MakeCD 2.3
There's been little in the shareware domain to master and cut recordable
'gold' 'CDR' disks on the Amiga. There's 'Burn It' reviewed in next month's
issue and this newcomer from Germany called MakeCD. There's also
the expensive and faithful MasterISO from
Asimware but if you're
looking to buy a cheap CD cutter to make some gold disks on an amateur
basis, MakeCD is the right price.
Complex interface
Unlike MasterISO, MakeCD doesn't require it's own screen. It uses the
Triton GUI library which is slightly clunky but a great improvement over
MasterISO. Thankfully with version 2.3 the authors have taken some
criticisms on board and simplified the main page. At first the interface looks
a little complex, but most everything
is laid out in a logical fashion. There's a MUI-style help bubble which
usefully appears over each gadget as the mouse hovers over it. Luckily this
can be turned off.
The main page shows a list of tracks. As soon as one is added, the Source
and Target sections become active. It's here that a birds nest of
configuration options hide. The Track type can be data, digital audio or
the lesser used 'XA' style tracks, used for PhotoCDs and such forth. The
Source can either be read from an image file on HD or, in the case of a
data track, be read directly from the Amiga filing system. That's right,
this is the only CD mastering package that doesn't need to build a temp
file first, it can master on the fly to a CD writer. A great saviour of
time and disk space if your machine is fast enough to handle it.
MakeCD can even copy a track off another (supported) SCSI CD-ROM directly to the
target. The target can also be set as either a temporary file, a spooling
style device such as a tape backup or the obvious; direct to a CD writer.
This is a highly flexible approach. MakeCD is also happy to read CD digital
audio directly from a CD or play it on the fly. One of the greatest aspects
of MakeCD is it's facility to save particular settings as projects. These
can be loaded in later to restore the settings, paths and so on to create
the particular kind of CD. Exactly what's needed for anything more than
casual CD-R writing and something sorely missing in MasterISO.
Impressive features
MakeCD's feature list is impressive when it comes to building ISO images
also. ISO 9660 is the filing system which is standard on CD-ROMs however
it only handles upper case filenames and some other silly restrictions,
useless for Amigas. Luckily there's RockRidge extensions which record the
extra information. MakeCD has a mass of options in this regard and can
be confusing in this area. The documentation isn't 100% on these aspects and
needs to be improved.
It's possible to generate virtually any kind of ISO image possible. The danger is that
you may run into bugs in the Commodore filing system like we did with
CUCD10. In fact 2.3 incorporates a fix for this problem, or a 'workaround'
as it's called because it's a non-standard way of doing things to avoid a
bug in another program. In this case the bugs in the Commodore CDFS. The
specifics are that the Commodore CDFS requires the ISO 9660 path tables to
be in uppercase regardless of the filenames themselves. MakeCD 2.3 will
always generate a CommodoreCDFS compatible ISO volume now. The fact that
this problem went unnoticed for so long is testament to how many Amiga
CD-ROM users installed far better CD filing systems such as AmiCDFS.
CD's mastered with MakeCD can record Amiga specific details such as the
'script' and 'pure' file flags. You will need a modern CD filing system such
as the PD AmiCDFS to read them though.
MakeCD uses a superb modular approach to provide the functions for building
ISO images and the drivers for various CD Writers on the market. A driver
could simple be dropped in and suddenly the package will support that writer.
MakeCD 2.3 supports many of the big boys of the CD Writer scene and the
authors have a pro-active policy of generating drivers for more. You might like to check
the MakeCD site to check the current
supported list of drives. 2.3 now has support for the brand new E-IDE CD-R
writers, apparently the standard is far more rigid than SCSI so the drivers
should work with untested E-IDE drives such as Yamaha's new CDR401, quad speed
E-IDE CD-R.
A key factor in writing CDs is performance of your Amiga. The CPU power and speed of the SCSI system
are very important but things like reading/writing from different
interfaces can help matters. Unlike MasterISO, the MakeCD authors don't
guarantee a limited set of systems, instead they've shown which systems are
reported to have worked and which ones have not. Many examples can be seen
in the documentation and their home page. Generally it's highly efficient
but still not quite to the level of MasterISO from my experience. MakeCD's
sophisticated async IO reading/writing may be to blame for exibiting some
SCSI problems ahead of MasterISO's far simpler design.
Professional package
All up, MakeCD 2.3 is an extremely professional package with a very
sensible approach to pricing. For the ability to cut CDs which aren't going
to be published, the fee is a highly reasonable 75DM or around 30 pounds. A
total steal for a package of this quality. If you want to enter the
professional arena, the cost is 300DM or around 120 pounds. Still excellent
value for money, not the least considering the features and cost of a
similar package on the PC for example.
To say i'm impressed by MakeCD is an understatement, the
package does virtually everything and yet the authors are committed to making it even
better with support the disk-at-once writing coming soon. The operate a
very useful mailing list in which some top advice on writing CD-Rs can be
found and naturally bugs/suggestion reports made to the authors.
A similar effort on the PC would be worth many hundreds of pounds, this makes CD Writing on
an Amiga highly attractive. MakeCD is a professional Amiga application to be proud of.
Click on
MakeCD23.lha to download from Wuarchive Aminet.
Alternatively, look in your local Aminet mirror for disk/cdrom/MakeCD23.lha
Time to get that CD cutter, MakeCD rocks!
Mat Bettinson - Technical Editor of CU
Amiga Magazine