Request: Support Playback – CD Track “INDEX” points.

[Andrew ACTON]

Greetings Tiki,

The CD ‘Red Book’ standard defines ‘INDEX’ points within each CD TRACK. INDEX points allow the listener to ‘skip’ forward or backwards within a track to a pre-defined point in time.  INDEX points were mainly used for ‘classical’ music CDs (which sometimes have very long track duration).  Many (early) physical CD players had Prev/Next “INDEX” buttons in addition to normal Prev/Next “TRACK” buttons.

Today we copy (rip) our CDs to PC files and playback with the best playback software: TuneBrowser 🙂 .

However!  The INDEX points are preserved in the CUE file (if generated) when the original CD was ripped.  In fact, every track has at least 1 INDEX point (where the track starts) called “INDEX 01”

 

EXAMPLES:

(1) A normal CD track – no additional INDEX points – (Track 1 begins at INDEX 01 00:00:00).

FILE “Frédéric Chopin\Walzer No.1-14 (Claudio Arrau) [Philips 400 025-2]\(01) Walzer Nr.1 Es-Dur op.18 ‘Grande Valse Brillante’.wav” WAVE

TRACK 01 AUDIO

TITLE “Walzer Nr.1 Es-Dur op.18 ‘Grande Valse Brillante'”

PERFORMER “Frédéric Chopin”

REM COMPOSER “”

ISRC NLF057900060

PREGAP 00:00:32

INDEX 01 00:00:00

 

(2) A Track, with additional INDEX points – Pressing PREV/NEXT “INDEX” button will go to the INDEX points at HH:MM:ff defined:

INDEX 01 00:00:00

INDEX 02 04:31:37

INDEX 03 07:00:25

INDEX 04 11:49:62

INDEX 05 20:16:00

INDEX 06 25:44:17

INDEX 07 30:35:55

INDEX 08 35:10:20

INDEX 09 42:15:62 

 

(3) CD cover (back) showing a CD with 2 TRACKS and 15 ! INDEX points for TRACK 2.

Image of Telarc CD attached:

 

REQUEST:

Could TuneBrowser be enhanced to support Track INDEX points (i.e 02,03,04, etc) from the CUE file (if found)?

Perhaps there could be an INDICATOR “INDX” (like the current “EMPH” indicator for pre-emphasis) to show the presence of ADDITIONAL index points (i.e INDEX 02,03… etc) for the current track.  When detected the “PREV” and “NEXT” track buttons would jump to the “PREV” and “NEXT” INDEX point.

 

As far as I know, nobody has implemented PC software support for track INDEX playback.   Perhaps TuneBrowser could be the first?

What do you think?

Andrew

Attachments:

1. 

[Tiki]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for using continuously TuneBrowser. (^^)

I also have a multiple INDEX CD. It is an early version of Glenn Gould’s Goldberg Variations (1981), which has only one track and 32 additional INDEXes. But this CD is very old and I have already bought a new CD and usually listen to the ripped version of the new CD.

Of course there are people who still listen to these old CDs, but I think that many of them have switched to the newer material like me.

So, I think the need for multiple INDEXes is small…

(I’ve got a help of DeepL to make my words to English at this time)

[Andrew ACTON]

Hi Tiki,

Thanks for your analysis, and yes you are certainly correct…INDEX points are rarely used today.

We shall leave this feature ‘in the past’  🙂

Please feel free to close this topic, and again thanks for reading my suggestion and prompt reply.

P.S the DeepL translation seems to very good.

Cheers, Andrew

 

 

[Tiki]

Hi,

Thank you for your understanding.(^^)

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