Cactus 2??? and Mike Oldfield

Hi All

Wanted some advice from you all regarding Copy Protection on an Audio CD

I've been burning audio CDs for years, and have only recently experienced a problem with a particular copy protected disk

It's Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells 2003

I've think I've downlaoded all the tools and various ripping programs that everyone talks about here, but I still can't rip the CD

Then someone on here suggested that it can also be HARDWARE dependent too! (I hadn't considered that!)

I'm using a Plextor 811s DVD/CD writer

I just wanted to make sure I understood my own problem

- Burning Copy protected disks is based on having the right HW and SW

- Cactus 2 is the CP used

- This is uncrackable

Before I confine the CD to the shelf and say 'ahh never mind, I didn't really need a backup"..can someone confirm whether or not it's worth me continuing to try and crack this CD???

..or is Cactus so good...that SOME CDs are not copyable?

Thanks all - look forward to your advice

Steve

Hi Steve,

I think its worth a shot. What tools have you tried thus far? I suggest you try CloneCD, AudioCatalyst, or ExactAudioCopy. Have you tried these yet? They work great and have not yet once let me down. Also, what happens to your burns, how do they go bad. Does the original keep spinning up bearing itself unreadable, do the copies come out with hiss or distortation, do the copies appear simply unreadable by other players, what happens?

You seem to have HW that is capapble, lets just get the SW going.

Hi xtacydima

Thanks for the reply - sounds encouraging...

I've tried _all_ the sw you mention. The problem is that the message I keep getting is 'no audio tracks'..and sometimes it won't even see the disk at all!

The closest I got was using Easy CD DA Extractor...which found the audio tracks, but when I tried to burn them, it stopped after aorund 5 seconds saying 'read error'. It did this on ALL the tracks...just a few seconds of each resulting in a 1k file which wouldn't play

..then the the disk drive light kept going on and off

I think I just resigned myself to the fact that the Hardware/firmware wasn't up to it

Happy to try ANYTHING that solves the problem - this is a real challenge..and I love challenges



S

What were the results with CloneCD or Audiocatalyst? Somewhere in Exact Audio Copy is an option to cirumvent around a falst TOC(table of contents), look for it. Its how someone else copied cactus CP.

How did you conclue its cactus, ClonyXXL?
for other scanners should u wanan try, look here:
http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread....threadid=76916

If you have a plextor, then plextools. If plextools can not afford that, with another soft u will be unable to rip such CD anyway.

Another way to proceed is extracting from linux. Cactus Data Shield is prepared for windows and its CD access driver, so from linux you could rip that without problems.

Give them a try.

Good luck!

Thanks Morglum007

I'll treat that as the fall back plan. I don't know anyone who is 'on' Linux OS and I'm using a Liteon 811s (having got rid of my Plextor)

I'd kinda like to solve it form within the Windoze OS if poss

Thanks for the reply though...cos if I can't solve it from within XP, I'm off to find a Linux user

)

On Windoze just plextools. As said before, if this can not solve ur problem , consider to try linux ( on windows u will not succeed with current XP: maybe getting original cd driver from windows 95 could succeed too, but this could have impredecible results on an xp system)

Good luck!

Are you sure you didn't miss anything ?

Well, why don't you read and take into consideration the following stuff :

AnyDVD - the audio prot killer

AnyDVD > CD DA tab > Remove CD Digital Audio Protection



CloneCD > Profile Settings > Audio Read Settings tab > check 'Only read the first session'



Looking forward to hear your report !

Yo BoSkin

Thanks, I'll downlaod it and let you know ASAP

Steve

Hi BoSkin

I'm using 4.0.1.9, but still getting the same problems ie, disk light keeps flashing...log contains a lot of repeats of 'writing dummy sectors'



S

---

Last edited by SteveP; 02-02-2004 at 06:54.

4319, that is. Have you run it along with the AnyDVD CD-DA Audio feature ?

