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What is it

CBAE (Cue Bin Audio Encoder) is a CLI tool that can encode the audio tracks of a CD image with the cue/bin format into OPUS, FLAC, VORBIS or MP3. The new CD Image can then be used in software that supports loading .cue files with encoded audio tracks (mostly emulators like DosBox).

It does a few things more than just convert audio files from one format to another

  • It can work with single .bin files that contain the entire CD
  • It generates a new .cue file with correct properties
  • It does it fast as the encoding tasks run in parallel

Example

CBAE running

Take the original release of "Quake (1996)", a single CD Image, including ten (10) CD-DA Tracks. Here is a size comparison between the raw image and encoded audio .cue/.bin images.

Audio Audio Tracks Data Tracks Total Size
CD-DA 595MB 28MB 623MB
FLAC 255MB 28MB 283MB
OPUS 64Kbps 26MB 28MB 55MB

The OPUS codec produces very nice audio quality even at low bitrates. The encoded Quake CD got a reduction down to 9% of the original raw CD size.

Getting and Running

CBAE is a nodejs script. It is a single file and has no external dependencies other than FFmpeg. You can download the script from here or from npm.

  • From NPM.
# Download and install globally
npm i cbae --location=global
# Run
cbae
  • Or download manually from github
# Clone the git to a dir of your choice
git clone https://github.com/john32b/cbae --depth 1
# Run
cd cbae/bin
node cbae

In Short, you need:

  • NodeJS, version 16+
  • FFmpeg, set on your PATH (So it can run from anywhere by calling ffmpeg)
  • Some basic command line knowledge is a plus

TIP: For Windows the easiest way to get FFmpeg on path, is to copy ffmpeg.exe in your Windows dir (usually C:\Windows)

Running

Quick Examples

# Encode all .cue cd images from H:\DOS\cdimages into b:\encoded\
# and convert audio tracks to FLAC
cbae H:/DOS/cdimages/*.cue -o b:/encoded -enc FLAC

# Encode TombRaider2.cue into the current working directory
# convert audio to Vorbis 128KBPS, using 12 parallel tasks
cbae TombRaider2.cue -o . -enc VORBIS:128 -p 12

# Print information for all cue files in current dir
cbae i *.cue

For HELP and USAGE call cbae -help

INPUT. A valid .cue file, full path or relative path. Supports multiple inputs.

  • In Linux you can do file globbing, /home/janko/iso/**/*.cue
  • In Windows basic file globbing is supported, c:\games\cd\*.cue
  • For multiple inputs separate with space, game1.cue game2.cue ...

OUTPUT. A directory where the new folders will be created. Full or relative path.

  • Set with -o . e.g. cbae quake.cue -o /tmp/ ... -- Will create /tmp/quake [e]/
  • Newly created folders come with the postfix [e], for Encoded
  • If you give =src then the output folder will be created on the base directory of the input .cue file.

ACTION e Encode, (default) The main thing, takes .cue files and encodes the audio tracks to a codec of your choice* (more later). Generates a new .cue file and puts all the new files in a new folder under the declared output

  • This is the default action meaning, you can skip declaring it. e.g. cbae e input.cue ... is the same as cbae input.cue ...
  • Example : cbae ~/iso/TR3.cue -o =src -enc VORBIS:96 --> Will encode TR3.cue using Vorbis 96kbps and will put everything in ~/iso/TR3 [e]

ACTION i Info. With this you can view some information on a .cue/.bin cd image

OPTION -p sets the maximum number of concurrent encodes that can run. It gets a default value of 3/4 the threads of your system.

OPTION -enc sets encoder and bitrate, given in a single parameter in the format codec:kbps

  • e.g. cbae .... -enc OPUS:80 -> will use OPUS codec at 80KBPS
  • e.g. cbae .... -enc FLAC -> will use FLAC. Notice that it doesn't require the :KBPS part

Here is a list of codecs supported, along with the valid range of kbps.

Codec ID Min Kbps Max Kbps
MP3 32 320
MP3V* 44 256
OPUS 28 500
VORBIS 64 500
FLAC - -

*: MP3 is constant bitrate, while MP3V is variable bitrate.

Notes:

  • If a CD Image does not include any audio tracks then it will be skipped.
  • On multiple file input, if a file fails, cbae will continue to the next file in queue.
  • Press CTRL+C to exit the program at any time.
  • TIP: Do not use MP3 if other codecs are supported in your software. They are there to satisfy some edge cases, like that old KEGA Fusion emulator that only supports MP3 CD images.

Realtime speed of converting two CDs with a bunch of audio tracks to FLAC

Flac Demo

Um, what does CBAE do exactly?

CBAE takes a .cue/.bin file combo, copies the data tracks as they are, and uses FFmpeg to encode the audio tracks into separate files. Finally it produces a new .cue file and puts everything into a new folder.

Visual Example a picture is worth a thousand words

A new .cue file is generated and it makes the tracks point to the new encoded audio files.

FILE "QUAKE 1 (1996) - Track 01.bin" BINARY
	TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
	INDEX 01 00:00:00
FILE "QUAKE 1 (1996) - Track 02.opus" OPUS
	TRACK 02 AUDIO
	INDEX 01 00:00:00
	...
	...
FILE "QUAKE 1 (1996) - Track 11.opus" OPUS
	TRACK 11 AUDIO
	INDEX 01 00:00:00

Software/Emulators that support .cue files with encoded audio files

MORE

What about CHD ?

CHD is an entirely different thing and from what I understand CHD can only include lossless audio plus not all programs/emulators support it.

Wait, what about CDCRUSH ?

This older project of mine CDCRUSH has the functionality to encode audio tracks of a CD. But cdcrush is kinda dead now. It tried to do many things at once, and its main feature to highly compress a cd image into cold storage is (I think) deprecated by other archivers that allow the archives to be mounted. Perhaps not in the same compression ratios as cdcrush offered, but nonetheless ready to be accessed. Things like squashFS and dwarFS among others, they provide very good compression ratios, so for me, it makes sense to keep CD images in a compressed format that are ready to be mounted and played.

Then why not update the cdcrush code? I don't like the code, some parts are messy and others bloated, so I thought it would be better to do fresh start using pure JS (cdcrush was written in Haxe) while only implementing the useful stuff, which is audio encode a CD. In other words cdcrush is deprecated.

Made by me, John32B under the ISC license (See license.txt)