Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Mon, 24 Apr 95 20:41 CDT
From:      uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org (Frank Durda IV)
To:        freebsd-hackers@freefall.cdrom.com
Subject:   Re: Interesting SCSI cdrom problem..
Message-ID:  <m0s3ZdD-0004vvC@nemesis.lonestar.org>

next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
[1]From: Peter da Silva <peter@bonkers.taronga.com>
[1]If there is a guaranteed unique ID you can get from the CDROM, you can
[1]use that to maintain multiple mount structures in memory, and prompt the
[1]user for the appropriate disc when necessary.
[1]
[1]If the prompt is vectored through a program (and it would pretty much have
[1]to be), you could use that to control a jukebox as well.

CDs have a field for the UPC data, which should be unique.  However there
are two problems (at least):
1.	Not everybody fills in the field, including many big record
	companies.  (Usually its because the UPC hasn't been assigned by the
	time the disc is mastered or they get in a hurry, it was dark, etc.)
	Write-once discs almost never have a valid UPC field and some of the
	mastering software doesn't even give you the chance to fill it in.

2.	Not all CD-ROM drives (including SCSI models) implement a command
	that delivers the UPC field.

That is probably why the CD-DA (audio) player app that Microsoft ships
used to read the length information for each track from the TOC and create
a hash from it.  That was then used to "recognize" the disc being
re-inserted so that it could recall preferences, tracks-to-skip, etc. 
This scheme is reasonably foolproof, providing the disc isn't remastered by
a different vendor who gets the timing different on any track on the disc
AND there isn't another disc that has the same number of tracks and
length.

Frank Durda IV <uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org>|"Where do you want to go today?
or uhclem%nemesis@fw.ast.com (Fastest Route)| Wherever Microsoft tells you
...letni!rwsys!nemesis!uhclem               | to." - TM (C) 1994 Madsoft.
...decvax!fw.ast.com!nemesis!uhclem         |




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?m0s3ZdD-0004vvC>