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Man Pages
CDA(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual CDA(1)

cda - Compact disc digital audio player utility

cda [-dev device] [-batch] [-debug level#] [-online | -offline] command

Cda is a program that allows the use of the CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW or DVD drive as a full-featured stereo compact-disc player and "ripper" from the shell command line. It can be used interactively in line mode or visual (screen) mode, or as a script-driven utility. This is a companion utility to xmcd(1), a Motif-based CD audio player application for the X window system. Cda uses the same configuration and support files as xmcd.

Most of the features found on "real" CD players are available in cda, such as shuffle and repeat, and track programming functions.

CDDA (CD digital audio) data extraction, playback, save-to-file, and pipe-to-program are supported on many platforms. For data extraction to file or pipe, cda can generate the data in MP3 (MPEG-1 layer 3), MPEG-2/MPEG-4 AAC, MP4 Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WAV, AU, AIFF, AIFF-C and raw headerless formats. Simultaneous extraction to file/pipe and real-time playback is possible on high performance computers.

Multi-disc changers are also supported. You can switch to a soecified disc, select to play only a single disc or auto-play all discs in normal or reverse order.

The Gracenote CDDB(R) Music Recognition Service(sm) feature is supported by cda, which allows the CD artist/title and track titles, and other information associated with the loaded CD to be displayed. For CDDA extraction to MP3, MP4, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC formats, cda can auto-fill the CD information tags embedded in these files.

This release of cda supports the enhanced Gracenote CDDB2(R) service on a number of platforms, and offers much richer features and content than the "classic" CDDB. Moreover, CDDB2-supplied information is now in UTF-8 data format, providing international language support. See "LOCALIZATION" below.

In addition to CDDB, this release of cda supports reading CD-TEXT data from the disc for the disc/track artist and title information.

No capability is provided to add, modify or submit CDDB entries in cda. You must use the X-based xmcd(1) utility (or another CDDB-enabled application with the appropriate features) for that purpose.

On systems with more than one CD drive, multiple invocations of cda can be used to operate each drive independently.

Cda is designed to be easy to use, with particular care taken to make all output easily parsable by other programs.

The internal architecture of cda is designed to be easily portable to many UNIX operating system variants, and adaptable to the myriad of CD drives available.

Cda supports the following options:

-dev device
Specifies the path name to the raw CD device. If this option is not used, the default device to be used is the first drive set up with the xmcd configuration program (See below).
-batch
Signifies that cda should run in batch mode. This suppresses all interaction with the user (i.e., will not prompt the user to type anything). Batch mode is not meaningful in visual mode.
-online, -offline
Forces cda to enable or disable Internet access. If this option is not specified, then the default is configured via the internetOffline parameter in the common.cfg file. In offline mode, CDDB lookup will only be done from the local cache. Please note that the daemon as well as the client will both perform CDDB lookups. If you want to disable Internet access in both, then the -offline option should be used when you start the daemon via the cda on command, as well as when you issue any cda client command.
-debug level#
Causes verbose debugging diagnostics to be displayed on stderr. Note that if you are running in visual mode, the stderr output should be redirected to a file, or the debug information will corrupt the screen. The level specifies the type of debugging messages desired:

1	General debugging
2	Device I/O debugging
4	CD information debugging
32	Sound DSP and output file/pipe debugging
64	Message of the day debugging
    

You may add the values together to enable multiple debugging types (i.e., A value of 3 turns on both General and Device I/O debugging).

Cda supports the following commands:

