How to rip a VCD?

[Dennis R. Cohen]

On 7/27/04 at 5:08 PM, Erica Sadun <erica at mindspring.com> transmitted
the following electronic message:

>At 1:24 PM +0300 7/26/04, Matti Haveri wrote:
>>>  > Why is that The Finder cannot copy the "AVSEQ01.DAT" file?
>
>VCDs use a different CD format
>
>Quoting me:
>
>There are a number of issues when it comes to VCD playback, not just
>reflectivity. You've got to have the proper software to decode and
>play the data. Also, your playback system has to be cognizant of the
>different CD format. (White Book vs Orange Book or Yellow Book ISO
>9660 standards). VCDs use Mode2/Form2 which allows for higher data
>transfer rate for media that's more tolerant of errors (little changes
>in audio or video may not be detected by human senses). So to keep the
>data rate high, they basically skip error correction codes. Your
>built-in CD drive which is trying to read using Yellow Book (which is
>mode 1) can freak at the lack of error correction.
>

All of what Erica said is, as usual, accurate. What she didn't provide,
though, was an explicit answer to the question asked.

Anyway, the answer is that the Finder uses i/o routines that read 2048
bytes per block and Mode2/Form2 discs have 2352 bytes per block. It's
kind of a shame that the Finder doesn't have the routines available to
properly read data from the CD (especially considering that the OS 9
Finder could do so).

If you want to copy the contents down to your hard disk, though, I would
recommend checking out VCD Copy X (freeware, available through Version
Tracker). It will copy the file for you.

-- 
Dennis R. Cohen
FileMaker Pro 7 Bible (Sept 2004)
Teach Yourself Visually iLife04
Mac Digital Photography (and other titles)