Planned For The Next Release

   * Submission of CD entries to the official CDDB database
   * Support for local CDDB databases of other programs
   * Improvements for playing CDs
   * Proxy authentification
   * Comparison of two WAV files (offsets, differences, missing samples,
     etc.)
   * Encoding and Decoding of WAV files (perhaps also .MP3 files)
   * Improvements and new functions of the WAV editor
   * Implement a workaround for read limits when data track follows audio
   * More features to come...
   * Bugfixes, bugfixes, bugfixes...



Whats New


                I am sorry that it took that long to finish the bug fix,
                but on the one hand I wanted to remove all that really
                bigger bugs and on the other hand I got the flu and
                couldn't concentrate on anything week before last week...
                Now I am almost ok again ;)
                So here is the (new) version that should fix most of the
                bugs of 0.8beta. 0.8 beta will be removed completly from
                the server, as the new one has nearly the same features...

                The new version includes

                   * Fix of error detection and correction that does not
                     worked correctly in 0.8beta! Further I replaced the
                     guessing routines with the ones from 0.7beta, as many
                     mailed me that the newer ones worked not as good as
                     them. When I find out how to improve them, they will
                     be back again, but for now the older guessing
                     routines should work ok for most users.
                   * Fix of not finding matching read modes for some
                     Philips and Toshiba drives. On these drives it is
                     also necessary to select the option 'Check for
                     density parameters'. Further, some drives need to
 19-February-99      change wordnibbles to get correct results (otherwise
                     only noise is extracted). For that a new option is
                     included.
                   * The obsolete part that slowed down burst copy is now
                     removed. Now it will copy on my Plex 14/32 with max
                     16.5X (accesses to harddisk too slow, because I only
                     use a cheap Fast-SCSI card) and test tracks with
                     something around 23.0X.
                   * Added 'intelligent' WAV file comparison. It will
                     detect missing and extraneous bytes everywhere in the
                     files and also gather other differences of both
                     files. This feature could also be used in the WAV
                     editor to easily select ranges of differences.
                     Furthermore it could be used to determine the
                     combined reader/writer offset.
                   * The WAV editor now has another filter, smoothing.
                     This is helpful for many kinds of defects beside
                     clicks and pops.

                It seems that the IDE versions of the Yamaha CD-R(W)
                drives will cause many problems, mainly crashing EAC on
                startup. Therefore I added command line options for these
                drives for the moment. I will soon debug this on such a
                drive. No other drives seem to cause such problems...



                Now here it is, the new official 0.8beta. ;)
                It was really a long time without any updates, but I think
                it was worth the time. Even if it has no really big new
                features, but many improvements and bugfixes on nearly all
                functions.
                The new version includes

                   * New fast secure read modes for accurate readers and
                     also for drives that caches
                   * Complete improvement of read modes and Test read
                     function, allowing to calculate CRC checksums without
                     using disk space
                   * BladeEnc DLL support
                   * Remove leading and trailing silence
                   * Fill missing offset samples with silence
                   * Automatic detection of drive features
 22-January-99     * Selection of extensions for headerless WAV files
                   * Test detected gaps on silence
                   * Save extraction log
                   * Selection of error recovery quality for faster
                     extraction on bad CDs
                   * WAV editor with already some functions for editing,
                     more to come...
                   * Many bugfixes, too many to mention

                There are still many bugs, but I hope to remove them
                sooner or later. If EAC makes problems on your computer,
                please read the What's New page.
                I will do nothing on EAC the next week, but then work for
                0.9beta will begin. Many people told me a lot of ideas of
                improvement. Because there were too much mail the last
                month, I would ask to tell me the not yet implemented
                ideas again, if not stated in the 'Planned for next
                release'. But also experiences are appreciated!



                I am sorry to say that the release date will be some days
                later. New expected release date will be the 22.1.98. The
                last weeks I had lot of work at the university and EAC
                also took much work to finish all features I planned for
 14-January-99  0.8 beta. You will surely be surprised which features are
                now really in it... :)
                I have to say the 0.8 beta will not have these announced
                features: Submission of CDDB entries, Support of other
                local CDDB databases and Proxy authentification. But I
                will try to include it in version 0.9 beta then.



