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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: discopanic1 on December 23, 2005, 12:41:58 AM

Title: Sector Boundary Errors?
Post by: discopanic1 on December 23, 2005, 12:41:58 AM

I see sector boundary errors being spoke about as I searched alot, but I didn't actually find the definition.  One person told me that Cool Edit causes sector bounday errors.  I hear no problem in any of my recordings but might be since I'm not sure what a sector boundary is.  Thanks for anyones help.

Jesse Mc

Title: Re: Sector Boundary Errors?
Post by: Gordon on December 23, 2005, 02:56:49 AM

google is your friend ;)

http://www.google.com/search?q=sector+boundary+errors&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official (http://www.google.com/search?q=sector+boundary+errors&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official)

what I meant on your beanland torrent is......

tracking in any wave editing program (cool edit, wavelab, soundforge etc) will usualy cause them or some other form of header error etc.  a very easy fix to this is to track the shows with cdwave.  it's free easy and cuts tracks on sector boundary's.  the torrent in question did not have them but shntool did find some errors.

    length     expanded size   cdr  WAVE problems filename
     5:11.00       54860556    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d1t01.shn
     4:37.70       49027596    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d1t02.shn
     5:57.14       63007884    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d1t03.shn
     6:17.24       66559404    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d1t04.shn
    15:50.00      167580156    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d1t05.shn
     8:41.49       92019804    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d1t06.shn
    12:55.65      136863036    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d1t07.shn
     9:12.73       97544652    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d1t08.shn
     4:24.73       46741454    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d1t09.shn
     5:24.32       57229024    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d2t01.shn
     7:47.47       82489504    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d2t02.shn
     5:10.66       54839392    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d2t03.shn
     4:21.04       46049968    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d2t04.shn
     4:34.21       48383152    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d2t05.shn
     5:43.67       60662944    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d2t06.shn
     2:43.01       28755712    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d2t07.shn
     7:05.27       75033664    ---   -e   ---xx   beanland2001-08-25d2t08.shn
   115:59.33        1170.78 MB                    (totals for 17 files, 0.5894 overall compression ratio)


I think the e stands for extra chunks.  not sure.

Title: Re: Sector Boundary Errors?
Post by: twatts (pants are so over-rated...) on December 23, 2005, 03:19:34 AM

Try searching the forums.etree.org for more answers and better definitions...

Basically, your computer write data in blocks.  All of these blocks fills a "sector".  If you don't trim your music on the correct computer spot, it will not have data at to fill the entire sector and it will fill the remainder of the sector with zeroes.  These zeroes equate to silence and place millisecond gaps at your trackmarks.

Lots of older audio programs did not think about this and produced these silent block.  These are sector boundary errors, or SBEs.  Most of these audio programs have been upgraded and correct for this now but may require a toggle being turned on. 

To avoid the problem of silent blocks (SBEs), do all of your whatever on the entire WAV file for a show in your audio program.  Once you are done and have saved your "re-mastered" WAV, do your tracking with CDWave (free and easy at ETREE.ORG).

If you are familiar with DOS and old-school PC, you can use SHNTOOLs and "fix" these errors.  There are various other softwares that may fix these SBEs - I think the newer versions of FLAC Frontend may, and I think Trader's Little Helper may one day... 

If you need more specific help, let me know...  I deal with SBEs all the time...

Terry Watts
http://db.etree.org.twatts

Title: Re: Sector Boundary Errors?
Post by: Gordon on December 23, 2005, 03:24:18 AM

I am in no way familiar with DOS and old-school PC and I got shntool working like a champ.  I have never entered a dos comand and run it all the time.  batch files are your friend.  then you set it up to right click, run len, fix etc.

Title: Re: Sector Boundary Errors?
Post by: JasonSobel on December 23, 2005, 06:40:48 AM

or run Scott Brown's xACT program for windows, which acts as a GUI for SHNtool.  look in the computer recording forum...

Title: Re: Sector Boundary Errors?
Post by: scb on December 23, 2005, 11:36:01 AM

Quote from: JasonSobel on December 23, 2005, 06:40:48 AM

or run Scott Brown's xACT program for windows, which acts as a GUI for SHNtool.  look in the computer recording forum...

i guess i should finish that one of these days :)

Title: Re: Sector Boundary Errors?
Post by: F.O.Bean on December 24, 2005, 11:00:38 PM

or just check the 'align on sector boundaries' box in flac frontend and it will do away w/ them

Title: Re: Sector Boundary Errors?
Post by: pfife on December 27, 2005, 03:24:49 PM

cdwav

Title: Re: Sector Boundary Errors?
Post by: discopanic1 on December 28, 2005, 10:32:51 AM

I used to use cdwav but quit when got CEP 2.0 but now I've downloaded and going to start using.  Thanks for the tips. 

Peace