Exact Audio Copy (EAC) is a
CD ripping program for Microsoft Windows. The program has been developed by Andre Wiethoff since 1998. Wiethoff's motivation for creating the program was that other such software only performed
jitter
In electronics and telecommunications, jitter is the deviation from true periodicity of a presumably periodic signal, often in relation to a reference clock signal. In clock recovery applications it is called timing jitter. Jitter is a signifi ...
correction while scratched CDs often produced distortion.
Overview
Exact Audio Copy is
proprietary freeware, free for
non-commercial
A non-commercial (also spelled noncommercial) activity is an activity that is not carried out in the interest of Profit (economics), profit. The opposite is Commerce, commercial, something that primarily serves profit interests and is focused on bu ...
use. It is written for
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
. It has also been tested to work under newer versions of
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...
on
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
.
EAC is used to convert the tracks on standard audio CDs to
WAV files, which can then be transcoded into other formats. These include
lossy
In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...
ones such as MP3,
AAC,
Ogg Vorbis
Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder (codec) for lossy audio compression, libvorbis. Vorbis is most common ...
, or lossless ones such as
ALAC,
FLAC
FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference software ...
, or
WavPack
WavPack is a free and open-source lossless audio compression format and application implementing the format. It is unique in the way that it supports hybrid audio compression alongside normal compression which is similar to how FLAC works. ...
using external encoders. It also has the option of using the Windows Audio Compression Manager (ACM Codecs) for direct compression. It supports AccurateRip, which automatically compares the copy with rips made by others, and can automatically create
cue sheets, with all gaps, track attributes,
ISRC
The International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) is an international standard code for uniquely identifying sound recordings and music video recordings. The code was developed by the recording industry in conjunction with the ISO technical committ ...
, and
CD-Text included. EAC also supports automatic
ID3 tagging using Internet-based databases such as
freedb
Freedb was a database of User-generated content, user-submitted compact disc track listings, where all the content was under the GNU General Public License. To look up CD information over the Internet, a client program calculated a hash function fr ...
, GD3 (see below), or a local database.
If there are uncorrectable errors the software reports the error location.
EAC is popular among
audiophile
An audiophile (from + ) is a person who is enthusiastic about high-fidelity sound reproduction. The audiophile seeks to achieve high sound quality in the audio reproduction of recorded music, typically in a quiet listening space in a room with ...
s for its accuracy and ability to rip slightly damaged audio compact discs.
A licensed version of Exact Audio Copy called ''Rockstar Custom Tracks'' was released by
Rockstar Games in collaboration with Andre Wiethoff for use on the
PlayStation Portable release of ''
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories'' and ''
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories''.
History
The program was created by Andre Wiethoff in 1998, while he was a student at the
University of Dortmund in Germany. Wiethoff stated that he became "fed up with other audio grabbers" that only do
jitter
In electronics and telecommunications, jitter is the deviation from true periodicity of a presumably periodic signal, often in relation to a reference clock signal. In clock recovery applications it is called timing jitter. Jitter is a signifi ...
correction while scratched CDs often produce distortions, and decided to develop his own.
In release 1.0b1, EAC supported the downloading of CD cover art, and in b2, an option was added to have the ID3 information, such as artist, CD title, track names, and cover art downloaded automatically from the GD3 database. Release 1.0b1 removed support for
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...
and older versions of Windows.
Version 1.1 was released in 2015. Version 1.2, released in 2016, provided mainly bug fixes for the
cdrdao component and updated the cover search in the freedb++ plugin.
Version 1.3 was a
hotfix released soon after version 1.2.
Version 1.4 was released in 2020 with version 1.5 released soon after as a hotfix.
See also
*
Ripping
References
External links
* {{official website, www.exactaudiocopy.de
Windows-only freeware
Windows CD ripping software
1998 software