on
Start the cda daemon.
off
Terminate the cda daemon.
disc <load | eject | prev | next | disc#>
Load or eject the CD, or change discs on a multi-disc changer.
lock <on | off>
Enable/disable the CD disc lock. When locked, the CD cannot be ejected using the CD drive front-panel eject button. You can only change the lock state when a CD is loaded and is not playing.
play [track# [mm:ss]]
Start playback. If the track# is used, the playback starts from the specified track. The optional mm:ss argument specifies the minutes and seconds offset into the track from where to start playback.
pause
Pauses the playback. Use cda play to resume playback.
stop
Stop the plaback.
track <prev | next>
Proceed to the previous or the next track. This command is only valid when playback is already in progress.
index <prev | next>
Proceed to the previous or the next index. This command is only valid when playback is already in progress.
program [clear | save | track# ...]
If no argument is specified, this command displays the current program play sequence, if any. The clear argument will cause the current program to be cleared. The save argument will save the current program, so that a future load of the same CD will automatically get the program sequence. To define a new program, specify a list of track numbers separated by spaces. To start program play, use the play command. You cannot define a new program while shuffle mode is enabled. Entering a program will disengage shuffle mode.
shuffle <on | off>
Enable/disable shuffle play mode. When shuffle is enabled, cda will play the CD tracks in a random order. You can use this command only when audio playback is not in progress. Also, you must clear any program sequence before enabling shuffle.
repeat <on | off>
Enable/disable the repeat mode.
volume [value# | linear | square | invsqr ]
If no argument is specified, this command displays the current audio volume and taper setting. If a value is used, then the audio volume level is set to the specified value. The valid range is 0 to 100. If one of linear, square or invsqr is specified, then the volume control taper is set to the specified curve. This control operates the hardware volume control on the CD drive in standard playback mode, or the computer's audio hardware in cdda-play mode. It has no effect on the data of the cdda-save or cdda-pipe outputs.
balance [value#]
If no argument is specified, this command displays the current balance control setting. If a value is used, then the balance is set to the specified value. The valid range is 0 to 100, where 0 is full left, 50 is center and 100 is full right. This control operates the hardware volume control on the CD drive in standard playback mode, or the computer's audio hardware in cdda-play mode. It has no effect on the data of the cdda-save or cdda-pipe outputs.
route [stereo | reverse | mono-l | mono-r | mono | value#]
If no argument is specified, this command displays the current channel routing setting. Otherwise, to set the routing, use one of the appropriate keywords or a value as follows:

0	Normal stereo
1	Reverse stereo
2	Mono-L
3	Mono-R
4	Mono-L+R
    
outport [speaker | headphone | line-out | value#]
CDDA playback output port selection. The speaker, headphone and line-out keywords are toggles. Alternatively, you may specify a numeric value, as follows:

1	Speaker
2	Headphone
4	Line-out
    

You may add the values together to enable multiple output ports (i.e., A value of 3 turns on both Speaker and Headphones). When the value is set to 0, the port setting is unmodified. If no argument is specified, this command displays the current output port setting. Note that this command may be meaningful only on some platforms, and only certain ports may be available on a particular architecture. See the PLATFORM file for details.

cdda-att [value#]
If no argument is specified, this command displays the current CDDA attenuator setting. If a value is used, then the CDDA attenuator level is set to the specified value. The valid range is 0 to 100. Note that in contrast to the volume command, this setting does not operate any hardware. It works by scaling the CDDA audio samples, and thus has no effect in standard playback mode, but affects all CDDA modes (cdda-play, cdda-save and cdda-pipe).
status [cont [secs#]]
Display the current disc status, disc number, track number, index number, time, modes, and repeat count. If the cont argument is specified, then the display will run continuously until the user types the interrupt character (typically Delete or Ctrl-C). The optional secs sub-argument is the display update time interval. The default is 1 second.
toc [offsets]
Display the CD Table of Contents. The disc artist/title and track titles associated with the current disc, queried from CDDB, is also shown. If the disc has associated notes or credits, an asterisk (*) is displayed after the genre description. Similarly, if a track has associated notes or credits, an asterisk is displayed after the track title.

If the CDDB server cannot determine an exact match for your CD, but found a list of possible matches, then the user will be prompted to select from that list. If batch mode is active (i.e., the -batch option is used), then no such prompt will occur.

If the offsets argument is used, then the track times are the absolute offsets from the start of the CD. Otherwise, the times shown are the track lengths.

