog bug... Further my Forum pages are down, I already mailed my provider, but didn't received a response so far. There is now an offical EAC banner, have a look on my links page. I will be on holiday from 14.11 up to 21.11, so I won't respond to any mails. If you have a question, please subscribe to my mailing list and ask your question there... In tradition of the Hobbits in J.R.R. Tolkiens "Lord Of The Rings", today I will give you my birthday present :) I compiled 0.9 prebeta 1 and made it available to prebeta testers. The suprise in this version I announced are two new features : * C1/C2 Error Correction Secure Read Modes for Plextor CD-ROM drives and MMC-complient drives that support this feature. Using this mode, the drives will use nearly burst speed for secure extraction. The Plextor CD-ROM drives 8x up to 40x , some MMC-complient drives like Teac 56S/58S and some other drives support this feature. In this mode, my Plextor PX32 extracts up to 16.7 X in test mode... * CD Writing Routines for writing audio tracks. This will work at the moment only for MMC compliant 8-October-99 writers. The burn stream could also be offset corrected, so that having an absolute CD-ROM drive offset and an absolute CD-R write offset. The write offset is easily calculated by this formula : Absolute Reader Offset + Absolute Writer Offset = Combined Reader Writer Offset There is a bug in EAC causing the crash of Win 2000 RC2 when pressing OK or CANCEL in every file dialog box. I already try to fix it, but didn't found the bug yet. In the next official release or perhaps already in 0.9 prebeta 2 will most probably again CDDB proxy support included, but CDDB access will be then HTTP only... Don't expect the official 0.9 beta before mid of december, there is still many work to do until then. Over my birthday I will be at home, so I will read you again sunday... By the way, my pages now also features a Forum... So, here comes EAC 0.85 beta 4. I added the beta version number in order to prevent disinformations in the mailing list, to identify the version correctly. All main remaining bugs from beta 3 should be removed now and I will start work on version 0.9 beta. Mainly the bugs with NT are removed now, further the wrong ending times of some CDs on some drives should now be corrected, although it is still possible that very few CDs will still not work (mainly CDs with only few tracks). If you have such a CD you should start EAC (for that CD) with 2-September-99 the command line option -nomultisession then. Also it is now possible to create CUE sheets with CD-Text additions (but I heard, that sometimes CDRWin does not create CD-Text CDs on such CUE sheets even if it does accept the CUE sheet). I have now two domains that will be ready somewhen next week, so I will move... The new address for EAC will be http://www.ExactAudioCopy.de and my private homepage will be at http://www.Andre-Wiethoff.de. I will keep up this site a month or so and then all users will be redirected to the new pages automatically... Again sorry, I just found another possible bug, that I just removed. It has to do again with some WAV files in the wave editor making EAC stop. It only happened when having selected "No use of null samples for CRC calculations". 2-August-99 Further I corrected the bug with the CDDB batch function. It should now work also. So please download again that version... Sorry! I think this is still not the "final" 0.85 beta version, as I want to fix the Toshiba/etc "Can't find matching read mode" bug first... So keep updated ;) I am terribly sorry, but I could test as much as I want, it would never be enough ;) I just returned from my weekend, so I hadn't the possibility to do anything on it until now... So users already reported my three severe bugs. I just removed these bugs and already put up an updated version (same version number though) * If no WM Audio Codec was installed, EAC would produce WMA files instead of WAV files when using Internal WAV Routines * Some WAVs loading in the audio editor make EAC stop at FFTWnd.2338 * If no system TEMP directory was specified EAC started 1-August-99 up with an error message at WndProcs.1093 Thanks for all reports on these bugs, but I will not answer the mails that only reporting one of these bugs, there were much too many of them ;) It is possible that some drives will now make problems with 0.85beta when inserting a CD. If so, try the commandline options -nomultisession and -nocdtext when starting EAC (as explained on my Tips & Specs page)! Further, several persons asked me not to use such a mailing list. They thought that Onelist.com will spread their email addresses and that they will be mail bombed with SPAM. On the homepage of Onelist.com is declared that they will not distribute any email address and that they will not send any unsolicited email. The only bad thing is that a small advertisment is added below