The DDP Mastering Tools are a small set of command line programs which read and write DDP images as used for Red Book CD audio mastering. They let you
- create DDP 2.0 masters from a cue/wav images,
- inspect DDP masters by displaying the full meta-data found in those masters, a feature rarely found in traditional DDP software,
- convert DDP masters to cue/wav for easier playback, or burning of CD reference copies.
The Disc Description Protocol (DDP) is used by disc manufacturers as input format for their glass mastering process, and thus is the format of choice used by mastering engineers when sending out audio CD masters for replication. Tradtionally delivered on 8-mm Exabyte tape, DDP images are now shipped on DVD-R, hard drive, thumb drive or even transferred directly via FTP. Some people call them DDPi, when written to any sort of random-access media.
The DDP Mastering Tools are available as binaries for Linux, OSX and Windows and can be used free of charge. Due to DCA’s licensing conditions they are not released under an open source license at the moment.
Features
cue2ddp
- Create DDP 2.0 masters from cue/wav or cue/bin
- 100% bit-transparent audio path
- Set master ID field
- Complete PQ subcode support, in detail:
- Track pregap/pause position, Index positions (2..99)
- Track ISRC
- UPC/EAN13
- Flags: pre-emphasis, copy permission, four-channel audio, serial copy management
- CD Text support: title, performer, songwriter read from cue sheet, or all CD Text fields from binary CD Text file
- Create MD5 and CRC32 checksum files (in one run)
- Precise error messages and warnings when parsing the cue sheet
- Only cue/wav and cue/bin images with a single audio file are supported
ddpinfo
- Read DDP 1.00, 1.01, and 2.00
- Show metadata from DDP identifier, map stream, PQ descriptor, CD Text, and even the additional text streams
- Expert view for special needs, shows all fields
- Checksum verification (MD5 and CRC32), formats: Pyramix, SADiE (all DDP flavores), Sequoia, Sonoris, DSP Quattro, and Wave Editor and others
- Conversion from DDP to cuesheet plus Broadcast Wave file, suitable for burning reference CDs
- Embedded track start positions in Broadcase Wave files
cdtinfo
- Show content of binary CD Text file
- Show all CD Text fields for disc and each title
- Show all different language blocks
- Show character set used
- No support for Japanese characters at the moment