User Manual

WAVELAB
Burning an audio CD 21 – 579
But frames aren’t the smallest block of data on a CD. There is also some-
thing called “small frames”. A small frame is a container of 588 bits. 98
small frames together make up one regular frame. In each small frame
there is actually only room for six stereo samples, which means that a lot
of space is left for data other than the actual audio. There is information
for encoding, laser synchronization, error correction and the PQ data (so
called because it is stored in the “P” and “Q” bits). This PQ data is of ma-
jor importance to anyone who wants to create their own CD, so please let
us explain it in further detail.
PQ codes and WaveLab's solution to handling them
The PQ codes convey information about track start, sub-indexes and
pauses, as described above. They also contain the timing information
(minutes, seconds, frames). To fit all this information in, a block of PQ in-
formation is spread out over 98 small frames.
Specifying PQ codes is not complex. However, when creating a CD there
are a number of rules you must take into account. For example, there
should be some silent frames before each track, sub-indexes should be
slightly early, there should be pauses at the beginning and end of the en-
tire CD, etc.
When creating CDs from an Audio Montage, these rules and settings are
handled by the CD Wizard. In a basic audio CD, they are collected in the
“Advanced Settings” dialog on the CD menu. If you don't change these
settings, you will get default values that ensure your CD will work prop-
erly. On the other hand, when the situation so requires, you can adjust
them. We recommend you leave these settings as they are, unless you
are completely sure of what you are doing.
ISRC codes
In addition to the basic PQ codes, there is something called “International
Standard Recording Code”, identification that is only used on CDs in-
tended for commercial distribution. WaveLab allows you to specify an
ISRC code for each audio track.
The ISRC code is structured as follows:
• Country Code (2 ASCII characters).
• Owner Code (3 ASCII characters or digits).
• Recording Year (2 digits or ASCII characters).
• Serial Number (5 digits or ASCII characters).