quest. on bin files, VCD folders and contents

[Toastie]

Hi - I had some basic questions that I did not find the answers to in the FAQs I looked at so I was hoping to get them answered here. I think these are things that a lot of newbies must be wondering about. The FAQs don't seem to have enough detail to answer my questions.

I downloaded a VCD it was multipart rar archive. I am familiar with WinRAR 3.0, so that was no problem. I un-rared it and all that was there was a .cue and a .bin file. My understanding is that .bin files are essentially a folder that has to be extracted or uncompressed or something like that no? You can't actully play or do anything with the bin file itself right?

I saw the info on using CDmage to open up the .bin file so I downloaded that and installed it no problem. I used cdmage to open up the bin archive and inside was:

Track 1 [Mode 2/2352][VideoCD]
Track 2 [Mode 2/2352]

The Track 2 folder or whatever that is doesn't seem to contain anything. Do I need it for any reason?

The Track 1 Folder has these subfolders in it:

CDI (empty)EXT (has two .vcd files in it)
MPEGAV (has the big .dat file - this plays in media player just fine!)SEGMENT (empty)
VCD (has 4 .vcd files in it)
I had several questions -

What are the CDI and SEGMENT folders for? Do I need them since they are empty?

What are the EXT and VCD folders for? They both contain .vcd files - what do those do?

The MPEGAV folder has the .dat file that I have watched in media player and it works fine. I this all I need? Can I just burn that file to a cd to make a standalone viewable copy?

Also - when using CDmage there were two .tao files that get created - one for each of the Track folders. What are those and what are they needed for?

Is there any advantage/difference to using CDmage vs. daemon-tools? They are both just used to open up the .bin archive right? CDmage seemed to work fine for me.


Thanks in advance,

Toastie

[bugster]

I can't actually answer your questions as such but I have downloaded several movies in bin/cue format and this is what I do.

Use Isobuster to examine the contents of the bin file to find out if it is VCD or SVCD.

VCD files contain one or more large .dat files (the video)
SVCD files contain one ore more large .mpg files with the names AVSEQ001.mpg, AVSEQ002.mpg etc. This is how I can tell them apart tho I am sure there are other differences

If it is VCD it can be burnt straight to disk. (So can SVCD's but my player does not support them so I have to extract them and convert if I want to burn to disk).

The Cue file is a text file and can be opened in notepad. It is used by the burning app to point to the location of the bin file and specify a number of burning parameters used by the burning app. If your favoured burning app supports bin/cue files simply start it up, select burn image and point it at the cue file (you may have to modify the file paths here).

If you cannot handle bin/cue files within your burning app (Nero doesn't) and want to burn to disk, open the cue file in notepad and look at the track/mode info at the top. In Nero select burn image, change the file selector to *.* and select your bin file. In the dialog that then opens compare the mode info to what is in the cue file, usually something like:
TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
Set the Nero options to match and hit burn.

I am sure there are other ways of doing this but it works for me!

[cmacleo]

Couple of notes about your questions and the previous reply

0. I belive all the tracks etc are required for a VCD playback on a DVD player.

1. The CDI folder is for compatibility with CDi players, an older technology stand alone player. It will often contain about 2Mb of files. If is not necessary but doesn't hurt to be present.

2. all other folders are required.

3. To burn the bin/cue files, recent versions of Nero will burn them correctly, also many other products like CRDWin, and the freeware CDRDAO.

4. You can extract the .dat file and play it using Windows Media Player as you noted. No other files are needed for PC playback. To play on a DVD Player you must burn it as a (S)VCD. Under Nero you can select VCD template and drop the .dat file in to it. This will create a valid VCD that is playable on a standalone player. You can laos use a number of other products (Easy CD Creator, VideoPack, VCDEasy-freeware, an more)

[Toastie]

OK - so just what is the purpose of the .bin file? I've never read anywhere what specifically its for. Is it just to bundle the rest of the folders like in a .zip folder - but *only* for posting to the net adn downloading?

DVD players are not going to regognise the .bin and automatically extract what they need to play the disc - or can they do that?

What I mean is - why would you want to burn the .bin file to a cd and give it to some one? Aren't they going to have to use CDmage to extract the mpegav, cdi, ext, segment, and vcd folders and then burn that to another blank cdr so they can watch it on a PC or a DVD player?


The answers to these questions are probably trivial once you know what you're doing. I should mention as background info that I don't have a DVD player - I just watch the VCDs on my computer. That's why I can just try and burn some discs and see if they play in a standalone player. However it is important to me to be able to make discs for friends that will play in their DVD players. It would be really cool if this was all spelled out in one of the FAQs.

I do appreciate the answers provided so far!


Thanks,

Toastie

[bugster]

A bin file is one form of CD binary image. Basically a bit by bit copy of the data on the disc. The matching cue file is used to instruct burning programs on settings need to recreate the original CD.

If you burn it to CD and give to someone else they can do a straight CD copy (if they have a CD rom and CD burner in the same machine) or they can use suitable software to create an image file of that CD without caring about its contents, format or layout. Many programs can be used to create bin/cue images but there are other CD-image formats such as iso.

Hope this helps