I'm putting together tracks for a re-release/2nd edition CD. I.e., we sold out of our first 1000, and our record company wants us to release another pressing, but with a different set of masters.

I've got all the tracks ready to go in my CD burning software, and have made both a disc image, and burned CD-R's of the disc.

One thing I was trying to do was to check the CD-R's for errors.

I made toast images of the burned CD's, and mounted an image saved directly from the CD authoring software.

I tried using the "Compare..." utility in Toast, and either got one error on one track, or errors on all tracks (where the comparison process was very brief).

When I use check-summing to compare each track between the image and the tracks on the burned discs, they are never the same.

Can anyone think of a good way to get this done, so I know I have confirmed good CD-R's ready to send off?

Thanks,

I assume that these CDs are being duped on a computer vs. a duping machine; is that correct? If so, the only thing you can do is use Toast to automatically check the disk for errors before it spits it out. There is a checkbox next to this function. After duping, it will check the disc, and, if it's good, it will come out, but, if not, you will see an error message and you will have to manually eject the error'd disc.

Now, with digital mediums, especially lower quality mediums and low qualtiy burners, the magnitude of error goes up. It is not uncommon to have bits missing to the point where the track will not read. I would suggest not using a computer for this application but a dedictated stand alone duping machine as it has all the error checking built in and on the fly as it writes, scans the medium for errors before burning as well. Saves a lot of time and you get a good product at the end.

But, if budget doesn't allow/permit the purchase of such a device, then you can do it the way mentioned above however, it will take longer and your yield will be lower as well. Also, you may want to check the state of the hardware being used- the drive and the quality of the CDs.

Good luck. C

I GREATLY APPRECIATE YOUR HELP WITH THIS!!!

I'm burning a disc on my computer to be sent to a manufacturer for duping.

The issue is that NO software that I know of, can confirm an audio CD. They can check a data CD for errors, but not an audio CD.

Go figure.

That is why I have been jumping through hoops to verify them.

My workaround is to burn more than one CD-R, the create images from those CD-R's, then use an MD-5 utility to compare the images. If the images are the same, then I'll know I have two identical CD's. Which I can optimistically guess means that I have two perfect CD's and not two CD's with exactly the same error.

There are two snags I'm running into:

1. An image file created by my authoring software vs. an image created by Toast from the data on harddrive, vs. a toast image of a CD-R
--- they are all different, and can't be compared using Toast's "Compare..." utility or any other MD5 util.
2. Both my burners seem to be "fussy". And I've not bee able to create audio CD's with a very good success rate. Even though my ability to burn perfect data CD-R's has never been an issue.

I think I am using good media, which never shows errors when burning data CD-R's.

I'm stumped.

Audio-CDs are not appropriate duplicable / master-able media.

Send it on HD or a data ISO9660 disc with all the audiotracks and send it over.

Of course, a lot of companies don't even know how to deal with this stuff appropriately....the good ones will EXPECT it to be done this way and not accept audio cds for duping. If they can't tell you the most appropriate format (or tell you audio cd is fine), find someone else...immediately.

There's part of the issue right there. I have never had any issues making any type of disc whether it was an audio cd or data disc. If you have the right tools for the job, things should work despite of format. However, if your going outside to have it done, the as Cliff already noted, a change to ISO format would prove to be the way to go. However, if your at your house doing this, I suggest upgrading to a better machine for this application.

The main reason that the software can't compare exactly is due to different format and media storage formats. Image format on a hard drive to non image format on a data disc is not going to read the same; just as when storing two identical files; albeit -one on a Mac and one on FAT32 or NTFS, the file sizes are not going to be the same size. The ideal method is that you use a master disc as your baseline / golden sample and then the dup's are compared to the master disc during write and after write. Otherwise, your going to be comparing all night and not getting anywhere and running around in circles. It's not going to work doing it that way and it's inefficient and in your case, the yield is low. The process is not adequate for this application. One or two, ah, ok; you can get away with that, but 100s, most certainly not.

Either way, the process needs to changed. Either you send it out and have it done, or, you get the machine yourself and do it in house. Now, there's the investment cost of such machine. If this is a one time thing, don't bother as the machine will never pay for itself and best bet is to go outside and have it done and, hopefully, it's done correct. On the other hand, if this is something that you foresee doing from time to time over the years or you want to get into it, then by all means invest in it.

Hope that helps you. C

Thanks, Clif, I'll ask the duping place what kind of format (besides audio CD) that they can use. But yea, I just need to use a format that will make sure it's all intact. Unfortunately I won't have any choice about what duping house is used.

And thanks, cmcken1; it does make sense that comparing the images that have difference sources (and creators) is not going to be a reliable test. As for my burners, I've never had any problems burning data discs (and I ALWAYS verify) so I either am doing something wrong with this comparing process, or both burners ( the one in my G5 and the one in my MacBook are both failing).

I'll look into it more.