Idiot alert - what are cue files

[Chris V]

Well everyone seems to be happy that XXHighend can now handle cue files.

I'm sure I would be equally happy if I knew what they were .

Are they inserted somewhere by EAC or what

[PeterSt]

This actually is about one of the "means" to rip (or combine) into a format after which you're kind of stuck to that format, and if the player does not support it you can't play them.

"Format" in this case is the combining of all the tracks from a CD (or even more) into one large file, while at the same time a data file (cue file) is created that contains the actual start-end positions of the individual tracks, the tracknames going with that. In those files can be more data, like genre, year of origin and more (all by convention).

A Cue File as such, is in fact an "order form" of what to do (play) when. It's origin will be from the film industry (I think; didn't look that up).

The large file can be broken down into its individual elements (the individual tracks) and saved to disk again as how they were originally.
While the mechanism as a whole might have been beneficous because of the additional data (like genre etc.) is actually stored with it (though not in the same physical (e.g.) WAV file because of software anticipating on it, nowadays "players" are (or can be) sophisticated enough to store/perform things otherwise. This, btw, is exactly what a program like XXHighEnd (still) needs, and it is the thing which is currently worked on. In fact this is about the good old discussion "how / where to store my CD files", which should be unimportant and all is done (found, sorted) at retrieval time (Most convenient Storage Structure ?)

Something like that ?

[SeVeReD]

Hmmm
[sarcasm]Cue files were created for me by EAC and only used by me[/sarcasm]
If you use EAC (PlextoolsXL does this too) you'll notice on the left hand side is an IMG button you can push to rip your CD.  This will rip your CD into a single wav file plus a cue file that holds all the song titles and timing.  I suggest people rip a CD with this IMG button into a single wav file and also rip a CD their usual way with multiwav songs... and listen back and forth and see if you hear a difference.  I also think that having a single wav plus cue files possibly? retains the original cd info (gaps and more?) than breaking your cds into multiwavs.... k, tell me I'm wrong.

[SeVeReD]

We have all been mulling it over here and all though there have been many disagreements in this huge community.... The CUETEST Consortium* has finally nailed down a request for PeterST.

"Please show song number and artist info in Playlist area when using cue files; just like you already do for song titile"
eg.  1) artist - song1
2) artist - song2
...
There you have it,,, months and months of deliberation in the C.T.C and that's what we've come up with.... although we're still not sure if we should ask for 1) artist - album - song ... sigh hmm Now they're all arguing again,,, hmmm

...ps
there is one crazy gent still out there that wants a "cue reader" button on the player (under the info tab?)... a button that would pop up the cue file in the particular album loaded/playing and let you only read it....most of us here dismiss the idea, but he has been talking to everyone he meets here at CueTest about it and he has been developing a following..., we'll see.


*A group of organizations that participate in joint ventures to further our understanding & usefulness of cue files.

[PeterSt]

The anti-CTC formed a derival and is today celebrating its 5th day anniversary. Although her main objective is to get back the path data as how it was shown at before 0.9-v2 versions and which was abusively eliminated by PeterSt, she unanimously votes for the same ideas.

When the anit-CTC, thus far known under the name of aCTC, gets recognition by the U.S.A. administration, she will put an official complaint, but, she might need the votes from the CTC and therefore politely asks the CTC to join her and form the CTCaCTC which even might go for president when enough followers sign up.
Subscription is free.

[SeVeReD]

The anti-CTC formed a derival and is today celebrating its 5th day anniversary. Although her main objective is to get back the path data as how it was shown at before 0.9-v2 versions and which was abusively eliminated by PeterSt, she unanimously votes for the same ideas.

When the anit-CTC, thus far known under the name of aCTC, gets recognition by the U.S.A. administration, she will put an official complaint, but, she might need the votes from the CTC and therefore politely asks the CTC to join her and form the CTCaCTC which even might go for president when enough followers sign up.
Subscription is free.

ok ok we'll join! with our unwashed brothers...

but I get to hold the gavel.

[PeterSt]

The aCTC religion now has determined that even the artist name has disappeared on the coverart. So or not, if the CTCaCTC could vote for the artist name to be there, PeterSt would be forced to get it in. Mind you, this is disregarding the queue of aCTC priests, so, much is asked from the CTC community this time. If the gavel holder would be so kind to hand out a positive advise on this towards the members, we can get done with this quickly.

[SeVeReD]

Aaahhh, hmm well... Give me a bit to think,,,, something is messed up and i think it depends on whether your cue file is reading individual song wavs or my EAC created single album wav file and cue...

For my style of files, at the top of the cover art I see... Artist - year - Album (ie. Wicked Tinkers - 2008 - Rant)  ... is this info derived from the folder structure or the file name?... anyway,
on the bottom I see a single song title that changes with each song. (ie. Swing Set; ...).  In the playlist of the player it also just shows the individual song. 

I thought it would be nice to have the song order number) artist - song ... ie. 4) Wicked Tinkers - Swing Set
displayed on the bottom instead of just the song title.  keeping the artist with the song for when things are mixed up or in various.  did i make sense yet?

[PeterSt]

The top should show Artist and Album Name. This is derived from the folder structure and the "intelligence" needed for that depends on the naming you applied. This is unrelated to the data being held in the cue file because not everybody works with cue files ...

That you like to have the track number shown is nothing more than logic for someone who doesn't apply the track number in the name of the track. Psychologically for you this goes extra wrong because you have the track numbers in the cue data.
Anyway, here too, some intelligence can be applied to work out the track number (this is easy) and show it when not already there in the track name (a tad more difficult because how the track number is formatted (and where) is up to "you" again, and it has to anticipate on all the variations possible).
But I will dig up some brains and try (I know, for cue files this is a piece of cake, but still it can be so that cue file tracks contain the track numer already, and you don't want to have them shown twice).

[SeVeReD]

I didn't know how you got this info.  I thought if using single wav/cue files that you could pull info from that for numbers, artists name....
It's fine the way it is now with just song name.

The top should show Artist and Album Name. This is derived from the folder structure and the "intelligence" needed for that depends on the naming you applied. This is unrelated to the data being held in the cue file because not everybody works with cue files ...

That you like to have the track number shown is nothing more than logic for someone who doesn't apply the track number in the name of the track. Psychologically for you this goes extra wrong because you have the track numbers in the cue data.
Anyway, here too, some intelligence can be applied to work out the track number (this is easy) and show it when not already there in the track name (a tad more difficult because how the track number is formatted (and where) is up to "you" again, and it has to anticipate on all the variations possible).
But I will dig up some brains and try (I know, for cue files this is a piece of cake, but still it can be so that cue file tracks contain the track numer already, and you don't want to have them shown twice).