Hi Boskin

Thanks for your latest email

I've sorted the problem. I began to think it was HARD ware related (and it was)

I blew the dust of an old IOMEGA external CD writer and put the CD in that...It burns without any problems at all and without the need for any extra help software wise



Thanks for your patience with a Newby!

S

Hi All

Thanks everyone for all your help in trying to get to the bottom of why I couldn't rip the above CD.

By a spooky coinicidence, my 811s went wrong and was replaced with another one - however the replacement was an 851s

Now when I insert the audio CD, the audio tracks ARE 'seen' by the software (I tried many different sorts - none would work before with the 811s)..and the CD is now ripped without any problems

Yipee

X-cellent. Cheers !

Except for clicks & skips caused by faked c2 errors...
A good audio soundcard and a optical cable is the only way.

Hi giodeluigi

Thanks for your post - you obviously know alot about this stuff

You said

"Except for clicks & skips caused by faked c2 errors..."

Remember I'm a newby here...what the devil is a 'fake c2 error'?

I listened to the ripped tracks all the way through - no clicks or skips on mine


A good audio soundcard and a optical cable is the only way.

I know what a good card is...but what's an opticalcable and where would I plug that in?

Ok..
AnyDVD is able to hide the 2nd session that contains cactus protection but these audio cds have another kind of trouble: many fake unreadeable errors (about 40000 per track in latest protection version) are put in audio tracks so your reader tries to correct all those errors in resulting with some audible random clicks & little skips.
So you're able to copy cactus protected audio discs but you'll get those audible errors too.
So the safest way to get a perfect copy of them is paying the cd in a audio cd player (or dvd player) who has an optical (not coaxial) output and entering in a good soundcard with an optical in.
Audio cd player doesn't return those c2errors so you'll not get any click.
Then with a nice program you'll find here: www.cdwave.com you can automatically split the tracks and you'll get a perfect audio protected cd copy.
I hope you'll understood these lines even with my sucky English.
Anyway if you do a little search in this forum you'll find all my previous tests with those kind of stupid cds.
Giò

Optical cables

Well, I guess you’re right? I just don’t quite understand how the he.. my premium can produce such nice results with a CDS200.5.0.150 protected cd. The funny thing is that it can’t recover every single error on the earlier versions of CDS 200 (e.g. CDS200.0.44.1 build 1a). Below I’ll show the logs from my rip’s of a CDS200.5.0.150 protected cd. Since I’ve used my Premium drive I didn’t use any other software than plextools to do the rip. I’m not able to find any audible errors in any of the rip’s, though.

CDS200.5.0.150 with no error recovery.
CD/DVD Copy log
-----------
Selected read speed: 14-32X CAV

include: UPC: no ISRC: no CD+G: no
1st session only : yes
Allow Overburning : yes Leave Disc Open: no
Audio Error Detection : enabled
-Advanced error detection enabled
-Maximum errors : unlimited
-Allow Speed Down : no
Read Error Recovery Strategy : 1. Report Errors only (no recovery action).

Scanning tracks
Creating image file
Saving Track 1 Start: 00:00.00 Length: 00:29.00
Saving Track 2 Start: 00:29.00 Length: 03:03.12
Saving Track 3 Start: 03:32.12 Length: 04:03.30
Saving Track 4 Start: 07:35.42 Length: 04:19.38
Saving Track 5 Start: 11:55.05 Length: 04:01.20
Saving Track 6 Start: 15:56.25 Length: 04:03.60
Saving Track 7 Start: 20:00.10 Length: 03:52.12
Saving Track 8 Start: 23:52.22 Length: 04:08.18
Saving Track 9 Start: 28:00.40 Length: 04:09.05
Saving Track 10 Start: 32:09.45 Length: 04:11.17
20 errors in audio track
Saving Track 11 Start: 36:20.62 Length: 04:18.25
15 errors in audio track
Saving Track 12 Start: 40:39.12 Length: 03:38.68
Saving Track 13 Start: 44:18.05 Length: 04:40.20
1007 errors in audio track
Saving Track 14 Start: 48:58.25 Length: 03:57.37
669 errors in audio track
Saving Track 15 Start: 52:55.62 Length: 04:23.10
2337 errors in audio track
Saving Track 16 Start: 57:18.72 Length: 03:52.60
4322 errors in audio track
Saving Track 17 Start: 61:14.50 Length: 04:03.60
CD/DVD Copy completed successfully
1st session only option switched off.