                I did not had as much time as I wanted the last two weeks.
                So I didn't work on EAC very much. But now, I have
                christmas holidays and work will go on a little bit faster
                again.
                From now on, I will not only send notifications on new
                versions to the people in my mailing list, but also
                everytime a news entry is added to the What's New page.
                The mail will contain the newsentry... If you don't want
                to be in the mailing list anymore, just send me a mail.
 22-December-98 Thanks.
                Expected release date of EAC 0.8 beta will be 18.1.99, but
                I have to wait if there are still bigger problems with it,
                this release date could change.
                By the way, today I visited the 'Star Trek World Tour',
                but was not as big as I thought... The ratio of fun/money
                could be much better, but Star Trek fans will nevertheless
                have a look at it ;)
                So, I wish everybody merry christmas and a happy new year!



                Work is going on pretty well, but I have to say that it is
                most probably, that CDDB submission will not be in
                0.8beta.
                I am sorry for that, but if I would implement it right
                now, the release date will move at least a month... So I
                decided to put it back until 0.9beta.
                All other features are implemented in time, at least I
                hope so. There will be plenty of new features in version
                0.8beta, also some that are not named in the list above :)
                But furthermore there will be some annoying bugs removed,
                at first the bug, that the last sector of a CD is not read
                in any case. So the last track will be one sector too
                short always. This was a really silly bug and I am sorry
                for that. Moreover there are error poping up like Assign
                Range at Utils.2593 and that the system slows down totally
 29-November-98 when starting EAC. So please do not mail me if you
                encounter any of these bugs, I know them already and I
                work on their removal. I don't know if I am able to remove
                them all completly, but I will try so.
                I have to say, that NOBODY mailed me regarding my last
                news entry (a few lines down) from the 5-November. :( If
                you are not getting pops, you probably made a CDDB
                database by yourself...
                There is one more favour, I would like to ask. If you
                encounter any new link of a really big shareware site to
                my page, please tell me. And moreover if you find any
                review of EAC (or something similar) in a computer
                magazin, I really would like to have a copy of it (or at
                least the according pages, or if postage is too expansive,
                also a scan of that page would be sufficient)... Thanks in
                forward!



                I am already working on the next version, and for that I
                want to ask everybody who often got pops on extraction to
                send these to me to test my routines... I am in need of
                some real pops! ;)
                Furthermore I will start a EAC database project now. If
                you have build up your own database (perhaps also some
                with lyrics), please send it to me. I will build one huge
 5-November-98  database of all your CDs and put it somewhere in the web.
                This will help those, who don't have internet access (or
                not always).
                Please send me a short mail if you want to send me WAV
                files or databases that are over 10 kb in size... Thanks
                in forward!
                Don't expect any program updates until christmas, only if
                big bugs have to be removed :)



                Release Date of version 0.7beta
                This version mainly bugfixes many small and some bigger
                problems, also the hanging on some systems and some CDDB
                problems...
                The new version includes

                   * CRC checksum calculation for tracks
                   * Test read function, allowing to calculate CRC
                     checksums without using disk space
                   * Disabling CD Autostart feature for runtime of EAC
                   * Lyrics support (first try ;)
                   * External MP3 compression support (including long
                     filenames and ID3 tagging)
                   * Automatic CUE Sheet creation of CD's (including all
                     track indices!)
                   * Time format could be changed from hundredth seconds
 2-November-98       to frames
                   * Leaving out WAV header (optional) for true MP3 files
                     or raw audio data
                   * Batch CDDB queries
                   * Lots of bug fixes, and as always some new bugs
                     (drive reset, speed selection and CDDB bugs should be
                     fixed now)

                One of the main bugs still in EAC reported by my beta
                testers is that after extraction the system is not really
                stable anymore at least on some systems. I don't know why
                yet, because on my system everything seems to be ok. But
                to be on the safe side you should reboot if you need a
                real stable system. Sorry!
                By the way, my Plextor came back like new after a week of
                repair... But I decided to sell that one and bought a new
                Plextor 32TSI already. Furthermore today I bought a
                Soundblaster Live! :)



                I already removed many bugs of version 0.6beta, but there
                is still the main bug in it... On some systems (until now
                only SCSI systems are affected) the system hangs after
                starting extraction. The drive LEDs are flashing like the
                drives doing a reset. The flashing LEDs bug is already
                removed, but on these systems there is another bug on it
                (perhaps very similar to that other bug), that will read
                now the first part of the track only zero samples and the
 21-October-98  rest correctly. I will go debugging it on a friends
                computer next week.
                Because of that many bugs, I decided to bring out a new
                version earlier than planned. If everything works fine and
                I will find that bug, version 0.7beta is planned to come
                out end of next week. It will not have all features
                described above, to be honest the main features
                (Submission, Pop Removal and Secure Mode for Caching
                Drives) will miss. But I think bug fixing should be done
                first.



