Iso Vs. Bin/cue

[DarkReality]

I think ISO owns Bin/Cue. Here's why.

1) ISO's are smaller. A full CD is a 700MB ISO or an 800MB BIN.
2) Nobody shares CUE's. For some reason unknown.
3) Very few people have realized that a CUE is merely a text file and they could just post its contents and the filename.
4) They're trickier to burn. ISO's require one less step.

So... why is BIN/CUE the format of choice? If I get a BIN/CUE I convert to ISO because I value my space; no sense wasting it for nothing.

Educate me. ;)

[Evil Gemini]

cue/bin files are better because ISO's are only single track.

(correct me if im wrong)

[Russo]

BIN/CUE is the choice for games because most games have extensive audio tracks and ISOs dont keep the integrity of the audio tracks.

" The bin/cue format differs from a ISO in that it has a cue file, which is a table of contents. This "table of contents" tells the burning program where the data and audio channels are in the bin file. Without the audio channels, the game will be glitchy".

There is a reason why the "PROFESSIONALS" such as DEViANCE, IMMERSION,FAIRLIGHT etc.. use the BIN/CUE format. because they are the most reliable for games.

[Supernatural]

They should still keep the 2 zipped together. Cue's have a habit of getting lost. :lol:

[Marius24]

yeah but .cues can be easly made, just a text file :P

[Amarjit]

Yeah, games keep to one standard, movies to another ...

Plus, a specific CUE can be made with CDRWin. ;)

[Johnny_B]

The reason why BIN/CUE are prefered over ISO files is because BIN files are RAW images.
When you talk about a CD image you should talk about number of sectors and not filesizes.

A 700 MB CD has 360,000 sectors. Each sector is 2352 bytes big.
PC CD-ROMs contain 2048 bytes of actual data in each sector and the rest are for error correction codes.

The ISO format extracts only the 2048 bytes/sector of actual data discarding the error correction codes, while the BIN format extracts the whole 2352 bytes/sector (RAW format), thus maintaining the error correction codes and consequently having a bigger filesize.

The error correction codes help burning CDs at high speeds without corrupting the data. In other words, they prevent you from burning coasters.

700 MB CD (80 minutes):

ISO format:
360,000 sectors x 2048 bytes = 737,280,000 bytes = 720,000 KB = 703.1 MB

BIN format:
360,000 sectors x 2352 bytes = 846,720,000 bytes = 826,900 KB = 807.5 MB

Despite the filesizes being different in about 100 MB, they both have the same number of sectors, and that's what really counts to fit a CD image on a 700 MB CD.

Note: When you burn standard data like backing up files (not the same as burning CD image files), you always burn 2048 bytes of data in each sector. That's why you can't burn more than 700 MB of data on a CD. Unless, of course, you overburn, but that's a different story.

[DarkReality]

Thanks for the replies. I searched but could not find this so I reposted it somewhere else; sorry about that. To find this I had to view all my posts cuz I know I made it. ;)

OK, so BIN is better for games... but what about something that only has data tracks? Like an OS, or a program? Wouldn't ISO be the better choice?

@Johnny_B - Can I burn a CD with 2352 bytes/sector and not the error correction codes to get 800MB on a CD without overburning?

I downloaded a few BINs just last night, and out of habit converted them to ISO and deleted the BINs. So... what does it matter that I essentially pruned the error correction data? Does that mean the CD won't work, or just that it will have problems?


That all said, how can I make a BIN on the fly from CD? I love how WinISO has the option to make an ISO on the fly from a CD. It has an ISO>BIN converter but I suppose that doesn't matter, does it? cuz the error correction codes are already gone.

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Originally posted by DarkReality@3 December 2003 - 03:21
@Johnny_B - Can I burn a CD with 2352 bytes/sector and not the error correction codes to get 800MB on a CD without overburning?
If you read his post again, you'll realize that ISOs are exactly what you're asking about. However, when the data is burned to the CD-ROM, there has to be 2352 bytes/sector, even if each sector has to be padding to that size.

There's a reason it's a standard. If you were somehow able to burn a CD-ROM with 2048-byte sectors, I'm sure it'd be unreadable by every drive out there.

That's just a logical assumption on my part, so if someone knows I'm wrong, feel free to correct me.

[MUSLEMAN]

you can extract bin just like iso, and you can mount bin just like iso


so the cue plays no part

[Johnny_B]

Can I burn a CD with 2352 bytes/sector and not the error correction codes to get 800MB on a CD without overburning?
The PC CD-ROM format only supports 2048 bytes of data in each sector. This is a standard and can't be changed.

If you try to burn 2352 bytes of data in each sector, it will no longer be recognized as a PC CD-ROM.

The Audio CD format, for example, uses 2352 bytes/sector.
In terms of data you can fit 800 MB of music on a 700 MB CD without overburn.
This is why when talking about burning Audio CDs you talk about minutes and not actual data. It avoids confusing people.


I downloaded a few BINs just last night, and out of habit converted them to ISO and deleted the BINs. So... what does it matter that I essentially pruned the error correction data? Does that mean the CD won't work, or just that it will have problems?
Don't worry, the CD will work fine.
When converting BIN files to ISO, you lose the error correction codes, but the actual data remains intact.
Without the error correction codes (ISO format) you can still burn the CD with no problems.
However, when burning at high speeds, the ISO format won't be as reliable as the BIN format.
In other words the probability of burning coasters is higher when burning ISO files at high speeds.


That all said, how can I make a BIN on the fly from CD? I love how WinISO has the option to make an ISO on the fly from a CD. It has an ISO>BIN converter but I suppose that doesn't matter, does it? cuz the error correction codes are already gone.
When converting ISO to BIN the error correction codes won't be generated because they are already gone.
The ISO files will just change to comply with the BIN format (raw image), but no error correction codes will be added.
It's similar with MP3 and WAV files. When you convert MP3 to WAV you won't get a better quality audio file. Just the same MP3 with the same quality, but in a different format.
BlindWrite, CDRWin and Alcohol 120% can create BIN/CUE files from the CD.