CD-DVD Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples - v2.23, by Dr. Herong Yang
Audio CD (CD-DA) Tracks and Indexes
This section describes the logical format of tracks and indexes of an audio CD (Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA).
From a logical point of view, an audio CD (Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) is divided into tracks. One track represents one continuous segment of music data that the audio player should play as a single piece.
An audio CD can have up to 99 tracks.
A track can have up to 100 indexes. Index starts with 0. But, audio CD players usually starts to play music from index 1.
To find out how many tracks on an audio CD, you can insert it into a Windows system and test it in command window:
C:\>d: D:\>dir Volume in drive D is Audio CD Volume Serial Number is 0247-8212 Directory of D:\ 12/31/1994 08:00 PM 44 Track01.cda 12/31/1994 08:04 PM 44 Track02.cda 12/31/1994 08:07 PM 44 Track03.cda 12/31/1994 08:10 PM 44 Track04.cda 12/31/1994 08:12 PM 44 Track05.cda 12/31/1994 08:16 PM 44 Track06.cda 12/31/1994 08:21 PM 44 Track07.cda 12/31/1994 08:26 PM 44 Track08.cda 12/31/1994 08:31 PM 44 Track09.cda 12/31/1994 08:35 PM 44 Track10.cda 12/31/1994 08:39 PM 44 Track11.cda 12/31/1994 08:43 PM 44 Track12.cda 12/31/1994 08:47 PM 44 Track13.cda 12/31/1994 08:51 PM 44 Track14.cda 12/31/1994 08:55 PM 44 Track15.cda 12/31/1994 08:58 PM 44 Track16.cda 12/31/1994 08:02 PM 44 Track17.cda 12/31/1994 08:05 PM 44 Track18.cda 18 File(s) 792 bytes 0 Dir(s) 0 bytes free
In the test output record above, my CD drive is assigned with drive letter D. The output shows that my audio CD has 18 tracks (18 songs).
The next question is to find out where the TOC (Table Of Contents) is recorded on the audio CD. the TOC contains the list of sound tracks on the CD, and list of indexes for each track.
The first index (index 0) on each track is also called pregap, which is about 2 seconds of silence on normal audio CDs. But some audio CDs could record an extra song at index 0, which is called "hidden tracks".
Table of Contents
►Audio CD (Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) Format
Audio CD (CD-DA) Physical Parameters
Audio CD (CD-DA) Data Structure
►Audio CD (CD-DA) Tracks and Indexes
Audio CD (Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) Players
Audio CD (Compact Disc Digital Audio or CD-DA) Rip Music
MP3, MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, Encoding Format
DVD (Digital Video Disc) Standard Format
TOC (Table Of Contents) on CDs
IsoBuster - A Nice CD GUI Tool
vStrip - Rip and Manipulate DVD VOB Files
mpgtx - Manipulating MPEG Files