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REX Musts - minimum requirements to label an album 'REX'
REX MPC Tutorial
REX Lossless Tutorial
rev 0.40 work in progress
Why ?
No usage of c2 information ?
Test & Copy ?
is the lossless Shorten (shn) format not supported as REX ?
single tracks, no image ?
No Normalizing ?
Replaygain ?
EAC, no Plextools, no CDex
no cd-r
Why No usage of C2 ?
Because some drives are not able to read/interpret/use the C2 information correctly. Despite it was found out, that probably more drives than assumed in past (because a special developer tool was flawed), are able to use c2 correctly, you can not be sure.
Additionally, there are non-compliant red book standard CDs (no CDDA), which contain wrong or bad mastered C2 info. So it is better, not to use C2.
The only advantage of c2 usage would be speed, but as REX should be secure & simple (simplicity produces security !), the standard requires NO C2 usage.
Why Test & Copy ?
Test & Copy mean 2 separate independent extractions of each track by EAC. EAC computes the checksum crc for each track and compares the crcs. If the crcs do not match (match = they are the same), then the read data of that track was not consistent. The reason will be a scratch on the surface. Errors contained in a track can be characterized by 2 different kinds: 1. repeatable = consistent errors, 2. non-repeatable = inconsistent errors.
The consistent errors cannot be detected by EAC's REX way of extracting, which sounds dangerous. But: The inconsistent errors are detected by EAC's REX way of extracting. So, why is this REX way so safe, that all errors are found ?
Because, if there is a scratch, which changes original data on that CD-track, there will be always not only consistent errors, but also inconsistent errors neighboured. So, all suspicious positions or tracks are shown in EAC logfile and you are warned.
EAC's secure mode setup by REX way is so safe, that you can be 100.00% sure, that the extraction was perfect, if no errors appeared and the crcs are matching.
Why is the lossless Shorten (shn) format not supported as REX ?
Shorten (SHN) cannot be recommended as Lossless format anymore, so it isn't supported by the REX Tutorial. SHN is somewhat outdated and old, so technically all other mentioned Lossless formats have advantages compared to SHN. Advantages like achieved compression ratio (smaller filesizes !), speed for en- and decoding etc.
Why extraction to single tracks, no big single image file ?
There are several reasons: Convenience, simplicity, success:
If you browse through your directories, you see your albums nicely as 1 folder, sorted by artist, year, album, if you follow the REX recommendation for naming scheme.
If you are interested in single songs, tracks, you can browse into the album directory, and you have a quick overview, what is in your album, e.g. song names, pictures from booklet scans etc. If you would create single files per album, e.g. Matroska container mka format, you lose this advantage.
Another technical reason, maybe more important: If a checksum crc mismatch happens during test & copy by EAC's extraction for a single track, as there is one bad scratch on the CD surface, you need to re-extract again only this specific 1 track. If you get the mismatch during extraction of the complete CD image, you have to extract again the complete CD. And this would be a big waste of time. Besides, for this reason EAC does not offer Test & Copy for extractions of images. So, an image extraction cannot be called or labelled 'REX'.
No Normalizing ?
If EAC or any other program would carry out 'normalizing' (e.g. from 100% to 98%), it would introduce rounding errors, which would be a kind of noise. And as result, the backup of the music wouldn't be perfect anymore, destroyed forever.
There is a way better kind-of-lossless solution for adjusting volume gain, perceived loudness. ReplayGain !
If you don't want the change ReplayGain applies during playback of the music, you can switch it off simply, e.g. in Foobar settings or Winamp. Then you have always the choice, if you want to benefit from the advantages of Replaygain, or if you just want the raw unaltered music. Read here some background info to Replaygain.
Replaygain ?
As written above in chapter 'No Normalizing', replaygaining offers only advantages:
E.g. clip protection for MPC, and for all formats, MPC & Lossless: selectable modes during decoding or playback: no replaygain at all; album gain (every album is played by same averaged volume of 89 dB, this keeps relative volume differences between songs of same album); or track gain (all songs are played/decoded with same averaged volume per song of 89 dB.). Read here some information.
Back to:
REX Musts - minimum requirements to label an album 'REX'
REX MPC Tutorial
REX Lossless Tutorial
