Why are you still using MLCD?

[Digi Engineering]

DDP is another format sometimes used for mastering. Technically speaking it's just a file format and so it can be stored on anything from a tape to a hard drive to a floppy disk, but when most people refer to DDP, they're referring to DDP on an 8mm Exabyte tape.

I have heard that DDP is much more popular in Europe and Asia than in the U.S. Speak up if you really want it.

Some past versions of MLCD supported DDP tape with Exabyte 8500 family tape drives, through the use of a third-party utility called MezzoMaster(tm) from Grey Matter Response. My understanding is that the DDP support was removed because of difficulties with MezzoMaster.

We would like to have our own DDP support without the use of third-party software. It's been discussed and it's on our to-do list -- however, the demand for DDP is apparently much lower than the demand for CD-R support.

-- Marc

[Marcus]

I find Jam unreliable - when you try 'audition disc' you don't always get what you should, it quits unexpectedly etc.

It does have some useful features though, like burning a session, audition disc and esp. the ability to import lots of files/regions at once.

How do you create more than one track from a single file or region in Jam? I'm not sure it can be done.

I stick to MLCD for most things (despite the pain of importing items individually) then switch to Jam for novelties like Enhanced CDs.

Marcus

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Marcus Batley
www.dbmasters.co.uk
[email protected]

[Digi Engineering]

Hi Marcus,

Just a reminder that a quick way to import multiple files into MLCD is to go to the Finder and drag them on to the MLCD icon. Might save you some time.

If people are interested in importing multiple regions, I've posted in the past about a shareware utility for converting regions to separate files. If people are interested, I can dig up the info and post it again.

-- Marc

[Ulrich Lorscheider]

Hi Marc, hi Digi,

"DDP is another format sometimes used for mastering."
"I have heard that DDP is much more popular in Europe and Asia than in the U.S."

Well, it's not only just another format, it has additional features. With DDP you can create a Premaster with a duration of more than 74 minutes (most of my productions), and you can perform a verify pass to check your data.

"Speak up if you really want it."

OK, here we go! I still stick to MLCD 1.4.1 because of DDP support. I think that's not funny. Even SEK'D now supply their products with DDP support - and these products origninally were aimed to the consumer market and are much more cost-effective. So what about Digi and professionals?

"The demand for DDP is apparently much lower than the demand for CD-R support."

Each Update of PT software includes new features, and I'm sure many of them are only required by a minority. So take care of the DDP-minority, too! Come on, it can't be so difficult, just a few lines of code! Perhaps somebody at GreyMatterResponse can help you...

U.L.

[blairl]

I'm speaking out in support of DDP. I didn't realize it would take the users speaking out in order to reimplement DDP as part of MLCD. I used to use DDP when it was supported in earlier versions. Let me give a couple of reasons why DDP should be supported.

1) The competition has it.
2) This is probably the most important. Many CD replication facilities exclusively use the DDP format to cut glass masters. It's true that they tell you they will accept any sort of media from DAT to CD to 1630, but they end up transfering it to the Exabyte DDP format before actually cutting the glass master. A CD replication facility that I use, Nimbus, has this policy, so I USED TO send them a finished DDP which they DID use to cut the glass master. I don't know about the rest of the MLCD users, but I don't want anyone transfering what is supposedly FINISHED when I send it to them.
3) Clients who know mastering expect this option. (Clients who know mastering generally don't want digidesign products used on their masters but that's another story for another time. DDP support would help clients opinions become more favorable.)

[Digi Engineering]

Thanks for your comments on DDP. You raised some excellent points. We'll look into it for a possible future release.

Incidentally, out of my own curiousity, which tapes drives do you have? And did you find the DDP support in MLCD to be stable and useful?

-- Marc

[This message has been edited by Digi Engineering (edited 08-30-99).]

[blairl]

I used to have the Exabyte 8505XL but have since upgraded to the Exabyte Eliant820. All the DDP masters I wrote were done on the 8505XL. I never experienced any problems.

[Ulrich Lorscheider]

Hi Marc, hi Digi,

I use an Exabyte Eliant drive, MLCD 1.4.1.

I noticed it can be useful to recreate the desktop file before writing the DDP tape, in order to avoid writing errors. Funny, isn't it?

Good luck, U.L.

[Bob Olhsson]

>.Technically speaking it's just a file format and so it can be stored on anything... when most people refer to DDP, they're referring to DDP on an 8mm Exabyte tape.>>

The plants are switching over to DLT so support of both is important. About the only time most major facilities use a CD-R any more (besides client copies) is for CD-Extra where they burn the audio in JAM leaving the disk open to have data added in Toast. (It was rather amusing to visit a big Sony plant last year with multiple Sonic authoring systems, the whole nine yards, and see a couple little Macs sitting in the multi-million dollar glass-mastering control center chugging away running Toast!)

The best source of information about DDP is: http://www.dcainc.com/index.htm

I would love to see MLCD turned into a real professional tool capable of doing CD-Extra, CD-Text, ISO standard disk images, etc.

I'd leave the MP-3 support, signal processing and other bells and whistles to Adaptec and the other consumer authoring developers. We need a real pro CD mastering tool rather than yet another $199 wonder.

Bob

[Digi Engineering]

Hi all,

I'm proud to announce that a new version of MLCD, 2.2, is available for download. This version uses the same key as 2.1 and 2.1.1/2.1.2 so you can update for free if you own one of these versions. If you have 2.0.1 or earlier, contact customer support at (650)-842-6699 for upgrade info.

Go to the "Support" section of our web site and click on "MasterList CD updates" -- or try this link: http://www.digidesign.com/serv/ftpmaps/mlcd.html

Enjoy,

-- Marc