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Drives that Don't Support "Accurate Stream"

Someone uses a driver that doesn't support "Accurate Stream" technology when configuring EAC, which will cause a warning. Let's see what's wrong.

Conclusion first, the owner won a prize. Optiarc DVD RW AD-7563A should be saved carefully since I’ve used many drivers, but this one is the first one that doesn’t support “Accurate Stream”, which is rare. Now let’s explain what the warning means.

What Is “Accurate Stream”?

Back around the turn of the century when digital audio extraction (DAE) was relatively new, some drives couldn’t provide audio data from precise locations. Each time it was told to read a block of audio, a drive might produce data that was shifted slightly ahead or slightly behind. When an adjacent block of data from a subsequent read is shifted, it will either begin with samples repeated from the previous block, or samples between the blocks will be omitted. In DAE, this phenomenon is often called jitter or synchronization error. To compensate for this problem, EAC is able to overlap every read in order to detect and correct any misalignment.

Essentially all drives produced today have a feature called ‘Accurate Stream’ which significantly reduces (if not completely eliminates) the chance that audio data will be shifted between successive reads. When informed that a drive has this feature, EAC will only periodically overlap its reads to check for synchronization problems.

From hydrogenaudio.

According to the warning and the explanation above, we could know:

  • You have to put in a “Key Disc”, or EAC won’t start offset calculating;
  • A driver without “Accurate Stream” ability may rip wrong data;
  • Someone emphasizes the “dither” problem, but with “Accurate Stream” and EAC, we can overcome it;
  • Drivers with “Accurate Stream” ability have a constant offset, which is the premise of opening AccurateRip.

What Is AccurateRip?

Briefly, it’s a web database that can help you test if you ripping the correct data. Please read this post for more information.

What Should I Do If I Have Such a Driver?

Buy a new one. _(:з」∠)_

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