highvoltage-lossless.com: News

EAC - .log files - Spotting Critical Mistakes

Before you download a rip that has a log file, it is worth checking out the log first, to see if the uploader knew what they were doing.

This article will show you things to look for that would indicate They Did Not.
Useful Link:
How to rip with EAC - How to do it right
http://blowfish.be/eac/


Here is an EXAMPLE of a .log file with bad(or problem) rip settings

Quote
Used drive : SAMSUNG CDRW/DVD SM-308B Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Burst
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : No
Make use of C2 pointers : Yes

Read offset correction : 0
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : No
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : Yes
Null samples used in CRC calculations : No
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Not detected, thus appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : Yes
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\foobar2000\components\flac.exe

Track 5
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\Joe\My Documents\Downloads\z v0 albums\Back to mine (mp3 v0)\Death in Vegas\05 - Death in Vegas - Songs- Ohia , Soul.wav

Suspicious position 0:02:46
Suspicious position 0:02:49

Missing samples
Peak level 0.0 %
Track quality 98.9 %
Copy finished

Track 7
Filename C:\Documents and Settings\Chriso\My Documents\Uploaded Torrent\Dreadzone - Sound\07 - Different Planets.wav

Peak level 97.9 %
Test CRC 2BB1DFB6
Copy CRC 103045EA
Copy OK


No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database

There were errors

End of status report


Really Critical Problems:
These are the really obvious things that are definitely problems in this log.

Read Mode: This should be secure, not burst. Extremely important!
Fill up missing offset samples with silence: Should be yes.
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks: Should be no.
Null samples used in CRC calculations: Should be yes.
Gap handling: Should not be "Not detected".
Add ID3 tag: This should be no for non-MP3 rips, this is a FLAC rip so this is bad.

Track 5:
Lines with "Suspicious position" are bad.
The line "Missing samples" is bad.
Copy finished - this would say "Copy OK" if the track had copied without errors.

Track 7:
The CRCs don't match - this is bad.

Summary:
There were errors - no brainer, this should say "No errors occurred"

Maybe Problems:
Things that aren't definitely issues and would require investigating in some cases, but are possibly not good.

Defeat audio cache: Very few drives don't have a cache so this should always be yes.
Make use of C2 pointers: Very few drives fully support C2 so this should always be no.
Read offset correction: You can check in an online database to see if this offset is correct for this drive (note that occasionally drives with the same name have different offsets).
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out: This should hopefully be supported by the drive particularly if it has an offset, if this is yes and no errors occur then that's better than it being no.

Summary:
No tracks could be verified as accurate

You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database - If this says "All tracks accurately ripped" then you can be almost certain (only almost certain but we're talking 99% at least) that the rip went absolutely fine as far as getting the correct audio data goes. If it doesn't... you can't be sure of anything. Maybe it went wrong, maybe they have a different pressing.