How to burn with a Virtual CD drive

• How to burn with a Virtual CD drive
• BIN/CUE CD image files
• Copy CD To CD tests with Daemon Tools as source

Principle:

The virtual CD drive application allows you to 'mount' a CUE file, just like you've put the burnt disc in a drive. You can then watch it as a disc in a VideoCD PC player (like PowerDVD, WinDVD, ...), open files and folders just like the disc was actually in the drive. ... And, you can use your regular burning app to burn your virtual CD to blank CD (copy CD to CD)!

Detailed instructions

A CUE file is a text file. It gives instructions to the burning application on how to burn the BIN CD image file.

In VCDEasy, when you choose "BIN/detailed CUE", as opposed to "BIN/CUE", chapter information will be also writen as subindex entries (in addition to the "normal" chapter information in the VideoCD). These subindex entries are physically writen to the CD. Some player require these subindex entries to have working chapters... You have to test with your home DVD player... (Note that CDRDAO preserves subindexes, this is not the case for all burning applications...)

Example of a "detailed" CUE file

FILE "C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\Desktop\videocd.bin" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 MODE2/2352
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:04:15
INDEX 01 00:06:15
INDEX 02 00:14:36
INDEX 03 00:18:60
INDEX 04 00:24:59
INDEX 05 00:29:61
TRACK 03 MODE2/2352
FLAGS DCP
INDEX 00 00:37:67
INDEX 01 00:39:67
INDEX 02 00:46:07
INDEX 03 00:52:06
INDEX 04 00:57:63
INDEX 05 01:03:66

Example of a "non detailed" CUE file

FILE "C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1\Desktop\VIDEOC~1.BIN" BINARY
TRACK 01 MODE2/2352
INDEX 01 00:00:00
TRACK 02 MODE2/2352
INDEX 00 00:04:00
INDEX 01 00:06:00
TRACK 03 MODE2/2352
INDEX 00 00:37:52
INDEX 01 00:39:52

If you have problem burning CUE file, the first thing to do is to open the CUE file in a text editor and check the line starting with "FILE". It give the location of the corresponding BIN file. This location (path and filename) should most of the time be in 8.3 short filename to avoid problem with some burning application. Moreover, some burning application requires to have the CUE and the BIN file in the same folder, with the same name (for example "videocd.bin" and "videocd.cue"). In this case 'FILE "videocd.bin" BINARY' should be ok.

1) I burn the BIN/"detailed" CUE files to a CD-RW using the burning application to test

2) Then I use CloneCD to make back a CD image file from the CD-RW I have just burnt, and finally check in the CloneCD's CUE file if the subindex entries are there or not:

"Copy from CD-Reader to Image File":

It is important to choose "Game CD" there:

You need to select "Create Cue-Sheet":

Now, take a look a the CUE file just generated by CloneCD:

Do not forget to mount your CD image file before.

Please, note that I may have missed some burning application options which improves the copy... As opposed to some users seems to think, I do not have an anwser to all problems, for all burning applications... Contact your burning application for more information... 

Also, when possible, I try to use "Disc At Once" (DAO) burning method as opposed to "Track At Once" (TAO), as DAO writes the data more as expected; i.e. the sectors are written exactly where expected, while with TAO it depends on the hardware, whether it allows the sectors to be where we want them... (TAO means, that the cd burner cares about the pause between tracks, and also introduces 2 additional link-sectors before and after the pause; also this pause is not really written, because the laser is switched of while going over the track-pauses...)

Here are some burning applications I tried:

CloneCD v4.0.1.3	Open CloneCD v4 Choose "V386 STEALTH DVD" as source IMPORTANT: Choose Copy as "Game CD", otherwise you won't have a working CD copy. Then finish the copy as usual, except that it is a good idea to burn at low speed (1x or 2x) for some home DVD players CloneCD v4 preserves SubIndexes! Recommemded solution
Nero v5.5.8.2	Copy Ok, but does not preserve SubIndexes in Detailed CUE files (this may not be important to you, you have to test with your home DVD player)
CdrWin v3.8G CdrWin v4.0A	Copy Ok, but does not preserve SubIndexes in Detailed CUE files (this may not be important to you, you have to test with your home DVD player) Note that if you did not pay for CdrWin but use a serial number or a key generator found on the web... there is a great chance that you will create coasters!... Most of the serial numbers for CdrWin available on web seem to be valid but are not at final... and instead of saying "Bad Serial Number", CdrWin will sometimes create coasters... [not very kind...]
Easy CD Creator v5.1	Copy Ok, but does not preserve SubIndexes in Detailed CUE files (this may not be important to you, you have to test with your home DVD player)
Fireburner v2.1.7	Copy CD to CD not supported!

NB: For your information, CDRDAO preserves SubIndexes...