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BITs are Misread on Redbook CDs.

"d) misreading bits - I'm told this happens though it's hard to believe. My PC never misrepresents a dollar figure which it would do every so often if it were misreading bits. Here's what I don't understand. Why doesn't someone put out a player that shows how many times error correction is used during playback? The would be extremely enlightening."

Bits are misread on CD's because the error correction designed by Phillips and Sony is not adequate. When your bank balance is stored on a CD-R as a computer file an extra layer of error correction is added which reduces the capacity of the disk by about 15%. At the time the (now obsolete by computer standards) Redbook technology was developed it would not have been possible to store Beethoven's 9th with this reduced capacity even if the extra error correction could have been implemented economically.

Although it isn't displayed exactly the way you want, when Exact Audio Copy is used to rip a computer file onto a hard drive it gives you a quality percentage based on errors. This software rereads the disk until it gets consistent results, in some cases comparing a checksum with an Internet database. So you get the correct bits, or you get an error message. Even if you are told there were no errors, when EAC completes it tells you for each track how good that track was. (Typically 100% on early tracks and 99.9% on the last tracks in my setup.)

Tony Lauck

"Perception, inference and authority are the valid sources of knowledge" - P.R. Sarkar



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  • BITs are Misread on Redbook CDs. - Tony Lauck 06/8/0812:28:16 06/8/08 (0)

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