Backing up SACDs now possible..

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by yamfox, Jun 23, 2011.

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  1. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Sure there is! SACDs use the DVD disc structure, I'm hoping to burn one via DVD-R later today, and will report back.
     
  2. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    I'm getting very close, but not quite success, authoring a real SACD. I actually just created a DSD Disc via raw .DFF files. The resulting disc does play on my (non-SACD) PS3, but not on any of the OPPOs.

    I'm using Philips SuperAuthor to create a SACD, and everything is working except SuperAuthor doesn't seem to like the raw .DFF, but is expecting a .DST file, which I don't understand how to create from the .DFF using Korg's Audiogate.

    I taught myself how to create/author SACDs via SuperAuthor, if I can just get the input file type correct, I should be off and running.

    Actually ripping the discs is another challenge, as I'm still looking for a cheap way to get a pre-v3.55 firmware version PS3.
     
  3. Tony Plachy

    Tony Plachy Senior Member

    Location:
    Pleasantville, NY
    OK, This is very interesting to me and I MAY have some information that is of interest to all of you. As some of you know I use a TASCAM DV-RA1000HD to make needledrops in DSD. The TASCAM has a HDD that I can record to and playback from and also allows me to burn to a dvd-r or dvd-rw the DSD file. The format that is used is 2ch DSDIFF (DSD). This format is supported by the sacd ripping firmware. The TASCAM does NOT play SACD's or DSD Disc (.dsf files, which the Sony 5400 ES is suppose to play). At present I can make backups of my SACD's by playing them in one of my SACD players, taking the analog signal to the TASCAM and recording that in DSD. I have only done this once, the results were very good, however, if it could be shown that the ripped SACD file is in the 2ch DSDIFF (DSD) format and the TASCAM can play and burn a dvd-r(w) of the file it represents a way to digitally back up SACD's. The TASCAM has a USB Type B port that allows it to communicate with a PC and exchange files. This would require that the TASCAM be used as a "back-up" SACD player, but it has been in production for at least 3 years if not more like 5 so it is easily obtained and at $2K (typicall street price) not cheap but not outrageous compared to other hi-end SACD playes and it does great DSD needledrops. :D

    Unfortunately, I do not own any version of the PS3, so I cannot attempt to see if the TASCAM will work with one of these ripped files.
     
  4. uofmtiger

    uofmtiger Forum Resident

    Location:
    Memphis, TN
    I would be surprised if it couldn't play them. My old Vaio computer would rip to the same format as the TASCAM and if I saved them in the right format (PS3 is very picky about file names) it would play them.

    However, as someone indicated earlier, the PS3 will convert them to PCM before playing, which is the main reason I only tested it once and never tried it again.
     
  5. Tony Plachy

    Tony Plachy Senior Member

    Location:
    Pleasantville, NY
    The TASCAM playback is DSD to analog, no mid conversion to PCM.
     
  6. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    OK, I did it! I still need to get an older PS3 so I can properly extract to .DFF or .ISO, but I was able to create a SACD backup from the raw .DFF files.

    You can see this quick video I just made. Note the disc is a standard DVD-R blank, which I insert into my OPPO. I have the OPPO connected to the Denon processor via HDMI, so you can see the Denon accepting pure DSD. I also pan to my display which is getting the SACD information from the player. Of course it indicates SACD.

    You will noticed I changed up the disc/artist/track names just a bit, so you know that I authored this myself, and to make sure authoring changes to the Text data actually worked.

    Before it is asked "please detail your workflow aka How can I do this?", please understand this is a pretty heady process. You'll have to get working copies of Philips SuperAuthor, Korg AudioGate, and Philips Protech DST encoder (this was a critical piece I was missing earlier).

    Enjoy!!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fzPIxnegvw
     
  7. I get this:

    Great work getting it done, even if I can't watch the short video documentary.
     
  8. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Dang!

    The few seconds of music triggered some kind of copyright rule. This time I turned down the sound almost immediately after the disc starts playing. I'm also including a photo, just in case the vid disappears.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqJT6V1qxEo
     
  9. Wow, this disc was written with a standard PC DVD writer?
     
  10. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Correct, written with my Samsung DVD burner, on a regular DVD-R blank. I used ImgBurn to write an ISO I created from a .DAT file, which originates from the Philips Protech DST encoder software.
     