extinfo [track#]
Display extended information associated with the current CD, if available from CDDB. If the CD is currently playing, then extended information associated with the playing track is also displayed. If a track number is used in the argument, then the extended information of the specified track is shown instead.
notes [track#]
Display disc notes information text associated with the current CD, if available from CDDB. If the CD is currently playing, then the track notes information associated with the playing track is also displayed. If a track number is used in the argument, then the track notes information text of the specified track is shown instead.
on-load [none | spindown | autoplay | autolock | noautolock]
Display, enable or disable options when a CD is loaded. The spindown option will cause the CD to stop after loading to conserve the laser and motor. The autoplay option will cause the CD to automatically start playing after loading. The autolock option causes the caddy or disc tray to be automatically locked. The none, spindown and autoplay options are mutually-exclusive. If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.
on-exit [none | autostop | autoeject]
Display, enable or disable options when the cda daemon exits. The autostop option will cause cda to stop playback, and the autoeject option will cause cda to eject the CD. Use none to cancel these options. If no argument is used, then te current settings are displayed.
on-done [autoeject | noautoeject | autoexit | noautoexit]
Display, enable or disable options when cda is done with playback. The autoeject option causes the cda daemon to eject the CD. The autoexit option will cause the cda daemon to exit. If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.
on-eject [autoexit | noautoexit]
Display, enable or disable options when cda ejects a CD. The autoexit option will cause the cda daemon to exit after ejecting the CD. If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.
changer [multiplay | nomultiplay | reverse | noreverse]
Display, enable or disable multi-disc changer options. The multiplay option specifies that cda plays all discs in sequence. The nomultiplay option will cause cda to stop after the current disc is done. The reverse option implies multiplay, except that the disc order is reversed. If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.
mode [standard | cdda-play | cdda-save | cdda-pipe]
Selects the playback mode. If no argument is used, then the current setting is displayed. See "PLAYBACK MODES" below for details about the modes. Please note that the cdda modes are toggles. If the current mode is cdda-play, specifying cdda-save will enable both cdda-play and cdda-save modes. Specifying a cdda mode twice will disable that mode. If no cdda mode is active, then the mode will revert to standard. Specifying standard mode will disable all cdda modes.
jittercorr [on | off]
Enables or disables CDDA jitter correction. If no argument is used, then the current setting is displayed.
trackfile [on | off]
For CDDA-save mode, specifies whether a separate file should be created for each CD track. If no argument is used, then the current setting is displayed.
subst [on | off]
For CDDA-save mode, specifies whether space and tab characters in the output file path name should be substituted with underscores ('_'). This makes the files easier to manipulate while using the UNIX command shell. If no argument is used, then the current setting is displayed.
filefmt format
Specifies the output audio file format if running in cdda-save or cdda-pipe modes. The format is one of the following: raw, au, wav, aiff, aiff-c, mp3, ogg, flac, aac or mp4.
outfile ["template"]
Specifies the output audio file path name if running in cdda-save mode. If no argument is used, then the currently defined template is displayed. See the xmcd help file on the output file path template for information about the special tokens that could be used in the template.
pipeprog ["path [arg ...]"]
Specifies the external program to which the audio stream will be piped to when running in cdda-pipe mode. If no argument is used, then the currently defined program is displayed.
compress [<0 | 3> [bitrate#] | <1 | 2> [qual#]]
Selects the compression mode for compressed file formats, as follows:

For MP3, the modes are as follows:

0	Constant bitrate (CBR)
1	Variable bitrate (VBR, old algorithm)
2	Variable bitrate (VBR, new algorithm, faster)
3	Average bit rate (ABR)
    

For Ogg Vorbis and MP4, all modes are VBR, as follows:

0, 3	Use an average bit rate
1, 2	Use a quality factor
    

For FLAC, the modes are as follows:

0	None
1	Enable exhaustive LP coefficient quant. search
2	Enable encoding correctness verification
3	Enable both
    

For AAC, all modes are VBR, as follows:

0	Use an average bit rate, MPEG-2
1	Use a quality factor, MPEG-2
2	Use a quality factor, MPEG-4
3	Use an average bit rate, MPEG-4
    

For modes 0 and 3, an optional bitrate (in kb/s) sub-argument can be specified. The supported bitrates are a discrete set of numbers from 32 to 320. A value of 0 can also be used to indicate the use of an internal default. For modes 1 and 2, an optional quality factor (from 1 to 10) sub-argument can be used. Lower bitrates and quality factor values yield smaller files whereas higher numbers produce higher audio quality. For AAC and MP4 formats, the bitrate you specify will be double the actual bitrate (e.g., if you specify 128kbps, the actual bitrate used will be 64kbps). The bitrate or quality values, if specified, are ignored for the FLAC format. If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.