each mail. Finally, EAC 0.85 beta is out! I hope you like it, there were really many changes to 0.81 beta, but I think you will see for yourself. Finally, EAC 0.85 beta is out! I hope you like it, there were really many changes to 0.81 beta, but I think you will see for yourself. New features that in 0.85 beta adding to the features listed in the previous news * Certified Escient « CDDB(TM) Compatible * Absolute sample offset detection * Overreading capability for extracting correctly with non-zero offsets * Preliminary WMA (MS Audio) support * Sorry to say that interpolation in the audio editor is still not really improved, I will do it for the next version... There are still some more informations... I started a new CD-ROM drive database, please help me to fill it out as good as possible. Have a look at the table and send me the information for your drives. Please make 30-July-99 sure for the sample offset to test it with at least two different CDs and to use at least 0.85 beta! I don't have the time anymore to give email support for EAC or similar problems. From now I started two mailing lists at www.onelist.com. The first list is for users asking other users for help. I hope that many experienced users will help the other... The second mailing list is, like the mailing list I maintained so far, only a announcement mailing list. If you are not interested in tips and help from other users you probably want only subscribe to eac-announce. In the announcement list all news about EAC are spread. For all persons already in my mailing list : The current database will be lost, so please subscribe again at eac-announce. I try to answer to problems in the mailing list, if no one else find a solution to a problem, but do not mail me to my email address for help. I will not answer on such mails. The only exception would be if you encountered an unknown bug and I want you to help me debugging the problem. Thanks for your understanding! As I still have no confirmation of CDDB that EAC complies to the license agreement, I have to move the release date by a week. On the other hand I have some more time to do some additional features for the audio editor ;) It took some time, because there were always some terms of license not correctly implemented. The last thing I had to change was the proxy and the proxy authentification... Sorry, but complying to the license agreement I had to remove them for 0.85 beta! If there are any complaints, please mail to them directly... So, new release date will be 30.7.99.. Hope you are not disappointed too much ;) Other new features that will be in 0.85 beta 21-July-99 * Nearly complete change of the audio editor, now it becomes usable ;) * Loop record mode for always having an amount of time in memory buffers, making it possible to start recording that amount later (for records from radio, etc. ) * Automatic rename of MP3 files according to their ID3 Tag * Catalog of audio CDs, allowing to extract a specified time from the start of each track with optional fade out * Copy with gap prepend at the beginning of the correct track (with matching CUE sheet generation) * Some more bugfixing and some more new features... Sorry to say that version 0.85beta is still not completed, but following a list of new features already implemented. A prebeta version is tested at the moment, meanwhile I will work on improvements of the audio editor. I expect that the official 0.85beta will be released somewhen around 23. July 99... Already implemented * Secure mode for accurate stream drives that caches * Proxy authentification for CDDB and lyrics accesses * Multisession CD support * CD playing digitally possible (without cable) * Position slider for CD playing * Automatic creation of directories by filename specification * Power down computer after extraction * Priority selection for extraction and compression * More drive options (e.g. swap channels, spin up, etc.) * 3 different gap detection methods, so at least one should work with each drive * Better support for external compressors * Support for 10 types of external compressors (MP3, VBR, AAC, VQF, RA) * Batch compression feature with selected compression scheme 3-June-99 * Batch decompression feature with automatically choosen decompressor (only .WAVs and .MP3s) * Compression and decompression could make an offset correction, as some compression schemes do not compress correctly. Also including autodetection for offset value * Local CDDB support * Saving options to registry * Creating and loading user profiles * Automatic changes to track names (e.g. upper all first characters) * CD-Text support * Submission of CD data to the official CDDB database * Export of CD data to text files, etc. * WAV recorder with dB level meter and peak level search (in dB) for checking on overamplified recordings * ID3 Tag editor with drag and drop from track list or CD database browser * Some