  11. GreenDrazi

    GreenDrazi Truth is beauty

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA
    Cool - thanks for the vid Sam. If I understand your process, the DSD file remained DSD for the SACD you created?
     
  12. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Correct. The tricky part is compiling .DFF raw files via SACDs into .DST format that SuperAuthor can work from. You have to manually enter track names and timing (i.e. 3m:05s:21ms), I don't know of a way this can be automated.

    I need to play with it some more... If I can get an SACD capable PS3 with <3.56 firmware, exporting to ISO will make the entire process rather simple.
     
  13. EddieVanHalen

    EddieVanHalen Forum Resident

    I don't know how to work with SuperAuthor, is the less intuitive program I've ever tried to use.
     
  14. Black Elk

    Black Elk Music Lover

    Location:
    Bay Area, U.S.A.
    Now I'm really puzzled. SuperAuthor makes a Cutting Master (CM) file. It combines all the assets, and encodes and maps them to the physical structure of the SACD (sector layout). However, CM is a bit of a misnomer, since the physical encryption is added on the LBR at the replication plant. I can't remember now whether the logical sector layout for the TOCs is hidden by SuperAuthor or at the replication plant. An SACD player is meant to decode the PSP signal to determine the real sector positions so that reading and decoding of the disc can take place. This is why DVD drives cannot 'see' the content of SACDs (unless the sector scrambling has been turned off). It should also mean that even if you create an image, you should not be able to duplicate the disc since a standard burner (even a standard DVD LBR) lacks the PSP encoding.

    So, either the SACD spec. has not been implemented the way it was supposed to be, or the player manufacturers have found a way around some of the encryption layers.

    Fascinating video, Sam!
     
  15. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    My player ignores the PSP encryption check for a SACD disc. Apparently a lot of them do, now. :shrug:
     
  16. Black Elk

    Black Elk Music Lover

    Location:
    Bay Area, U.S.A.
    {stutters} What? {splutters} The bounders! How could they?

    I'm still puzzled, though. I worked on the development of SACD for years, and had to present it all over the World, and the way the encryption was described to me was like the layers of an onion. You had to peel them all away. The scrambling keys should all be different, so even if you used a brute force method and cracked one disc, for example, the same code would not crack any other. Moreover, one of the selling points (to the labels) of SACD was that even if you had a disc image, it would be no use to you as you could not burn the PSP signal, without which a player was MEANT to reject the disc. So, I'm dumbfounded to see that you can simply burn the output of SuperAuthor to DVD-R and have a disc that plays in an SACD player.
     
  17. Wow, this thread is getting very interesting. The one problem with the PS3 is that it is impossible to roll back the firmware once it has been updated. All of my original launch units (with the exception of the one that went Yellow Light Of Death) are past firmware 3.55 now. So for people interested in using their PS3s to do this trick, do not update the firmware on them!
     
  18. btf1980

    btf1980 Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Like usual, Sony is making things easy, straightforward and not complicated. SACD is at the cusp of gaining mass adoption now! :laugh:
     
  19. Black Elk

    Black Elk Music Lover

    Location:
    Bay Area, U.S.A.
    So, I woke up this morning with a large number of questions running through my mind. Why, if this is so easy, had check discs always been such a contentious issue within SACD? Mastering engineers and artists/producers wanted a fast method (i.e., SACD-R) to get test discs, while the labels did not. Philips did go to the trouble of creating SACD-R with specially licensed burners and pre-coded blanks that could only be obtained from Philips (they were deliberately expensive too). I even have a few examples of these discs given to me by the always generous Ray Kimber. However, a major label was unhappy with any kind of SACD-R, even a highly regulated, especially expensive system like the one set up by Philips, so it was killed. Before that Sony had created modified SACD players for use in its authoring facilities that could play Authoring DVD-Rs (i.e., special DVD-R blanks used for authoring) created by Sony's authoring system, but, unlike the discs made by Philips' SACD-R machine, these would ONLY play in modified players, making them useless to mastering houses!!

    I've spent a few hours on the phone today, and have learned a few things, but still don't understand what is going on. Firstly, the disc that SamS has made is NOT an SACD, nor is it a DSD Disc. It is probably best described as a partial SACD. It will NOT play on players that test for the presence of the PSP signal. Without PSP, an SACD player SHOULD reject the disc. Why the Oppos, and some Blu-Ray players from Sony and Denon, are NOT doing this, and playing the image that SamS created is a mystery.