min-brate [bitrate#]
In average bitrate and variable bitrate modes, this commands lets you specify a low bitrate limit. The encoder will not drop below this limit while dynamically changing the bitrate. A value of 0 can be specified to indicate the use of an internal default. If no argument is used, then the current setting is displayed. This parameter has no effect on the FLAC, AAC or MP4 format.
max-brate [bitrate#]
In average bitrate and variable bitrate modes, this commands lets you specify a high bitrate limit. The encoder will not go above this limit while dynamically changing the bitrate. A value of 0 can be specified to indicate the use of an internal default. If no argument is used, then the current setting is displayed. This parameter has no effect on the FLAC, AAC or MP4 format.
coding [stereo | j-stereo | force-ms | mono | algo#>]fR
This command selects the stereo mode and encoding noise-shaping/psychoacoustics algorithm. If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.

For MP3, the algorithm is a number from 1 to 10. Lower numbers gives faster encoding whereas higher numbers produce higher audio quality.

For AAC and MP4, stereo disables the mid/side coding, j-stereo and force-ms are synonymous, and mono is not supported. An algorithm value of 10 enables temporal noise shaping (TNS).

For FLAC, the stereo modes have no effect, but the algorithm value selects between faster encoding versus slightly better compression.

For Ogg Vorbis, this parameter has no effect.

lowpass [off | auto | freq# [width#]]
This allows a lowpass filter to be added. The off setting means no filter, the auto setting causes the encoder to determine whether a filter should be added and its parameters. Specifying a frequency (and optionally, a width) will enable the filter in manual mode. The frequency and width are both in Hz. The valid frequency range is from 16 to 50000 Hz. For MP3, the filter functions fully as described. For AAC and MP4, the freq can be used to limit the bandwidth, but the width is ignored. For Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, these parameters have no effect. If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.
highpass [off | auto | freq# [width#]]
For encoding to MP3 files, this allows a highpass filter to be added. The off setting means no filter, the auto setting causes the encoder to determine whether a filter should be added and its parameters. Specifying a frequency (and optionally, a width) will enable the filter in manual mode. The frequency and width are both in Hz. The valid frequency range is from 500 to 50000 Hz. The lower limit is imposed by the polyphase filter implementation in the MP3 encoder. For non-MP3 formats, these parameters have no effect. If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.
flags [C|c][O|o][N|n][E|e][I|i]
This allows you to specify some MP3 header and frame flags. The letter c denotes the "copyright" flag, the letter o denotes the "original" flag, the letter n denotes the "no res" (no bit reservoir) flag, the letter e denotes the addition of a 2-byte checksum to each frame for error correction, and the letter i indicates strict ISO compatibility. The use of a upper-case letter turns on the flag, and lower-case turns off the flag. Multiple flags may be specified together. If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.
lameopts [<disable | insert | append | replace> ["options"]]
This command allows you to query or set command line options to be passed directly to the LAME MP3 encoder, and control how those options will be passed. This facilitates the use of advanced or experimental LAME features that cannot otherwise be invoked via the cda command line interface for setting encoding parameters. The following keywords control how the command line options are to be passed:

disable: No additional command line options are to be passed.
insert: The specified options are to be inserted before the standard options.
append: The specified options are to be appended after the standard options.
replace: The specified options are to be used instead of the standard options.

Standard options refers to the LAME command line options that cda generates, based on the current settings (and can be altered by other encoding related cda commands above). If no argument is used, then the current settings are displayed.

tag [off | v1 | v2 | both]
This command specifies whether CD information (such as album and track artists and titles, genre type, etc.) should be added to the CDDA output file. For MP3, the information is added to either the version 1, version 2 or both versions of the ID3 tag areas. For Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and MP4, the information is added to the metadata area.
Note: An ID3v2 tag will not be added to the cdda-pipe MP3 stream regardless of the setting of this command.
device
Displays the CD drive and device information.
version
Displays the cda version and copyright information.
cddbreg
Invoke dialog to register with Gracenote in order to access the CDDB2 service. This command can be used to do the initial registration, as well as to change or update user registration information. This function is not available with the "classic" CDDB service.
cddbhint
Ask Gracenote to send the password hint via e-mail. This is used in case you forget the CDDB user password. The password and password hint are both initially set via the cddbreg command. This function is not available with the "classic" CDDB service.
motd
Retrieve and display messages from the xmcd MOTD server, if any. Note that messages are displayed by the cda daemon rather than the client process. Thus, it will be displayed on the terminal where the daemon was started.
debug [level#]
Show, or set the debug level. If set, verbose debugging diagnostics will be printed on stderr of the terminal that the cda daemon is started from. If this is the same terminal that is running cda in visual mode, the debug information will corrupt the screen. See the description of the -debug option above for supported debug levels.
visual
Enter an interactive, screen-oriented visual mode. Most other cda commands can also be invoked within this mode.

