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Secure ripping is the process of ripping audio CDs without errors, ripping errors manifest as either pops, clicks, or extended periods of silence (where the CD drive has substituted the error with silence), rips with errors are sub-optimal. Secure ripping is different, errors are detected, potentially recovered and unrecoverable tracks are separated out, the last thing your expensive speakers need are tracks with speaker damaging pops and clicks.
Illustrate have a long proven record of designing secure ripping software, over 8 years worth of CD Ripping software development is behind our latest technology 'dBpoweramp Reference' which is regarded as the securest of the secure, that is the best program obtainable today to rip securely. What about experts in the field of secure ripping? there only exist 5 different secure ripping program implementations worldwide, Illustrate are part of a select secure-ripping club.
speaker damaging pop, from insecure rip
Secure ripping has many pre-requisites, which need to be fulfilled to rip securely: from finding a quality CD drive (C2, cache invalidation, over-reading, drive offset), it can make your head spin. We realised there will be those who want to rip securely, but do not have the time to source and configure secure ripping, let alone do secure ripping (secure ripping can take 4x longer than normal ripping). Rather than settle for any mediocre secure ripping setup, we have put together what we believe the best obtainable hardware & settings for secure ripping. |
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There are many services which might claim to offer error free ripping, lets examine the levels of service provided:
| ReadyToPlay Secure |
Generic 'error free' Service |
| A rip is only secure when verified by AccurateRip, or ripped on a 2nd different model drive |
Likely to only rely on c2 pointers to detect an error, once detected a simple re-read (with same drive) is done, if matches then is secure. |
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| Discs with errors run through professional cleaning system, then ripping retried a total of 4 times |
Discs likely to be lightly wiped before ripping, pricing model does not allow the same disc to be ripped 4x |
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| Rips with errors separated as unsecure |
Rips with errors hidden with error free rips, how many have errors is anyone's guess |
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| Metadata: employs PerfectMeta using 2x pay providers and 2x free providers |
Uses a single commercial metadata provider |
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| Hidden Track One Audio (HTOA) detection and ripping |
Not provided |
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| Optional HDCD decoding (to 20 bit) |
Not provided |
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| Premium Metadata from 4 providers, 2x commercial (AMG, GD3, Musicbrainz, freedb), cross-checked to reduce errors |
Single commercial provider, plenty of spelling mistakes and errors |
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| Each disc metadata manually reviewed |
Unattended robot rips, high chance of metadata errors |
We do not think the generic 'error free' method can be claimed to be secure, time is money for these generic ripping services, discs have to be ripped only once to maintain through-put, there is a potential for many errors to still be present and worse still tracks with errors are not separated!
When compared against a high end $5,000 CD player, which one would give the better quality audio (as measured as not containing errors), ReadyToPlay Secure, or the high end player? ReadyToPlay Secure would give better results, CD players are time based and have to deliver audio on demand, this very design results in insecure reproductions, an on demand player cannot try the same track 4x on different hardware.
The remainder of this section gets quite technical, rather than advertise our secure ripping system as 'the best' with 'custom hardware and software' all shrouded in mystery, we are candid about the details, so our claims can be verified.
There are 1000's of online discussions of which drive rips best, many are anecdotal, Illustrate know for sure which drives deliver consistent excellent results (having put 1000's of damaged discs through many drives to test their performance), our secure system design:
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Plextor PX-708a primary ripping drives (c2 configured, FUA cache invalidation, correctly offset adjusted, over-read enabled),
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Plextor PX-230a verification drives (c2 configured, correct cache invalidation & offset adjusted),
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Straight IDE >> CD drives (no USB, or fire wire bridge chipsets to get in the way of secure ripping), no 2 drives used simultaneously on a single IDE controller.
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Each drive has a free CPU core when ripping,
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Clean system (no hidden SCSI filters, such as Sony's Rootkit), no virtual drive filters,
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Professional CD repair system.
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Ripped with dBpoweramp Reference
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Verified against AccurateRip
| Secure ripping has progressed leaps and bounds over the years since the introduction of AccurateRip, previously secure ripping programs relied upon C2 error pointers or read the same area twice to detect errors. Lets examine each of these methods: |
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C2 Error Pointers
Each drive chipset implements C2 pointers with differing levels of quality, even the best implementations can still let through 3% or more of errors through. Having C2 helps, but should not be relied upon alone.
Re-Reading
CD is read twice, if a section contains an error it will likely return different errors, so can be detected. This is true mostly but not always, consistent errors exist and in our opinion present more of a problem to secure ripping than the C2 error pointer detection 'hole'.
As mentioned AccurateRip helps enormously with secure ripping, a CD rip is compared to an independently ripped disc (different drive, different CD - no 2 discs would have the same scratch). AccurateRip like any online database will always have missing discs, a process needed to be designed to work with AccurateRip, but also independently if the disc is not in AccurateRip, our process:
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Batch of discs are ripped first on PX-708a drive, tracks which are verified by AccurateRip are separated (they are secure),
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Remaining unverified (perhaps disc is not in AccurateRip, or there is a real error) tracks / discs are ripped on the PX-230a. After ripping the 230a rip is compared to the first 708a rip, if they match (offset & over reading accounted for) the rip is secure (two different model drives ripped with the same results: as good as you can get when a disc is not in AccurateRip).
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Those tracks which are still unsecure are run through a professional CD repair system, step 1 and 2 are repeated.
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Finally tracks which do not verify after ripping 4x are separated in an unsecure folder. Those tracks are not recoverable (the disc was too damaged).
In closing: if a ReadyToPlay Secure ripped disc is labeled as secure, your digital reproduction is identical to the studio's gold master.
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