So what’s wrong with a bloody DDP then??

[JeremyPaulCarrol]

Ok…

Recently, I’ve noticed a few duplication companies - particularly at the budget end - who seem reluctant to handle DDP filesets for duplication.

“Oh, that’s an old-fashioned format designed for the days of tape archives, we normally copy from a CD-R” I was told today!

Surely the DDP is an industry standard, isn’t it?

If I send a master on CD-R to be copied, then surely the integrity of that master is beholden to the capabilities of my internal CD writer?

I can’t help thinking it’s a bit like sending a Microsoft Word document to a publishing company and being told it is not in a format they can handle….

Cheers,

J.

[Table Of Tone]

I guess that with a CD master, they can find it, clean it, look at what's written on it and cut a glass master from it.

With a DDP, there's a lot of software out there that just doesn't make em right, so when they load em into eclipse, they get all sorts of random things happening and they wanna be able to blame someone else when someting goes wrong.

[lowland]

DDP Phobia

[Strut78]

I had my first ever issue with DDP surface this week. I had mastered an EP and prepared a DDP of the EP using Wave Editor. I then loaded back the DDP into the Sonoris DDP player and checked the whole recording with no problems, I also burnt a CD from the Sonoris DDP player, again no problems.

I uploaded the DDP to the client and also asked them to check the DDP after download using my OEM license for the Sonoris DDP player. They checked it and burnt many reference copies themselves that were all correct. They then sent the DDP to the manufacturer and have the CD pressed and the CD comes back with just the last two tracks messed up! So the manufacturer now blames the DDP and mastering.

I am putting this down to a possible software incompatibility at the pressing plant, but every program I have used to open the DDP has been fine and MD5 checksum shows no errors. It is also interesting that the problem was fixed using the same DDP file set by the manufacturer.

So i am thinking that the real issue with DDP is actually working out where an error can come into the process and there is no definitive master CD to go back to. At least a physical CD master gives you a copy of what you want and supplied to the CD plant so you always have grounds to have it fixed if it is not right in the pressing.

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by Strut78

So i am thinking that the real issue with DDP is actually working out where an error can come into the process and there is no definitive master CD to go back to. At least a physical CD master gives you a copy of what you want and supplied to the CD plant so you always have grounds to have it fixed if it is not right in the pressing.

DDPi is not different to this regard.

You could even make the case that with a checksum file, a DDPi is better suited as proof to fall back on in case of trouble, because it can't be physically damaged and you, like the plant, have the exact master in your posession, so you can verify any claims made by them / do your own investigation.

It'd be interesting to know what exactly the errors after pressing were. Can you tell?


PS: If you want, I can offer to load up the DDP here and have a look if GEAR, Cube-Tech or Sadie find anything wrong with the DDP.

[acorneau]

Originally Posted by JeremyPaulCarrol

Recently, I’ve noticed a few duplication companies - particularly at the budget end - who seem reluctant to handle DDP filesets for duplication.

I had a rush job for a local CD company yesterday: they needed a DDP transfered to audio CD.

I asked them about the situation, as they normally take DDP's for replication, but they said this was a duplication job and they needed an audio CD to import to their duper machine.


As a side note: the DDP was from Sterling... I think they probably spent more on the packaging then I do on taking a client out to lunch!

[Cellotron]

If you are talking about DUPLICATION (burning copies on blank CD-R's) and not REPLICATION (making a stamper from a glass master to press CD's) then DDP is in no way, shape or form an "industry standard."

In the vast majority of CD-R duplication a CD-R master is loaded into a CD-ROM drive in the burner array and the image data is either streamed to a cache prior to being sent simultaneously to all the burners in the tower or array - or preferably is streamed first to an intermediate hard drive so that copies can be made from a fixed image before being sent to the burners. In some (less common) systems alternatively wav files can be loaded directly into the hard drive and then chosen as tracks for the CD image.

Because of this if a duplicator receives a DDP image they actually must burn a CD-R master disc from it or extract wav files from it. And many duplicators do not actually have DDP capable software at all.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Adam Dempsey]

Originally Posted by Cellotron

And many duplicators do not actually have DDP capable software at all.