See xmcd(1) for a description of the device configuration requirements.

WARNING: If cda is not correctly configured, you may cause cda to deliver commands that are not supported by your CD drive. Under some environments this may lead to system hang or crash.

Start the cda daemon with the cda on command (or the F1 (o) function in visual mode). This reserves the CD device and initializes the program for further commands. All other cda functions will not work unless the cda daemon is running. The other cda commands should be self explanatory.

The off command (or the F1 (o) function in visual mode) can be used to terminate the cda daemon and release the CD drive for use by other software.

If the cda visual command is used, it enters a screen-oriented visual mode. In this mode, the status and other information available is continuously displayed and updated on the screen, and most functions are available via a single key stroke.

The minimum terminal screen size for the visual mode is 80 columns by 9 rows. If your terminal is made to be smaller than that (for example, an xterm(1) window that has been sized too small), the output will be garbled. For best results, an 80x24 or larger terminal screen should be used.

Visual mode uses the curses screen library to control the screen. It is essential that the TERM environment variable reflect the current terminal type, which ideally should have 8 (or more) function keys. Since function key definitions in terminfo descriptions are often unreliable, alphabetic key alternatives are also available.

The screen is divided into two windows: an information window and a status window. According to context, the information window displays a help screen, device and version information, disc information and table of contents, or extended information about the track. This window is scrollable if it overflows its allotted screen area. The status window consists of the last few lines of the screen, enclosed in a box. The first line contains the program list, or track number and offset together with volume, balance and stereo/mono information. The remaining lines contain the function keys (with their alphabetic synonymns) and the functions they invoke. These functions are highlighted when they are on, making it easy to see the current state.

Screen annotation and online help make operation self explanatory, but for reference, a list of commands follows. Alphabetic key alternatives to function keys are given in parenthesis.

?
Display help screen. Dismiss this screen by pressing the space bar.
F1 (o)
On/Off. Start or stop the cda daemon.
F2 (j)
Load or eject the CD.
F3 (p)
Play, pause or unpause.
F4 (s)
Stop.
F5 (k)
Enable/disable the CD caddy lock. When locked, the CD cannot be ejected using the CD drive front-panel eject button.
F6 (u)
Shuffle/Program. Pressing this key cycles through three states: normal, shuffle and program. In shuffle mode, the tracks of the CD will be played in random order. On entering program mode, cda will prompt for a space or comma separated list of track numbers, representing a desired playing order. The list should be terminated by carriage return. An empty list returns cda to normal mode. Shuffle and program mode cannot be engaged unless a CD is loaded but not playing or paused.
F7 (e)
Enable/disable repeat mode.
F8 (q)
Terminate the visual mode. If the cda daemon is running, a reminder of the fact is given and it is allowed to continue. The CD drive will continue operating in the same state. Cda may be invoked again in either visual or line mode when required.
D/d
Change to the previous/next disc on multi-disc changes.
Cursor left/right (C/c)
Previous/next track. This is only valid if playback is already in progress.
</>
Proceed to the previous/next index mark. This is only valid if playback is already in progress.
Cursor up/down (^/v)
Scroll the information portion of the screen up or down. It may be scrolled up only until the last line is on the top line of the screen, and may not be scrolled down beyond the initial position. The initial scroll position is restored when different information is displayed, (e.g., when switching to or from the help information).
+/-
Increase or decrease volume by 5%.
l/r
Move balance 5% to left or right.
Tab
Successive depressions of this key change the mode from stereo to mono, mono right, mono left, reverse stereo, and back to normal stereo.
<n> [mins secs]
Proceed to track n at mins minutes and secs seconds from the start. If mins secs is not given, start at the beginning of track n.
^l/^r
Control-l or control-r repaints the screen. This is useful if the screen content has been corrupted (e.g., by operator messages sent by the wall(1M) command).