                There seems some problems with EAC v0.6beta on some
                systems. There was one report of extracting too slow
                (possibly only Plextor 32TSI) and one report of not
                ripping of second or third drives. Only the first drive
                was used for extraction even if another one was
 5-October-98   selected...
                If you also think you have found a bug, please test it
                also with older versions (like 0.5beta and 0.4beta). If
                both are not working, it is an old bug not found yet,
                otherwise it is one that is new in 0.6beta (What is
                interesting for me to know...)



                Release Date of version 0.6beta
                I hope this is a pretty stable version and that the main
                feature, the CDDB support will work properly.
                The new version includes

                   * Remote CDDB database support
                   * Listen to suspicious positions
                   * Glitch removal
                   * Fix of speed detection and selection
                   * Browse and edit of the local database
                   * Spindown on errors and fallback afterwards
                   * Some bug fixes, some new bugs
                   * Update of almost all my webpages, but still no real
                     private homepage... It will be done as soon I find
 1-October-98        time next week... ;)
                   * Moved old versions to a subdirectory, because some
                     web pages still points to these old versions like
                     0.1beta or 0.2beta...

                Development will slow down a little bit, because at the
                moment there is lot of other work to do at the university
                (that start again next week), preperations for
                examinations and seminars, furthermore I still have to
                work besides to earn some money.
                But really bad is that yesterday my nice Plextor TSI 12/20
                cdrom drive killed itself somehow. The drive will not
                accept any CDs anymore and sometimes the red LED flashes
                five times, over and over again. This will delay
                development at least some weeks, I hope I find my
                guarantee billet, I don't want to buy a new drive... :(



                I am back from holidays... The holidays at home were nice
                (of course not as nice as REAL holidays...), I did a lot
                of cycling and relaxing.
                I just got informed that there is a bug when using the
 27-September-98Fraunhofer Codec and selecting 48 kHz samplerate... You
                shouldn't use it until 48 kHz mode is fixed (or
                removed)...
                The expected release date is still 1.10.98... Only smaller
                things to do and some bugs to fix.



                Now I have completed nearly all new features, only some
                more fixes to 'Listen to possible Errors'. There is still
                some work to do, e.g. in this 'Listen' dialog it will be
                possible to remove glitches from the wave (only if
                uncompressed). Of course this will remove only glitches,
                that means if only one sample is out of the stream and
                create by this a pop, it will be removed by the routine. I
                plan to also add a routine to remove pops that are bigger
 17-September-98and burried in the sound... But not in this version.
                Expected release date for version 0.6beta is 1.10.98,
                because I want wait for the people at CDDB to check the
                CDDB support to be bug-free...
                Important:
                I will go on holidays tomorrow (only some holidays at home
                (where I come from, not here at the university) :(, that
                means I am not able to respond to mail until 27.9.98...
                Please be patient.



                I am still working on CDDB routines, but I already
                finished CDDBP support (hopefully), still lacking HTTP
                support. I hope to finish the rest of it in a week, so I
                could send the admins of CDDB a pre-beta version to get an
                ok for public release. Meanwhile I will work on the rest
                of the new features, that also should be finished until
                end of september, that will be a release date of the next
                version. Of course it could be a week more or less... If I
 10-September-98know an exact date, I will publish it here.
                I need more informations on Offset Sample feature, so
                please help me to improve it. If you own a Plextor drive
                (12x or more) then test all CDs you own in the list on the
                Technology page. Get the sample offset of each CD
                (should(!) be 0 on all Plextors) and send it to me
                together with the code written on the inner ring on the
                back of the CD (e.g. 532 618-2 02) and the title of the
                CD. Thanks...



