How to access CD-XA formats?

Answer 1

Unfortunately You need an old PC around a 1991.
There are actually two different CD-ROM/XA Mode 2 formats. Your software vendor may mean CD-ROM/XA Mode 2/Form 2 that should not be used for data recording.

The history of formats is complex and still developing, requiring constant efforts by drive manufacturers to update their designs. Separate issues of physical track structure such as disc-at-once, track-at-once, multisession, and packet recording bring additional complexity. Add rewriteable media, and designers must satisfy a large matrix of parameters if their drives are to qualify as MultiRead.

The first CD format was for digital audio, and established standards for every subsequent format. Sector structure was not present. The CD-DA frame structure was preserved for all subsequent formats. Two hardware levels of error correction reduce the raw frame error rate for high quality discs from thousands per second to an acceptable rate of about one uncorrectable error per hour at 1X.

Such a high error rate is unacceptable for data or highly compressed video, therefore the CD-ROM Mode 1 format defined sectors containing a third level of software error correction. Every 2352 byte Mode 1 sector contains 12 bytes of sync, a four byte header, 2048 bytes of data, and 288 error correction bytes. Read failures for high quality discs are now reduced to about one every 100 years. This is clearly the preferred format for data.

A second CD-ROM Mode 2 format was also defined that omits sector level error correction. This increases information capacity to 2336 bytes of audio or video. Interleaving is not supported, and audio, video, and graphics are out-of-sync, making this format a poor choice for multimedia. High uncorrectable error rates are about one per hour at 1X.

Two forms of CD-ROM/XA Mode 2 were established for multimedia applications to solve the out-of-sync problem. An eight byte subheader was added to the CD-ROM Mode 2 sector that supports many multimedia features including interleaving of text, data, audio, and video files. Sector level error correction is present in CD-ROM/XA Mode 2/Form 1 using 280 cross interleave Reed-Solomon bytes that support 2048 bytes per sector of data or highly compressed audio or video. Uncorrectable error rates are as low as one every 100 years.

CD-ROM/XA Mode 2/Form 2 sectors do not have sector level error correction. User information capacity is increased to 2324 bytes per sector of error tolerant information such as uncompressed video, audio, or graphics. Uncorrectable errors now occur about once every hour.

Kodak Photo CD discs were the first to use multisession recording, and utilized the Mode 2/Form 2 structure before CD-ROM/XA was defined. Since this was the only multisession format, drives designed at that time contained firmware that assumed that multisession discs would always be Mode 2/Form 2. Drives from that period cannot read Mode 2/Form 1 sectors that should always be used for data, because that format did not yet exist. Such drives even refuse to read multisession CD-ROM Mode 1 discs.

After the CD-ROM/XA format was defined in about 1991, most CD-ROM drives were designed to read multisession in any format. Recording software that defaults to CD-ROM/XA for multisession recording is an undesirable attempt to correct this old problem. In practice, CD-ROM/XA should only be used for multimedia applications, because not all drives recognize the CD-ROM/XA format, while all data drives recognize CD-ROM Mode 1.

Multisession recording using CD-ROM/XA Mode 2/Form 2 will produce discs readable in legacy drives. Unfortunately, such discs containing data or highly compressed video must be of exceptionally high quality to achieve successful interchange. These discs are very sensitive to scratches, debris, and other degradation caused by normal handling. Longevity of such discs is dramatically worse than discs recorded in CD-ROM Mode 1 or CD-ROM/XA Mode 2/Form 1 formats.

Never use multisession recording if discs containing data files must be readable in legacy drives. Instead, use disc-at-once with the CD-ROM Mode 1 format. If multisession recording is essential, then use the CD-ROM Mode 1 format, and accept the fact that the discs may not be readable in a few older CD-ROM drives. Do not jeopardize quality by using CD-ROM/XA for other than multimedia. Never use CD-ROM/XA Mode 2/Form 2 for data. Instead, focus on achieving interchange and longevity in the enormous number of CD-ROM drives manufactured since 1991. Do not compromise quality by attempting to achieve interchange in a few legacy drives.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

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