The Gracenote CDDB(R) Music Recognition Service(sm) feature is supported by cda, which allows you to display the disc artists/title, track titles, and other information about the CD or tracks via the toc, extinfo and notes commands of cda. In visual mode, this information is displayed automatically if available. You cannot add, modify or submit CDDB information via cda. For more details about CDDB, see xmcd(1) and the CDDB file that comes with this release.

This release of cda also supports reading the CD-TEXT data from the disc for CD information. Only some recent CDs are produced with CD-TEXT data and this data can only be read on CD drives with CD-TEXT capability.

The priority of the CD information schemes (CDDB, CD-TEXT or local CD database files) is controlled via the cdinfoPath parameter in the common.cfg file.

This release supports the following user-selectable playback modes (via the cda mode command):

standard

When playing an audio CD, the audio output is the analog "line out" connection on the back of your CD drive. There should be an audio cable connecting this output to your computer audio hardware CD input (or to an externally amplfied speaker or stereo system). The audio output is also available at the CD drive's front panel headphone connection, if so equipped. The cda volume command affect the CD drive's built-in volume control, if the drive has such controls. This is the mode that previous releases (cda version 1.x through 3.0) supported.

cdda-play

When playing a CD in this mode, cda extracts the CD digital audio data off the CD drive over the data cable (e.g., SCSI or ATAPI/IDE). Then, it sends the data to the DSP (digital signal processor) device in your computer's audio hardware for real-time playback. The audio is typically heard through the computer's built-in speakers. No signal is produced at the line-out or headphone connections of the CD drive. The cda volume command affects the computer's DSP device.

cdda-save

When playing a CD in this mode, cda extracts the CD digital audio data off the CD drive over the data cable (e.g., SCSI or ATAPI/IDE). Then, it writes the data into a file of your choosing. The cda volume command does not affect the data written to the output file. The output file format can be selected to be one of the following:

Format Ext   Description
------ ----- ---------------------------------------
RAW    .raw  Little-endian, 16 bit, 44.1 kHz, stereo
AU     .au   Big-endian, 16 bit, 44.1 kHz, stereo
WAV    .wav  Little-endian, 16 bit, 44.1 kHz, stereo
AIFF   .aiff Big-endian, 16 bit, 44.1 kHz, stereo
AIFF-C .aifc Big-endian, 16 bit, 44.1 kHz, stereo
MP3    .mp3  MPEG 1.0 Layer III compressed
OGG    .ogg  Ogg Vorbis compressed
FLAC   .flac Free Lossless Audio CODEC compressed
AAC    .aac  AAC (MPEG-2 or MPEG-4) compressed
MP4    .mp4  MP4 (MPEG-4) compressed
    

The file can be played later using an appropriate playback utility, or converted to another format. This mode will typically run faster than real-time with the non-compressed formats. With the compressed formats, it depends on the CPU performance of your system.

cdda-pipe

When playing a CD in this mode, cda extracts the CD digital audio data off the CD drive over the data cable (e.g., SCSI or ATAPI/IDE). Then, it pipes the data stream to an external program that you specify. The output format is selected as in the CDDA save to file mode. This mode can be used with an external audio player, encoder, or other digital audio manipulation program. The external program must be capable of accepting audio data on its standard input, in one of the formats listed above.

More than one of the three CDDA modes can be selected at the same time. For example, if both the cdda-play and the cdda-save modes are enabled, the two functions will be performed simultaneously. Note that on most systems, only one program can access the system's DSP at a time, therefore you will likely not be able to select cdda-play and cdda-pipe at the same time, where the external program is itself an audio player.

NOTE: The CDDA (CD digital audio) modes will function only on CD drives that provides this capability, and only on some OS and hardware platforms. See the RELNOTES file for details about platform support and other CDDA related notes.

The "classic" CDDB service supplies data in the ISO Latin-1 format only, multi-byte characters are not supported.

