Why do I have so many problems burning with cue sheets?

[Jim Clark]

I have the ability to use EAC or Nero and rarely does it go off without a hitch. A lot of times I do eventually end up burning a disc but usually the tracks are not cut up correctly so playback is not seamless.

My current process:
d'l a flac file w/cue sheet

use flac front end to convert the flac to a wav file (located in the same folder)

Open EAC, select tools-write a CDR-load cue sheet

This is usually were I get error messages, the most prominent of which is "file type is not supported in line three!"

Line 3 usually reads something like:
FILE "Siouxsie & The Banshees - A Kiss In The Dreamhouse (Remaster).flac" WAVE

Do the settings on decoding with Flac front end potentially cause the problems? Am I doing something wrong with EAC? This is only a problem when I use a cue sheet. If I the tracks are broken down as single files I never need a cue sheet and never have any issues.

Regards,
jc

[bobsticks]

Hey jim,

Short answer is I don't know. The best I can do with my limited understanding is ask a few questions and point in a few directions...mostly theoretical, but at least your querry isn't being completely ignored.

There may well be issues with FLAC. Taken from sourceforge.net:


Why aren't PERFORMER/TITLE/etc tags stored in the FLAC CUESHEET block?

This has turned out to be a pretty polarizing issue and requires a long explanation.

The original purpose of a cue sheet in CD authoring software was to lay out the disc, essentially specifying how the audio will be organized on the disc; some of the information ends up as the CD table of contents: the track numbers and locations, and the index points. Later CD-TEXT was added. But CD-TEXT is a very complex spec, and actually goes in the CD subcode data. It is internationalized, not through Unicode, but with several different character sets, some of them multi-byte. It even allows for graphics. In cue sheets, the TITLE/PERFORMER/etc tags are just a limited shorthand for authoring CD-TEXT, but when you rip, you almost never parse the CD-TEXT, you get it from another database, and it doesn't really belong in the FLAC CUESHEET block.

For FLAC the intention is that applications can calculate the CDDB or CDindex ID from the CUESHEET block and look it up in an online or local database just like CD rippers and players do. But if you really want it in the file itself, the track metadata should be stored separate from the CUESHEET, and already can be because of FLAC's metadata system. There just isn't a method specified yet because as soon as it is, people will say that it's not flexible enough. From experience (and you can see this come up time and time again in many lists), anyone who is going to the trouble of keeping a lossless collection in the first place will already be picky about metadata, and it is hard to come up with a standard that will please even the majority. That is the big problem with metadata and is why Xiph has deferred on it, waiting for someone to come up with a good metadata spec that can be multiplexed together with data.

Some players (for example Foobar2000) allow you to store the CDDB data as FLAC tags and can parse that.


There might also be read problems with EAC, and that's aside from the inconsistency that EAC was designed for 16 bit files and you may be using it for 24 bit files. But more to the point, I'm not totally sure that EAC supports cue files with .flac extensions.

Forgive my ignorance, but if you're converting your FLAC to WAV, why would you want to create a CUE that points to .flac files? Wouldn't you want them to have the WAV extension?

[Jim Clark]

Hey jim,



Forgive my ignorance, but if you're converting your FLAC to WAV, why would you want to create a CUE that points to .flac files? Wouldn't you want them to have the WAV extension?

Yeah, I read that too, just really didn't understand what the L he was talking about! At the very least, you'd think that cue sheets created from an EAC rip would compatible with EAC once I try to burn with it.

As to the other question, I don't want to create cue sheets at all. These are the only things that comes with the downloaded flac files and as far as I know, it's the only way to get the disc to burn with the tracks broken down correctly (theoretically). So I'm not making them, I'm trying to use them.

jc

[Jim Clark]

So ok, I have discovered that if I use a freeware product called Burrnn as my authoring software things seem to go without the usual glitches and hitches. So, whatever...: )

Burrnn also goes ahead and converts the flac to wav so I don't have to worry about the xtra step.

[nobody]

In the example you give, if you go in and edit the cue sheet so that line three says .wav instead of .flac, it should work. I've had these issues too and have found that things work fine as long as you edit the cue sheets to match what files you actually have. So, if you convert the files to .wav files, you have to change the cue sheets to reflect that. At least that is what has worked for me.

[bobsticks]

I assume it's about creating line commands which is a bit beyond the point.

I don't have an answer for you but I too am interested in finding out given that I'll be transitioning to computer-based audio.

[Jim Clark]

In the example you give, if you go in and edit the cue sheet so that line three says .wav instead of .flac, it should work. I've had these issues too and have found that things work fine as long as you edit the cue sheets to match what files you actually have. So, if you convert the files to .wav files, you have to change the cue sheets to reflect that. At least that is what has worked for me.

Seems obvious, right? Tried that several ways with both programs to no avail. As I recall, when I did that I'd get an error message saying "There are not enough arguments in line 3"

I'm reasonably computer savvy but on this issue, I'm short bus eligible.

jc

[Swish]

I have the ability to use EAC or Nero and rarely does it go off without a hitch. A lot of times I do eventually end up burning a disc but usually the tracks are not cut up correctly so playback is not seamless.

My current process:
d'l a flac file w/cue sheet

use flac front end to convert the flac to a wav file (located in the same folder)

Open EAC, select tools-write a CDR-load cue sheet

This is usually were I get error messages, the most prominent of which is "file type is not supported in line three!"

Line 3 usually reads something like:
FILE "Siouxsie & The Banshees - A Kiss In The Dreamhouse (Remaster).flac" WAVE

Do the settings on decoding with Flac front end potentially cause the problems? Am I doing something wrong with EAC? This is only a problem when I use a cue sheet. If I the tracks are broken down as single files I never need a cue sheet and never have any issues.

Regards,
jc

Send a PM to Slosh.

[Slosh]

I hate cue sheets. No need for them if you set up EAC properly. As nobody mentioned, changing line 3 from .flac to .wav will allow you to burn. To get your gaps right be sure to click "use current gap settings".

[Jim Clark]

I hate cue sheets. No need for them if you set up EAC properly. As nobody mentioned, changing line 3 from .flac to .wav will allow you to burn. To get your gaps right be sure to click "use current gap settings".

That sounds like worth a try. I know I tried this:
FILE "Siouxsie & The Banshees - A Kiss In The Dreamhouse (Remaster).WAVE" that's when I got the whole not enough arguments line.

Funny that you hate cue sheets since you're the very first person I know to have used them! You had sent one with a comp years ago, I don't recall ever figuring that one out either : )

As always, thanks to all.

Regards,
jc

[Slosh]

FILE "Siouxsie & The Banshees - A Kiss In The Dreamhouse (Remaster).WAVE" that's when I got the whole not enough arguments line.

That needs to be .wav

Yeah, I only used a cue sheet on that because it was full of cross-fades. In retrospect I should have just ripped it as individual tracks. As long as it was burned gaplessly it would have been a 100% accurate copy of my original CD-R.