                Release Date of version 0.5beta
                A few days ago I saw that the program crashes on some
                systems, even the version 0.4beta. Damn. Why didn't anyone
                told me that this happened? Now it is too late for this
                version to fix it. I will have some tests if I can get
                hold of such a computer. I have to install my complete
                programming environment and then debug the whole thing...
                It still seems to be a problem with the ASPI interface.
                The new version includes

                   * Local CDDB database
                   * Import/Export of cdplayer.ini entries
                   * Filename construction and ID3 Tags
                   * Sample Offset detection and correction
 26-August-98      * Speed detection and selection. This feature was made
                     in a hurry and will work or not. It should show up
                     the possible speeds in the selection box. If you
                     think, that the values are not correct or the speed
                     actually read is faster than the selected, please
                     tell me!
                   * Beep or eject CD after task finished
                   * Some more safety checks and other stuff
                   * Two more extraction methods
                   * Still old bugs
                   * Update of almost all my webpages
                   * Making all old versions available for download

                I am not able to read or answer mails until next monday,
                so please be patient...



                I have nearly finished the local CDDB and Cdplayer.ini
                support. I will try to finish both speed selection and
 18-August-98   sample offsets until expected release date 26.8.98, but I
                can't promise. It's a problem to me, testing my speed
                selection routines with my drives and my ASPI interface...



                I am terribly sorry, by accident I changed the link to EAC
                v0.4beta back to v0.3beta...
 11-August-98   It is now fixed again... Sorry...
                The student server will go down next weekend. It should be
                up again on monday morning.



                Release Date of version 0.4beta
                At first I have to excuse me about a speed calculation
                bug. The calculation uses a wrong constant and the result
                was slightly higher (to be precise, 1.176 times higher).
                So this is now fixed and the cd-rom drive table is
                updated. I just wanted to tell, because otherwise some
                will think the program is getting slower.
                I hope to have found the solution of the ASPI bug, not
                showing up any drives, but I will wait if this is correct.
                ASPI Error EBh still comes up in some versions of ASPI,
                sorry.
                The new version includes
 7-August-98
                   * CD player functions and prelistening to ranges
                   * Detection of pre-track gaps
                   * Burst extraction method
                   * Some new bugs

                New known bugs are

                   * The detection of pre-track gaps will take far too
                     long on some computers (usually it should take a
                     second per track). I will need some more tests on
                     these computers. The detected values are not 100%
                     correct in these cases.
                   * Find out yourself...



                Our student server was down yesterday. If somebody send me
 5-August-98    an e-mail that I haven't answered yet, please re-sent the
                e-mail.



                I have nearly finished two new features of EAC: CD player
                functions and gap length determination.
                All CD rippers, I know of, will append the gap between two
                audio tracks to the previous track. My program will now
                analyze the CD and determine the length of each gap. It
 31-July-98     will be possible to append the gap or to left it out.
                These two features are surely in 0.4beta (it will take a
                week more until next update), but I will try also to
                implement block offsets for non-accurate stream drives. I
                don't know if I could do the spindown already in this
                version...



                Release Date of version 0.3beta
                This new beta is forced to come out, because version
                0.2beta made problems on a huge number of computers.
                Main problems was "Access Violation" and "ASPI interface
                could not be initialized". These errors are still in EAC,
                but it should run on more computers again. I still don't
                know why the ASPI Interface often could not be initialized
                (This is not only a bug in my program - try starting
 22-July-98     ASPICHK from Adaptec. On my computer it always shows the
                same intialization failure). Have a try with different
                ASPI versions to install.
                The new version includes

                   * Normalization of extracted audio
                   * Safety check for available harddisk space
                   * Compile-time dynamic linking of the ASPI interface
                   * more or less bugs ;)



                I recognized that EAC won't work on many computer having
                either an "Access Violation" or an error message "ASPI
                interface could not be initialized". I'm already working
                on this problem and I hope to bring out a new bug-fixed
                version on 22-July.
 20-July-98     Interfacing the ASPI dll caused these problems, because my
                compiler has not a C compatible parameter passing. So I
                will use compile-time dynamic linking in that version. I
                hope it will work.
                Normalization is nearly done and probably also in the new
                version.



                Release Date of version 0.2beta
                including

                   * Copy of ranges of audio cds
 15-July-98        * Fast reading mode
                   * Still some bugs
                   * New homepage
                     This "Whats New" page will updated more often than
                     the downloads



 5-July-98      Back from my one week england holiday ;)



                Release Date of version 0.1beta
                including

                   * Secure reading mode
 25-June-98        * Emulate deactivate cache
                   * ACM CODEC support
                   * Hidden sector synchronization
                   * Usage of the Win 95/NT ASPI Interface
                   * A lot of bugs