    In talking to a colleague today, I discovered that he knew about this feature, but if we discussed it in the past I must have confused it with the old modified Sony player workaround mentioned above. It seems that neither Windows nor Mac computers can 'see' these discs. The burning program that creates them will allow you to see and copy the disc image, but little else (SamS: is this your experience too?).

    What is also puzzling, my colleague still has some of the discs made using Authoring DVD-Rs from years ago, and he found that his Oppo will play those too! So, things are becoming ever more curious.

    I don't imagine this situation is going to change, as Sony and Philips have largely washed their hands of SACD, and Sony itself is making players that do not conform to expected behavior, so don't expect anyone to police matters.

    SamS,

    With regard to Philips SuperAuthor, it's 10 years since I last worked with it, but in the earliest days it would work with .dsd (i.e., raw DSD data) and .dst (i.e., DST encoded DSD data) files. Track text was supplied by the labels in the form of a .txt file. They would also supply either a CD ref. or a printed PQ file. Track Start/End points would either be determined from the CD, or have to be entered manually using the PQ list. Keep in mind: authoring is NOT the place where you should be doing this, hence the interface is rudimentary. The feature exists in SuperAuthor for last minute changes called for by the label without having to issue new parts.

    Since Philips was responsible for defining the chunk-based DSD-IFF format, I would expect that they modified SuperAuthor to accept .dff files. Moreover, it should have been adapted to accept Edit Master files from the likes of Sonoma, Pyramix, etc. -- these would be interleaved .dff files containing all necessary Track Start/End points, etc. Since the mastering/editing engineer is the final person responsible for the audio and track layout, the Edit Master should be considered 'locked' as far as the Authoring System is concerned. Sony's Authoring System does not permit changes to disc text, start/end positions, etc., but Philips' does, though, as you have found, not easily: for good reason!
     
  20. EddieVanHalen

    EddieVanHalen Forum Resident

    I've been "playing" with Philips SuperAuthor and got to the conclusion that either who developed the software was a bit retarded and didn't know how to do an intuitive interface or he did it on purpose to make accesible only to pro users.
    Doing some research, there's a program called nextStage SACD Creator, and as it name says creates the SACD image for replication. I couldn't get my hands on it but I'm sure it's more user friendly than Philips SuperAuthor and once the disc is done just have to load the image on Philips SuperAuthor and burn it.
     
  21. EddieVanHalen

    EddieVanHalen Forum Resident

    I feel frustrated by not being able to use Philips SuperAuthor, I do, I really do.
     
  22. mr_wicked

    mr_wicked New Member

    Location:
    Netherlands
    As the author of SACD-Ripper I feel I need to set things straight as there are too many false assumptions being made in this thread.

    It does not, you need to plug-in a hdd or usb stick in order to rip.

    Have a look at this list for SACD players that are able to play burned ISO images.

    Only some discs contain the UDF file system (DVD like disc structure), but that's completely useless as it doesn't contain any useful information. All SACDs use the ScarletBook "filesystem".

    You don't have to, the software also allows you to backup to raw DSDIFF (DFF) and DSF (for DSD discs). These files can be converted to PCM (using Audiogate, Saracon, etc..) if your DAC doesn't support DSD.
     
  23. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    OK, I'll buy that. In other words, it technically doesn't conform to the SACD spec because it is lacking the PSP encryption, but the data is still DSD, and it can be read by many standard players. A similar situation occurs with backing up DVD-A.


    This is true, computers can't recognize the end-result disc, it might as well be the original SACD to them.

    SuperAuthor doesn't appear to accept .DFF files. Well, it will recognize them, but for actual disc compilation, it wants .DST or .SACD files.

    You obviously have more experience, and understanding of the technical details, I just started using this a few days ago and can only report what limited info I've absorbed during that time.

    Later today I'll have a PS3 to (hopefully!) make backup ISOs that should be easy to turn into SACD-R.
     
  24. SamS

    SamS Forum Legend

    Location:
    Texas
    Backup SACDs do not work on older Pioneer universal players, i.e. DV-45a.
     
  25. EddieVanHalen

    EddieVanHalen Forum Resident

    Can you extract the DSD files from the disc SamS? If so it would be easier to author a DSD Disc which I suspect will be more compatible in the future for home recorder.
    If so, we should insist Oppo to implement reading of DSD Discs on the 83, 93 and 95. I'll make it so again tomorrow.
     
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