CDMagic User Manual

Preface:
The current version of CDMagic is in the beta-state. Any error reports from you are welcome, so are your comments and suggestions. Please mail to the
CDMagic Development Team.
Welcome to CDMagic for OS/2!
It's the complete solution for MP3 music on PC, and for managing your audio compact discs.

CDMagic provides following functions under one easy-to-understand graphical user interface:

  • CD-player and MP3-player
  • CDDB-access for track data etc. (internet connection required)
  • MP3-conversion (encoding)
  • integrated database for MP3-files, with SQL-like command syntax (optional)
Most parts of the user interface are self-explanatory. Just play around and see what happens. If you are looking for a command that's not plain on the window surface: just try the context menu, especially over the Track-Title listbox and the Report listbox (remember: invoking the context menu means: clicking your right mouse button).

To get a thorough understanding of CDMagic it is recommended to read the following sections about the Basic Concepts first. If you are of the impatient kind, you can go to A Quick WalkThrough".


Basic Concepts

Conceptually the program is based on the idea that large hard disks are inexpensive and easily available. So if you have free hard disk space of about 10 to 20 GB you are ready to go into the future of convenient music listening and - what's more - music administration. With CDMagic in addition this future is here right now.
So the dominant function of CDMagic is not the player, but the database, accompanied by the internet-
CDDB-function. That's the Magic in CDMagic: while building and maintaining a database is usually cumbersome and requires a lot of manual data entry, this is not so with CDMagic: the integrated CDDB-access supplies almost all the data your database needs.
The database concept in CDMagic aims at completeness of title-related data as well as easy retrieval of all information, to suit the need of the user, i.e. to answer every possible question about your music data you can imagine. To make you not dependent on the CDMagic program to utilize your database we have chosen to build the database in dBaseIV-format. So even if you at any time in the future will cease to use CDMagic, you still have your precious CD data, which you can import or directly use in any other application, that supports the DBF format (e.g. StarOffice, Lotus Approach).

What's in the database

Primarily, each track of a CD goes into the database (of course, only those tracks that you select, if you don't want them all). So, each database entry represents one track on a CD, regardless if
  1. the track is converted to MP3 (which is presumed to be the 'normal' case)
  2. or
  3. is still in the WAV-format
  4. or
  5. has no corresponding music file at all (we call those database entries 'empty' titles).

WAV- or MP3-format?

Just to remember: WAV is the format of the sound file after it has been ripped from the CD. MP3 is the format after the WAV file has been converted ('encoded') by a special MP3 encoder program. WAV is about 12 times larger than MP3, while sound quality of MP3 is slightly inferior.
While in CDMagic it is assumed that you intend to have your music files in the MP3 format you are not enforded to do that. You are free to decide on each track to have it converted to MP3 or leave it as WAV file. How is this decision made?
In CDMagic converting to MP3 is done in two steps:
  1. ripping from CD and store as WAV file
  2. deliberatly convert (all or some) WAV file(s) to MP3
So, in order to leave a music file in WAV format you just don't convert it. The CDMagic database will know that this file is WAV and - if you want to play it - start the appropriate WAV-player for it. The only thing you have to keep in mind is the much greater disk space the WAV-files need.

Database administration

At first start you don't have to bother about the database: it is built automatically by the program. Database backup:
You should keep in mind that the term 'database' in CDMagic stands only for the track data and other CD related information, not the music files themselves. The latter occupy most of the disk space by far, but the former may be regarded as more important, because it is harder to recover. So the best you can do is backup both parts of your data. Database rebuild:
From a technical viewpoint you will not have the neccessity to rebuild the database in the whole life. But in practice this will happen, especially in the first time. Because most probably (and strongly recommended) you will first build a database for exercising, and after you have captured what it's all about then you can drop your 'scratch'-database and start over again. Note: For security reasons there is no integrated function to drop the database. To start with a new (empty) database you have to open an OS/2 command line and enter the following:
	del *.dbf
	del *.ndx
	del *.adx
	del *.mdx
In case you already have WAV- or MP3-files:
	cd x:\wav_temp-directory  < -- where the WAV files reside
	del *.wav
...deleting the MP3-files:
	cd x:\mp3-directory  < -- where the MP3 files reside
	del *.MP3