... that, and the fact that many CD "plants" are brokers. I haven't had a DDP request in more than 4 yrs.

[William Bowden]

Originally Posted by Adam Dempsey

... that, and the fact that many CD "plants" are brokers. I haven't had a DDP request in more than 4 yrs.

I've never had a request...

The King

[Jerry Tubb]

One cool thing about Sonic is any discs are cut from a DDPi by default.

So you can send the plant either one.

DDP requests very rare here too.

Cheers, JT

[t_d]

my manufacturer as discouraged me from sending DDP. they much prefer CD-R... fine by me, I'll work with wherever is easiest..

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by Adam Dempsey

... that, and the fact that many CD "plants" are brokers. I haven't had a DDP request in more than 4 yrs.

Strange. It has become the standard here; I'm sending out 90% DDP images at this point.

It's like the paperless office


PS: Sonoris DDP Player OEM has had a part in that development, bridging the gap between DDP and clients

[acorneau]

I'm now starting to see an uptick of DDP's directly related to Disc Makers' ability to accept them via the web.

In fact I'm auditioning one right now that I will upload to them as soon as I'm done.

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by acorneau

I'm now starting to see an uptick of DDP's directly related to Disc Makers' ability to accept them via the web.

In fact I'm auditioning one right now that I will upload to them as soon as I'm done.

I've also seen a great increase in requests for delivery of DDP via FTP recently - nearly all of them going to Discmakers as well.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[ed littman]

thumbsup pretty seemless.

Originally Posted by acorneau

I'm now starting to see an uptick of DDP's directly related to Disc Makers' ability to accept them via the web.

In fact I'm auditioning one right now that I will upload to them as soon as I'm done.

[Masterer]

Been about 80% DDP for a while.

The majors won't take anything else.

[JeremyPaulCarrol]

Originally Posted by Cellotron

If you are talking about DUPLICATION (burning copies on blank CD-R's) and not REPLICATION (making a stamper from a glass master to press CD's) then DDP is in no way, shape or form an "industry standard."

I was talking about for producing a glass master…

If a Red Book standard CD-R is produced (as I believe the burned versions are from Premaster CD) and that is used for producing a glass master, won’t the likelihood of errors be much greater than from a DDP fileset which has never been burned in its final form to physical media?

Cheers,

J.

P.S. While we’re on the subject, is it generally agreed that the term “Duplication” refers to burning CD-Rs and “Replication” refers to stamping from a glass master?

[Petrus]

Originally Posted by JeremyPaulCarrol

If a Red Book standard CD-R is produced (as I believe the burned versions are from Premaster CD) and that is used for producing a glass master, won’t the likelihood of errors be much greater than from a DDP fileset which has never been burned in its final form to physical media?

Standard file transfers between different HD and flash media (USB drive as an example) are practically error free. Computers would not work if not. Burning an audio CD-R is often far from perfect, and there are also handling issues (scratches & fingerprints) and possible read errors. As we are really talking about data transfer here, set of voltage measurements really, not music or sound, there is no reason to be romantic about a "master disk" and just transfer the data as computer data should be transfered, DDP on a flash memory stick or via FTP.

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by JeremyPaulCarrol

If a Red Book standard CD-R is produced (as I believe the burned versions are from Premaster CD) and that is used for producing a glass master, won’t the likelihood of errors be much greater than from a DDP fileset which has never been burned in its final form to physical media?

The answer, when the most current standards for good replication procedures (adopted by nearly all reputable replicators for at least 5 years now) are used, is in fact a very surprising, and very firm "no"!

The reason is two fold:
1) any CD-R masters are tested to see if they have any uncorrectable errors (aka CU's, E32's) on them prior using them to make a glass master - and if there is even a single CU present the CD-R master will be rejected
2) the CD-R's data image is read into an intermediate storage space (either a RAM cache or hard drive) prior to being streamed to the LBR (laser beam recorder that selectively exposes the glass disc) using a "secure"
Digital Audio Extraction routine, which re-reads any sectors where an error flag is triggered, allowing all correctable errors to in fact be corrected for - meaning that the result is the exact same as if the error had never in fact occurred.