more smaller features... * Really many bugfixes, e.g. IDE Yamaha crash on startup, Sync Error at the end of the last track, etc. Moreover, I am sorry to say that version 0.81beta will pop up a dialog telling the version is rather old, without having a new public version out. I will try to patch that version and put a "new" 0.81beta version again on my page... Work for 0.85 beta is in still progress and will most probably take two more month... I nearly finished CDDB submission and also implemented some other features like three different methods for gap detection to support now nearly any drive out. Therefore I already removed a bug that caused EAC to hang in index retrieval (not gap detection). It could happen that EAC will not leaving a loop :( But it is fixed already. A faster gap/index 11-March-99 detection mode will work for Plextor/Yamaha/etc. Further there is a bug that occurs sometimes when a track has been extracted, causing EAC to stop around Utils.5707. Hope that it will be fixed soon... Because I will buy a new computer tomorrow, I won't be able to read or answer mails until my system is build up and installed all software again. I think it will be completed something around sunday or monday. So please be patient... I am sorry that it took that long to finish the bug fix, but on the one hand I wanted to remove all that really bigger bugs and on the other hand I got the flu and couldn't concentrate on anything week before last week... Now I am almost ok again ;) So here is the (new) version that should fix most of the bugs of 0.8beta. 0.8 beta will be removed completly from the server, as the new one has nearly the same features... The new version includes * Fix of error detection and correction that does not worked correctly in 0.8beta! Further I replaced the guessing routines with the ones from 0.7beta, as many mailed me that the newer ones worked not as good as them. When I find out how to improve them, they will be back again, but for now the older guessing routines should work ok for most users. * Fix of not finding matching read modes for some Philips and Toshiba drives. On these drives it is also necessary to select the option 'Check for density parameters'. Further, some drives need to 19-February-99 change wordnibbles to get correct results (otherwise only noise is extracted). For that a new option is included. * The obsolete part that slowed down burst copy is now removed. Now it will copy on my Plex 14/32 with max 16.5X (accesses to harddisk too slow, because I only use a cheap Fast-SCSI card) and test tracks with something around 23.0X. * Added 'intelligent' WAV file comparison. It will detect missing and extraneous bytes everywhere in the files and also gather other differences of both files. This feature could also be used in the WAV editor to easily select ranges of differences. Furthermore it could be used to determine the combined reader/writer offset. * The WAV editor now has another filter, smoothing. This is helpful for many kinds of defects beside clicks and pops. It seems that the IDE versions of the Yamaha CD-R(W) drives will cause many problems, mainly crashing EAC on startup. Therefore I added command line options for these drives for the moment. I will soon debug this on such a drive. No other drives seem to cause such problems... Now here it is, the new official 0.8beta. ;) It was really a long time without any updates, but I think it was worth the time. Even if it has no really big new features, but many improvements and bugfixes on nearly all functions. The new version includes * New fast secure read modes for accurate readers and also for drives that caches * Complete improvement of read modes and Test read function, allowing to calculate CRC checksums without using disk space * BladeEnc DLL support * Remove leading and trailing silence * Fill missing offset samples with silence * Automatic detection of drive features 22-January-99 * Selection of extensions for headerless WAV files * Test detected gaps on silence * Save extraction log * Selection of error recovery quality for faster extraction on bad CDs * WAV editor with already some functions for editing, more to come... * Many bugfixes, too many to mention There are still many bugs, but I hope to remove them sooner or later. If EAC makes problems on your computer, please read the What's New page. I will do nothing on EAC the next week, but then work for 0.9beta will begin. Many people told me a lot of ideas of improvement. Because there were too much mail the last month, I would ask to tell me the not yet implemented ideas again, if not stated in the 'Planned for next release'. But also experiences are appreciated! I am sorry to say that the release date will be some days later. New expected release date will be the 22.1.98. The last weeks I had lot of work at the university and EAC also took much work to finish all features I planned for 