CDS200.5.0.150, with maximum. Error recovery.
CD/DVD Copy log
-----------
Selected read speed: 4X CLV

include: UPC: no ISRC: no CD+G: no
1st session only : yes
Allow Overburning : yes Leave Disc Open: no
Audio Error Detection : enabled
-Advanced error detection enabled, read retry count set to : 10
-Maximum errors : unlimited
-Allow Speed Down : yes
Read Error Recovery Strategy : 5. Recover the best bytes (least errors) per sector.

Scanning tracks
Creating image file
Saving Track 1 Start: 00:00.00 Length: 00:29.00
Saving Track 2 Start: 00:29.00 Length: 03:03.12
Saving Track 3 Start: 03:32.12 Length: 04:03.30
Saving Track 4 Start: 07:35.42 Length: 04:19.38
Saving Track 5 Start: 11:55.05 Length: 04:01.20
Saving Track 6 Start: 15:56.25 Length: 04:03.60
Saving Track 7 Start: 20:00.10 Length: 03:52.12
Saving Track 8 Start: 23:52.22 Length: 04:08.18
Saving Track 9 Start: 28:00.40 Length: 04:09.05
Saving Track 10 Start: 32:09.45 Length: 04:11.17
Saving Track 11 Start: 36:20.62 Length: 04:18.25
Saving Track 12 Start: 40:39.12 Length: 03:38.68
Saving Track 13 Start: 44:18.05 Length: 04:40.20
Saving Track 14 Start: 48:58.25 Length: 03:57.37
Saving Track 15 Start: 52:55.62 Length: 04:23.10
Saving Track 16 Start: 57:18.72 Length: 03:52.60
Saving Track 17 Start: 61:14.50 Length: 04:03.60
CD/DVD Copy completed successfully
1st session only option switched off.

Yes BeeR_DoG, we both are right.
This kind of audio protection is hardware dependent so many devices are able to correct the most of those errors so you won't get audible errors but you'll learn it only listening to the whole album with good headphones to be sure that surely are'nt audible errors.
I have tried at least 12 devices to copy Al Green - I can't stop album witch is cds200 protected.
I got clicks & skips wth all of them (even with my brand new Plextor DVDR 708a exept for an old LG 52X cd rom that wasn't recognizing those errors.
I am tired to get coasters so if won't come out some new tricks to make the drive simple ignore those errors I prefer recording the cd or dvd passing through my optical cable.
Then I get all indexes with a cue sheet from EAC than I rebuild the same cd structure with cd architect withou losing a bit.
Giò

Cactus DS200 & Feurio

Btw, I've copied CDS 200.5.0.151- 5.00.160 the same way.

Hi Boskin! I'm not sure I got this right!! You know, the errors I get with my premium is not audible ( I don’t use headphones though), but I was surprised that the premium was able to recover ALL errors with the newer V. of CDS 200.

When ripped with the premium. I never was able to hear any of the errors that Plextools reported with the earlier versions of CDS 200 . So I’ve got three questions for you:

1.Are you telling me that Feurio in a combination with Anydvd will recover all errors on any CDS 200 protected cd , with the appropriate hardware ?

2. Will this software combination do the job, without reporting the few errors (not audible) that might appear?

3. Will this software combination, bring new life to devices (e.g. the Px-40Tsi) in a better way than already known solutions?

I didn't use AnyDVD in these 2 cases,
I have a pair of Sennheizer HD 580 Precision,
my 2 copied CDs are perfectly sounding,
in one case I used Feurio, in the other PlexTools.

That's all I can tell you for sure now.

---

Last edited by BoSkin; 18-02-2004 at 21:14.

Thanks for the quick answer.

Just in case if you've missed it :