It's easy enough to test the above for yourself. Simply burn a CD-R master from a fixed image of audio files, and then using a software which allows for "secure" DAE such as Exact Audio Copy - Exact Audio Copy - (which should be noted is not necessarily as precise or as accurate as the Eclipse software used by replicators) extract the audio files from the burned CD-R - and then finally do a null test of these against the original audio files you burned the disc from. Guess what? You'll get a 100% null! - meaning the data retrieved is the exact same as the data burned to the disc.

So - the reasons to use DDP are for convenience - in that it is the one format that can reliably used to FTP a master to a plant. But all other things equal there will be no sonic difference from replicas made from a CD-R master or a DDP master.

P.S. While we’re on the subject, is it generally agreed that the term “Duplication” refers to burning CD-Rs and “Replication” refers to stamping from a glass master?

Yes - these are the industry wide accepted definitions of the two words.
Although to be technically exact a nickel stamper is plated from the glass master, and it is the stamper that goes in the press which stamps the CD's.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[JeremyPaulCarrol]

Thanks everyone (esp. Cellotron) for the concise and informed answers.

Cellotron, you mentioned Exact Audio Copy for ripping audio off CDs - the next thing I have to do is to read several tracks from commercial CDs for a compilation album - these are the only sources I have available.

Can anyone suggest some Mac software that would produce the same results?

Thanks again…

J.

[blip01]

Originally Posted by acorneau

I'm now starting to see an uptick of DDP's directly related to Disc Makers' ability to accept them via the web.

In fact I'm auditioning one right now that I will upload to them as soon as I'm done.

I've seen just about 900 DDPs come through since we started offering the upload service earlier this year. DDPs via upload still only make up about 5% of all masters we receive though.

For the most part they do come through seamlessly. The occasional corrupted zip folder pops up, but I have only seen 1 instance of a checksum not matching up so far.

The plant occasionally runs into a formatting error with a file set, invalid ISRC or CD-Text usually.

[acorneau]

Hey Brian,

You got my DDP yesterday, right?

Originally Posted by blip01

I've seen just about 900 DDPs come through since we started offering the upload service earlier this year. DDPs via upload still only make up about 5% of all masters we receive though.

For the most part they do come through seamlessly. The occasional corrupted zip folder pops up, but I have only seen 1 instance of a checksum not matching up so far.

The plant occasionally runs into a formatting error with a file set, invalid ISRC or CD-Text usually.

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by JeremyPaulCarrol

Thanks everyone (esp. Cellotron) for the concise and informed answers.

Cellotron, you mentioned Exact Audio Copy for ripping audio off CDs - the next thing I have to do is to read several tracks from commercial CDs for a compilation album - these are the only sources I have available.

Can anyone suggest some Mac software that would produce the same results?

Thanks again…

J.

My studio is solely PC based so I've never used this so don't know how effective it is, but according to some folks on a few forums this is in fact similar:
Max from sbooth.org

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Stereophonic]

I believe DDP is going to make a big come back as bandwidth increases. It just makes sense. Here is a response from a duplication facility I recently submitted a DDP master to, which was render with Sequoia 11. (it was also zipped as a safety measure)

"we cannot accept a file in this format and assure that the data is in tact. Our glass mastering facilities do accept DDP file transfer, but only if you are using Gear or Eclipse Premastering software at your end to assure the transfer protocol is correct."

I am not familiar with Gear or Eclipse. What's wrong with DDP Export for Sequoatude?? Can someone enlighten me?

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by Stereophonic

I believe DDP is going to make a big come back as bandwidth increases. It just makes sense. Here is a response from a duplication facility I recently submitted a DDP master to, which was render with Sequoia 11. (it was also zipped as a safety measure)

"we cannot accept a file in this format and assure that the data is in tact. Our glass mastering facilities do accept DDP file transfer, but only if you are using Gear or Eclipse Premastering software at your end to assure the transfer protocol is correct."

I am not familiar with Gear or Eclipse.