14-January-99 0.8 beta. You will surely be surprised which features are now really in it... :) I have to say the 0.8 beta will not have these announced features: Submission of CDDB entries, Support of other local CDDB databases and Proxy authentification. But I will try to include it in version 0.9 beta then. I did not had as much time as I wanted the last two weeks. So I didn't work on EAC very much. But now, I have christmas holidays and work will go on a little bit faster again. From now on, I will not only send notifications on new versions to the people in my mailing list, but also everytime a news entry is added to the What's New page. The mail will contain the newsentry... If you don't want to be in the mailing list anymore, just send me a mail. 22-December-98 Thanks. Expected release date of EAC 0.8 beta will be 18.1.99, but I have to wait if there are still bigger problems with it, this release date could change. By the way, today I visited the 'Star Trek World Tour', but was not as big as I thought... The ratio of fun/money could be much better, but Star Trek fans will nevertheless have a look at it ;) So, I wish everybody merry christmas and a happy new year! Work is going on pretty well, but I have to say that it is most probably, that CDDB submission will not be in 0.8beta. I am sorry for that, but if I would implement it right now, the release date will move at least a month... So I decided to put it back until 0.9beta. All other features are implemented in time, at least I hope so. There will be plenty of new features in version 0.8beta, also some that are not named in the list above :) But furthermore there will be some annoying bugs removed, at first the bug, that the last sector of a CD is not read in any case. So the last track will be one sector too short always. This was a really silly bug and I am sorry for that. Moreover there are error poping up like Assign Range at Utils.2593 and that the system slows down totally 29-November-98 when starting EAC. So please do not mail me if you encounter any of these bugs, I know them already and I work on their removal. I don't know if I am able to remove them all completly, but I will try so. I have to say, that NOBODY mailed me regarding my last news entry (a few lines down) from the 5-November. :( If you are not getting pops, you probably made a CDDB database by yourself... There is one more favour, I would like to ask. If you encounter any new link of a really big shareware site to my page, please tell me. And moreover if you find any review of EAC (or something similar) in a computer magazin, I really would like to have a copy of it (or at least the according pages, or if postage is too expansive, also a scan of that page would be sufficient)... Thanks in forward! I am already working on the next version, and for that I want to ask everybody who often got pops on extraction to send these to me to test my routines... I am in need of some real pops! ;) Furthermore I will start a EAC database project now. If you have build up your own database (perhaps also some with lyrics), please send it to me. I will build one huge 5-November-98 database of all your CDs and put it somewhere in the web. This will help those, who don't have internet access (or not always). Please send me a short mail if you want to send me WAV files or databases that are over 10 kb in size... Thanks in forward! Don't expect any program updates until christmas, only if big bugs have to be removed :) Release Date of version 0.7beta This version mainly bugfixes many small and some bigger problems, also the hanging on some systems and some CDDB problems... The new version includes * CRC checksum calculation for tracks * Test read function, allowing to calculate CRC checksums without using disk space * Disabling CD Autostart feature for runtime of EAC * Lyrics support (first try ;) * External MP3 compression support (including long filenames and ID3 tagging) * Automatic CUE Sheet creation of CD's (including all track indices!) * Time format could be changed from hundredth seconds 2-November-98 to frames * Leaving out WAV header (optional) for true MP3 files or raw audio data * Batch CDDB queries * Lots of bug fixes, and as always some new bugs (drive reset, speed selection and CDDB bugs should be fixed now) One of the main bugs still in EAC reported by my beta testers is that after extraction the system is not really stable anymore at least on some systems. I don't know why yet, because on my system everything seems to be ok. But to be on the safe side you should reboot if you need a real stable system. Sorry! By the way, my Plextor came back like new after a week of repair... But I decided to sell that one and bought a new Plextor 32TSI already. Furthermore today I bought a Soundblaster Live! :) I already removed many bugs of version 0.6beta, but there is still the main bug in it... On some systems (until now only SCSI systems are affected) the system hangs after starting extraction. The drive LEDs are flashing like the drives doing a reset. The flashing LEDs bug is already removed, but on these systems there is another bug on it (perhaps very similar to that other bug), that will read now the first part of the track only zero samples and the 21-October-98 rest correctly. I will go debugging it on a friends computer next week. Because of that many bugs, I decided to bring out a new version earlier than planned. If everything works fine and I will find that bug, version 0.7beta is planned to come out end of next week. It will not have all features described above, to be honest the main features (Submission, Pop Removal and Secure Mode for Caching Drives) will miss. But I think bug fixing should be done first. There seems some problems with EAC v0.6beta on some systems. There was one report of extracting too slow (possibly only Plextor 32TSI) and one report of not ripping of second or third drives. Only the first drive was used for extraction even if another one was 5-October-98 selected... If you also think you have found a bug, please test it also with older versions (like 0.5beta and 0.4beta). If both are not working, it is an old bug not found yet, otherwise it is one that is new in 0.6beta (What is interesting for me to know...) Release Date of version 0.6beta I hope this is a pretty stable version and that the main feature, the CDDB support will work properly. The new version includes * Remote CDDB database support * Listen to suspicious positions * Glitch removal * Fix of speed detection and selection * Browse and edit of the local database * Spindown on errors and fallback afterwards * Some bug fixes, some new bugs * Update of almost all my webpages, but still no real private homepage... It will be done as soon I find 1-October-98 time next week... ;) * Moved old versions to a subdirectory, because some web pages still points to these old versions like 0.1beta or 0.2beta... Development will slow down a little bit, because at the moment there is lot of other work to do at the university (that start again next week), preperations for examinations and seminars, furthermore I still have to work besides to earn some money. But really bad is that yesterday my nice Plextor TSI 12/20 cdrom drive killed itself somehow. The drive will not accept any CDs anymore and sometimes the red LED flashes five times, over and over again. This will delay development at least some weeks, I hope I find my guarantee billet, I don't want to buy a new drive... :( I am back from holidays... The holidays at home were nice (of course not as nice as REAL holidays...), I did a lot of cycling and relaxing. I just got informed that there is a bug when using the 27-September-98Fraunhofer Codec and selecting 48 kHz samplerate... You shouldn't use it until 48 kHz mode is fixed (or removed)... The expected release date is still 1.10.98... Only smaller things to do and some bugs to fix. Now I have completed nearly all new features, only some more fixes to 'Listen to possible Errors'. There is still some work to do, e.g. in this 'Listen' dialog it will be possible to remove glitches from the wave (only if uncompressed). Of course this will remove only glitches, that means if only one sample is out of the stream and create by this a pop, it will be removed by the routine. I plan to also add a routine to remove pops that are bigger 17-September-98and burried in the sound... But not in this version. Expected release date for version 0.6beta is 1.10.98, because I want wait for the people at CDDB to check the CDDB support to be bug-free... Important: I will go on holidays tomorrow (only some holidays at home (where I come from, not here at the university) :(, that means I am not able to respond to mail until 27.9.98... Please be patient. I am still working on CDDB routines, but I already finished CDDBP support (hopefully), still lacking HTTP support. I hope to finish the rest of it in a week, so I could send the admins of CDDB a pre-beta version to get an ok for public release. Meanwhile I will work on the rest of the new features, that also should be finished until end of september, that will be a release date of the next version. Of course it could be a week more or less... If I 10-September-98know an exact date, I will publish it here. I need more informations on Offset Sample feature, so please help me to improve it. If you own a Plextor drive (12x or more) then test all CDs you own in the list on the Technology page. Get the sample offset of each CD (should(!) be 0 on all Plextors) and send it to me together with the code written on the inner ring on the back of the CD (e.g. 532 618-2 02) and the title of the CD. Thanks... Release Date of version 0.5beta A few days ago I saw that the program crashes on some systems, even the version 0.4beta. Damn. Why didn't