Index ⇒ General Topics ⇒ [QUESTIONS] CUE/BIN and when it's okay to convert to ISO

[cueandbinguy]

I realized I made some mistakes when backing up certain games. Thankfully I found out now, and not 5 or more years when it might be near impossible to make or get new backups of older games.

Some games, like Twisted Metal, Twisted Metal 2, Fable (1996) have audio tracks that go away if you convert it to ISO. I'm pretty sure that if the CUE file has anything talking about tracks or audio in it at all, then that means leave it as a CUE/BIN, correct? Some CUE/BINs I've found don't have the track or audio text, so I figured they didn't need to be CUE/BIN.

A lot of backups on this site seem to have CCD/IMG/SUB (sometimes a CUE is in there, not sure why), and I'm not sure if it's okay or not to convert those to ISO. I think the SUB is for DRM information? Kind of like MDS/MDF, where MDS contains DRM information. I've found that it's okay to convert CCD/IMG/SUB and MDS/MDF to ISO with no issues other than some DRM might require you use No-CD or a Mini Image, which is okay for me because Mini Image takes up less space and sometimes No-CDs don't work or have issues.

Speaking of space, this is why I try to convert to ISO when I can. ISO compress the best for me when using WinRAR or 7-Zip, so it's important for me to know what is safe to convert to ISO, so I can archive as many games as possible, and not ruin them when converting to ISO.

Any answers or tips are appreciated, and thank you for your time.

[hfric]

not this again

Guess i have to copy/paste the diagram that was made for people like you.. when i find it
it was a joke about two blokes, One collecting Images from PS3/XBox360 , the other Decompresing them for Jtag/ps3 rips with ripped content
X years later Rips could not be started ... when images could in a PC emu or be re-burned on medium to work

under this a quote "Console users never learn , now they have to redump all Dreamcast/Wii/Playstation 1 and 2 to make then work on PC emus"

rips dose not work on emus *with a picture of a Chinese*

At the end a silly picture of a PC User with "F.u.c.k. consoles and their high standard of Data archiving" and then the user, tries to run a cracked game ...
a crack that was not made for her system or memory or *in bold , in font 120* was hardware pendent on a internet server glitch to run

(this diagram was made, when one user said Dragon Age 3 was cracked on PC, when it is not)


You care about what :
the game to play now = go retard iso + add crack ... be like GOG and then X years later complain why 90+ of theirs RIPS does now F work
1:1 data archive to have a working game forever till your HDD breaks = keep the original dump

[Scaryfun]

No need for attitude when someone is asking a simple question.
Yes, audio tracks are lost when an image is converted to iso. If it's a clone image, you can view the cue as a text file using notepad to see if there are indeed audio files, they will be listed.

[cuebinmanlyman]

[Molitor]

[*]A game that relies on audio tracks for its music --> Keep BIN/CUE (or any other fileformat that conserves audio tracks intact) . Unless you want to rip the audio tracks as MP3/FLAC for ulterior listening (you won't be able to reintegrate them into a bin/cue file after that).
Note; some games from after 2000
[*]A game from ~1980/~2010 with no audio tracks and no copy protection of any kind --> you can convert to ISO.
[*]A game from ~1980/~2010 with a old/common copy protection - but a crack or mini-image is available --> you can convert to ISO and add the said crack on said ISO.
[*]A game from 2010+ with a nasty hardware-dependant or unusual copy protection --> there you decide whether you want to take the risk to get a crack that won't be functional on another configuration or in a few years, or to keep 1:1 copy of the game with its intact protection (and play straight from this 1:1 copy when possible, though it's gonna become rarer and rarer).

Btw; You may find easier to log into your first account and post from it, instead of making a new account for each post... ?

[Meddle]

You don't actually save that much space by converting cd images to iso and then compressing them. In fact you waste more of your time doing it... so go ahead and do it if your time means nothing to you.

[oldman]

I always test a bin file in Powersiso (maybe not the best idea).
I covert it ,then try the install and see if it's ok ,sometimes it works and sometimes not.
If it doesn't need to kept as an ISO I will compress it into a DAA image file which seems to achieve the same compression as 7zip thus making it good for storage.
The only downside is Daa image files can only be mounted in Poweriso ,though if you're keeping the file in storage it only takes a few secs to convert it back to ISO.

[cuebinsexyman]

[cuebinsexyman]

anyway, thank you all for your input. I think this is what I should do from now on:

MDS/MDF at all times, EXCEPT when there are "hidden" audio tracks.

CUE/BIN for "hidden" audio tracks.

ISO only when I come across CUE/BIN, CCD/IMG/SUB when (*only when*) being in those formats is pointless.

Anyone have any comments on this?

Also, anyone know which app is more reliable for CUE/BIN? CDRWIN?

[myloch]

I would stay away from generic iso format unless pc game is without audio tracks and without drm of any kind, you can check that with ProtectionID tool.
I usually make ccd or mds/mdf images. I used to do bin+cue images in the past too (cuesheets are very useful when you have to create custom images, like when you add missing audio tracks to a previously existing image, or when you have to rip data and audio tracks separately for some reason and then rebuild original cd structure), this will not be true 1:1 images but they usually work quite well.

[wav]

If you really want to understand what's going on then best to read up about Rainbow Books.


Basically the audio on the bin/cues you mention is Redbook audio. Redbook is just one of the Rainbow books. Redbook audio is also what audio CDs use as well.

As far as I know I believe it's OK to convert CCD/IMG/SUB and MDS/MDF to ISO so long as they have no Redbook audio and you don't want to burn them to optical media. Most of my experience comes from PC though. If I'm wrong about this then I'm sure somebody will correct me.


cuebinsexyman - If storage space is a problem maybe the ECM tools will help.
I remember using this years ago on Playstation images. I can't remember ever using it on images of PC games but I think it works OK.
It can compress more than what other compression software can do. Usually 15 - 20%. But it's only for image files.
It seems the homepage of the person that coded it, Neill Corlett, is down at the moment.


A search will give you other sites with downloads of it though. Also here's an archive_is of his page for ECM. It's a shame that archive_is doesn't save whole sites including downloads!


It is a command line tool, or tools actually. You get executables for ECM and UNECM. Decompressing is easy as you just drag and drop the image onto the unecm_exe.

The ECM format allows you to reduce the size of a typical CD image file (BIN, CDI, NRG, CCD, or any other format that uses raw sectors). It works by eliminating the Error Correction/Detection Codes (ECC/EDC) from each sector whenever possible. The encoder automatically adjusts to different sector types and automatically skips any headers it encounters. Since the data skipped is nearly impossible to compress with traditional tools, the resulting ECM file will compress far better than the raw CD image.

[Meddle]

With the exception that the ECM tools shouldn't be used on images that have Redbook audio or depend on various copy protections. For instance, Re-Dump uses ECM with pakkiso (pakkiso is a multi-tiered compression strategy utilizing: a bin/cue image split into tracks, ecm the data track, 7zip the data track, and finally encode the audio tracks with monkeys audio). ECM was really meant to only be used with console ISO's where CD-ROM based copy protection generally wasn't a priority. Basically ECM doesn't even attempt to deal with all the funny business (weird formatting) companies employed for copy protection on PC.

[hfric]