Gear is a pre-mastering solution for Windows that is capable of making DDP images:
GEAR Software - DVD Mastering Software & CD Burning Software & GEAR PRO Mastering
Ironically until recently there actually were a few bugs in its DDP creation functions! (although with version 8 afaik all of these bugs are now fixed).

Eclipse is a multi-application software suite that is the most used solution by replication plants to test, load and verify provided pre-masters - and the actual mastering software for glass mastering - and to track, test and verify replicas. It is very comprehensive, very accurate, and very expensive.

Welcome to Eclipse Data Technologies

What's wrong with DDP Export for Sequoatude??

Nothing - as long as there are no user errors in the settings it has been proven over and over that they create in spec DDP images.

Can someone enlighten me?

Sounds like the customer service rep is misinterpreting either company policy or what a replication tech told him. I'd ask to talk to his supervisor and then tell them just use the DDP - or else let you know exactly what is wrong with the DDP you sent structurally (if there are problems they should be able to tell what the problems were as reported by Eclipse).

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[acorneau]

If it's an actual DDP 2.0 file set, zipped in a folder, and including an MD5 check-sum, then I'm fairly certain you can extract the data with 100% accuracy and reliability.

[blip01]

Originally Posted by Stereophonic

I believe DDP is going to make a big come back as bandwidth increases. It just makes sense. Here is a response from a duplication facility I recently submitted a DDP master to, which was render with Sequoia 11. (it was also zipped as a safety measure)

"we cannot accept a file in this format and assure that the data is in tact. Our glass mastering facilities do accept DDP file transfer, but only if you are using Gear or Eclipse Premastering software at your end to assure the transfer protocol is correct."

I am not familiar with Gear or Eclipse. What's wrong with DDP Export for Sequoatude?? Can someone enlighten me?

Hmmm....sounds really odd to me considering that the Eclipse systems in our plant have ZERO issues with the DDP file sets we generate from our Sequoia 11 workstations, and we've probably sent 5-6K DDPs to our plant this year.

Maybe they had a bed experience with a couple of masters that they tracked back to Sequoia and decided to refuse them all.

[blip01]

Originally Posted by acorneau

Hey Brian,

You got my DDP yesterday, right?

Colors of Jazz
The Marvin Gaspard Trio


Yep. Love the Sadie5 checksum system too!

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by Stereophonic

I believe DDP is going to make a big come back as bandwidth increases. It just makes sense. Here is a response from a duplication facility I recently submitted a DDP master to, which was render with Sequoia 11. (it was also zipped as a safety measure)

"we cannot accept a file in this format and assure that the data is in tact. Our glass mastering facilities do accept DDP file transfer, but only if you are using Gear or Eclipse Premastering software at your end to assure the transfer protocol is correct."

I am not familiar with Gear or Eclipse. What's wrong with DDP Export for Sequoatude?? Can someone enlighten me?

What's going on at plants really is a mystery... can be so frustrating.

Fwiw I'd ask them to please "just use the ddp and get one with it". If in doubt, offer to take responsibility for format errors in your master.

PS: just saw Steve Berson already said the same thing, but better. Nevermind

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by 24-96 Mastering

What's going on at plants really is a mystery... can be so frustrating.

Since I worked in a plant for a few years it isn't a mystery to me.

First off - very often customer service reps who handle taking in the orders have very limited technical knowledge and often don't really understand what DDP is, and sometimes will provide incorrect info regarding their company's ability to handle DDP.

Next - some plants simply have not yet established FTP servers for receiving audio master images so they must get physical formats in. Yeah - they're definitely behind the times in this - but if your client has chosen to use them you've just got to deal with this.

Finally - at say 3am when you have a small unsupervised night shift crew working in the glass mastering department - if you are a production manager with the least bit of sense you truly want the system for standard work flow to be as simplified and clear cut as possible. In terms of pre-master inputs for glass mastering this means limiting the format to the single most common type (i.e. CD-R master discs) and having tests give only results of "pass" and "fail" - and not "maybe but yes if you do x and x." So - adding DDP (as well as receipt of masters via FTP servers) throws a wrench into this one input format simplicity.

Best regards,
Steve Berson