anyone told me that this happened? Now it is too late for this version to fix it. I will have some tests if I can get hold of such a computer. I have to install my complete programming environment and then debug the whole thing... It still seems to be a problem with the ASPI interface. The new version includes * Local CDDB database * Import/Export of cdplayer.ini entries * Filename construction and ID3 Tags * Sample Offset detection and correction 26-August-98 * Speed detection and selection. This feature was made in a hurry and will work or not. It should show up the possible speeds in the selection box. If you think, that the values are not correct or the speed actually read is faster than the selected, please tell me! * Beep or eject CD after task finished * Some more safety checks and other stuff * Two more extraction methods * Still old bugs * Update of almost all my webpages * Making all old versions available for download I am not able to read or answer mails until next monday, so please be patient... I have nearly finished the local CDDB and Cdplayer.ini support. I will try to finish both speed selection and 18-August-98 sample offsets until expected release date 26.8.98, but I can't promise. It's a problem to me, testing my speed selection routines with my drives and my ASPI interface... I am terribly sorry, by accident I changed the link to EAC v0.4beta back to v0.3beta... 11-August-98 It is now fixed again... Sorry... The student server will go down next weekend. It should be up again on monday morning. Release Date of version 0.4beta At first I have to excuse me about a speed calculation bug. The calculation uses a wrong constant and the result was slightly higher (to be precise, 1.176 times higher). So this is now fixed and the cd-rom drive table is updated. I just wanted to tell, because otherwise some will think the program is getting slower. I hope to have found the solution of the ASPI bug, not showing up any drives, but I will wait if this is correct. ASPI Error EBh still comes up in some versions of ASPI, sorry. The new version includes 7-August-98 * CD player functions and prelistening to ranges * Detection of pre-track gaps * Burst extraction method * Some new bugs New known bugs are * The detection of pre-track gaps will take far too long on some computers (usually it should take a second per track). I will need some more tests on these computers. The detected values are not 100% correct in these cases. * Find out yourself... Our student server was down yesterday. If somebody send me 5-August-98 an e-mail that I haven't answered yet, please re-sent the e-mail. I have nearly finished two new features of EAC: CD player functions and gap length determination. All CD rippers, I know of, will append the gap between two audio tracks to the previous track. My program will now analyze the CD and determine the length of each gap. It 31-July-98 will be possible to append the gap or to left it out. These two features are surely in 0.4beta (it will take a week more until next update), but I will try also to implement block offsets for non-accurate stream drives. I don't know if I could do the spindown already in this version... Release Date of version 0.3beta This new beta is forced to come out, because version 0.2beta made problems on a huge number of computers. Main problems was "Access Violation" and "ASPI interface could not be initialized". These errors are still in EAC, but it should run on more computers again. I still don't know why the ASPI Interface often could not be initialized (This is not only a bug in my program - try starting 22-July-98 ASPICHK from Adaptec. On my computer it always shows the same intialization failure). Have a try with different ASPI versions to install. The new version includes * Normalization of extracted audio * Safety check for available harddisk space * Compile-time dynamic linking of the ASPI interface * more or less bugs ;) I recognized that EAC won't work on many computer having either an "Access Violation" or an error message "ASPI interface could not be initialized". I'm already working on this problem and I hope to bring out a new bug-fixed version on 22-July. 20-July-98 Interfacing the ASPI dll caused these problems, because my compiler has not a C compatible parameter passing. So I will use compile-time dynamic linking in that version. I hope it will work. Normalization is nearly done and probably also in the new version. Release Date of version 0.2beta including * Copy of ranges of audio cds 15-July-98 * Fast reading mode * Still some bugs * New homepage This "Whats New" page will updated more often than the downloads 5-July-98 Back from my one week england holiday ;) Release Date of version 0.1beta including * Secure reading mode 25-June-98 * Emulate deactivate cache * ACM CODEC support * Hidden sector synchronization * Usage of the Win 95/NT ASPI Interface * A lot of bugs