xcdroast

[Net Llama!]

On Tue, 21 May 2002, Tim Wunder wrote:
> On 5/21/2002 9:48 AM, someone claiming to be Net Llama! wrote:
> > On Tue, 21 May 2002, Tim Wunder wrote:
> >
> >> On 5/21/2002 8:33 AM, someone claiming to be Susan Macchia wrote:
> >>
> >>> IMHO, gcombust is the best cd burning linux software out there.
> >>>
> >>
> >> <snip>
> >>
> >> Then what's the secret to getting a good audio CD burned with
> >> gcombust?
> >
> >
> > Secret?  There isn't one really.  First go to the "Audio Files" tab,
> > and select what you wish to burn, then go to the "Burn" tab, and
> > select "Audio Files" in the top "Data Seource" box.  Make sure that
> > all the other options under "Misc Options" & "CD-Records device
> > options" are accurate for your environment, and then click the
> > "Combust!" button at the bottom. I find it infinitely more intuitive
> > than XCdroast.
> >
>
> My problem is the "Swab audio" option in the Misc Options section. What is it, and should the damn button be pressed or not? In other words, how am I supposed to know whether the audio data is in "byte-swapped (little endian) order"? WTF is "byte-swapped (little endian) order" anyway? Better yet, why do I even have to know?

According to the cdrecord man page:

       -swab If this flag is present, audio data is assumed to be in byte-
              swapped (little-endian) order.  Some types of CD-Writers
e.g.
              Yamaha, Sony and the new SCSI-3/mmc drives require audio
data to
              be presented in little-endian order, while other writers
require
              audio data to be presented in the big-endian (network) byte
order
              normally used by the SCSI protocol.  Cdrecord knows if a CD-
              Recorder needs audio data in big- or little-endian order,
and cor
              rects the byte order of the data stream to match the needs
of the
              recorder.  You only need the -swab flag if your data stream
is in
              Intel (little-endian) byte order.
              Note that the verbose output of cdrecord will show you if
swapping
              is necessary to make the byte order of the input data fit
the
              required byte order of the recorder.  Cdrecord will not show
you
              if the -swab flag was actually present for a track.