The CDDB2 service supplies data in UTF-8 data format, which is identical to US-ASCII for single-byte characters. Multi-byte UTF-8 characters are also supported. By default, cda will translate the characters to ISO Latin-1 (ISO 8859-1, for English and many European character sets). By changing the setting of the charsetConvMode parameter in the common.cfg file, you can have cda display the UTF-8 data without conversion (good for US-ASCII or if you are using UTF-8 fonts), or attempt to convert UTF-8 strings to the default character set as specified by the LANG environment variable. This conversion will occur only if the system's list of locales also support UTF-8.

If you desire to view CDDB data in languages other than English or the ISO Latin-1 European character set, you may need to configure your display terminal to display the appropriate fonts (if the terminal has such capabilities). Terminal font configuration is device-dependent, OS-dependent and beyond the scope of this document. Please see your display terminal's documentation (or in the case of a computer graphics console, the operating system's console font related documentation for information.

Non-CDDB text (such as headings, labels and error messages) are not localized in cda.

Not all platforms and CD drives support all the features of cda. For example, some drives do not support a software-driven volume control. On these drives the cda volume and balance commands may have no effect, or may simply change the volume between full mute and maximum. Similarly, the lock, disc, index, and route commands of cda may not have any effect on drives that do not support the appropriate functionality.

The lame(1) MP3 encoder program must be installed on your system in order for cda to perform CD ripping to MP3 format files. Similarly, the faac(1) encoder program must be installed on your system for the AAC and MP4 formats.

Your copy of the cda executable must be compiled and linked with the Ogg Vorbis and FLAC encoder libraries in order to perform CD ripping to these formats. See the INSTALL file for details.

The LANG environment variable sets the default character set. See "LOCALIZATION" above.

The LAME_PATH environment variable may be used to specify the path to the lame(1) MP3 encoder program.

The FAAC_PATH environment variable may be used to specify the path to the faac(1) AAC/MP4 encoder program.

The AUDIODEV environment variable may be used to specify an alternate audio device when running cda in the cdda-play mode. The default audio device is write method dependent as follows:


AIX write method:	/dev/paud0/1	(PCI audio)
AIX write method:	/dev/baud0/1	(MCA audio)
ALSA write method:	plughw:0,0
HP-UX write method:	/dev/audio
Linux/OSS write method:	/dev/dsp
OSF1 write method:	0
Solaris write method:	/dev/audio

In addition, with the OSS and ALSA write methods, the MIXERDEV environment variable may be used to specify the PCM mixer channel device. The default is /dev/mixer for OSS, and default for ALSA.

On FreeBSD with ATAPI CD drives, cda will automatically use either the CDIOCREADAUDIO ioctl or the pread(2) system call for CDDA reads, based on the running kernel version. You may override the default by setting the environment variable CDDA_USE_PREAD to 0 or 1, respectively. Normally this is not necessary.

$HOME/.cddb2/∗
$HOME/.xmcdcfg/∗
XMCDLIB/cdinfo/∗
XMCDLIB/config/config.sh
XMCDLIB/config/common.cfg
XMCDLIB/config/device.cfg
XMCDLIB/config/.tbl/∗
XMCDLIB/config/∗
XMCDLIB/help/∗
BINDIR/cda
MANDIR/cda.1
/tmp/.cdaudio/∗

Xmcd/cda web site: http://www.amb.org/xmcd/
Gracenote web site: http://www.cddb.com/
Xmmix web site: http://www.amb.org/xmmix/
LAME MP3 encoder: http://www.mp3dev.org/
Ogg Vorbis: http://www.xiph.org/ogg/vorbis/
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio CODEC): http://flac.sourceforge.net/
FAAC (AAC/MP4 encoder): http://www.audiocoding.com/
Hydrogen Audio (discussion forums): http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/
Sox audio format conversion utility: http://www.spies.com/Sox/

xmcd(1), xmmix(1), X(1), lame(1), faac(1), sox(1)
Xmcd's README, PLATFORM, DRIVES, INSTALL and RELNOTES files

Ti Kan (xmcd@amb.org)
AMB Laboratories, Sunnyvale, CA, U.S.A.
Cda also contains code contributed by several dedicated individuals. See the ACKS file in the cda distribution for information.
Comments, suggestions, and bug reports are always welcome.
04/04/21 v3.3.2

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