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A Quick WalkThrough

  1. Installation and Setup
  2. Using CDMagic

Installation and Setup

To install CDMagic, you just unzip the distribution- (download-) file into a directory of your choice, let it be
c:\>cdmagic
.
(If you read this manual, then it seems you already have successfully done that). After unzipping you should generate some objects on your desktop. To do this you open a OS/2 command line session and from your cdmagic-directory run the INSTALL.CMD. This will generate a folder, which you can open and in it you find a program icon, which you can double click on to start CDMagic.
At the first start of CDMagic you are presented the 'Settings'-window. Here you must enter some important information, esp. on the paths to your audio files (MP3 and WAV).
Considerations on harddisk space:
Please keep in mind that your audio files will occupy large amounts of harddisk space. For each hour of MP3-music you need approximately 50 MB disk storage. That means, if you have 100 CDs of 1 hour each and want them played from your harddisk you should not have less than 20 GB free space at your MP3-path.
In addition, you need temporary disk space for the WAV files, which are generated by ripping the tracks from CD. To process one CD of 1 hour of music you must provide temporary free disk space of about half a GB. After converting them to MP3 you can delete the WAV files. Important note:
If you don't have as much free space now, you can start building your music database either. Go on until your space is exhausted, then you can add a new harddisk drive into your system, and just tell CDMagic that you have a new MP3-path. You don't need to migrate your old music files, you just leave them on their old drive. CDMagic will still find the files through means of the database.

Using CDMagic

Assume you have a CD with 12 tracks on it, 9 of which you want to have converted to MP3 and loaded into your database. Follow these steps:
  • Have your PC connected to the internet.
  • Insert the CD into the CDROM drive.
  • Click the 'Refresh CD'-pushbutton.
  • Click the 'CDDB'-pushbutton.
  • Wait until the 'Track-Title'-listbox changes to the actual title names and the CD name and artist is displayed in the entryfields on top.
  • Select the tracks that you want to process (s.note-1).
  • Invoke the context menu (s.note-2).
  • Choose your desired action from the context menu (s.note-3).
Notes:
  1. Selecting tracks:
    left click on the first track; for all additional tracks to select hold down the ctrl-key and left click on that track
  2. Invoke the context menu:
    move the cursor over the Track-Title listbox and click the right mouse button. A popup menu appears.
  3. Choose your desired action:
    If you want to load the tracks as MP3 sound file then you click on the 'rip and mark for convert'-choice.
    (If you would want only the track data loaded into the database without producing a sound file, you would choose 'insert empty titles'.)
Wait now until the ripping of the tracks is finished (that may take a few minutes, depending on the speed of your CDROM-drive). You can observe the ripping process by looking at the Permanent Log window at the bottom of the Main Window.

After your are done:

When all the tracks have been ripped you can have a look at the database and see where the tracks are. Click on the Query-pushbutton. You now enter the Report window. Usage of the Report window is mostly self-explanatory. For further information you can press the F1 key for online help.

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Appendix-1:

What is CDDB?

CDDB stands for Compact Disc Database. It is a large database which contains information about nearly every CD ever released in the world. Among these informations are: disc title, artist name and track titles and some more. The database is originally located at
www.cddb.com and there are several mirror sites around.
Identifcation of a specific CD occurs by a specially calculated disc-ID, which is unique for every CD and acts as the primary key in the database.
Access to the CDDB is handled by a special protocol (over TCP/IP), which is incorporated in CDMagic, so you don't have to bother about it.
More details in english language coming real soon now ... (please watch out for latest news on our web site at http://www.cdmagic.de.
Thank you for your understanding.