Burning & Conversion Questions...

[funktilious]

I recently obtained several different dreamcast images. Some were in the simple & straightforward .cli and some were in the simple and straightforward .cue & .bin format; however, some of the images also came with "unpack.exe" (which I'm aware simply extracts to music track files). I have no intention of ever playing these on the actual dreamcast - I simply plan on emulating them via Chankast when and if that is possible.

Question A: Because I have OCD I want to have all of my images as either .cli or .nrg (Nero format) instead of the cumbersome .bin/.cue. When I "burn" the image of the .cli or .bin/.cue file to .nrg via Nero burner do I have to "inject" (as most online faqs seem to indicate) the music files or do the .cli and .bin/.cue files already have the music tracks correctly incorporated included. For example: I recently "burned" one of the .bin/.cue files to .nrg files via Nero; afterwards, I mounted the .nrg image with Alcohol and surprisingly Itunes recognized and played the cd music tracks correctly... I never "injected" the music tracks into the .bin/.cue.

Question B: What is the purpose of the "Unpack.exe" if the .bin/.cue file already have the music tracks incorporated.

Question C: If you are supposed to incorporate the music tracks in the .cli and .bin/.cue files via Nero, how do you do so with Nero 7? There is no option for incorporating music tracks and the .bin/.cue files at the same time (or at least none that I noticed).

Question D: I noticed that all forums mention only daemon tools, not alcohol... is that because of the .cli file support? Couldn't this be bypassed by simply converting the .cli to another format like .nrg or .iso?
Finally, to whoever has actually read the entirety of my long post and will take the time and energy to respond, thanks.

 

[funktilious]

Since nobody has responded, I thought it might be best to summarize my rather long post in hopes someone will respond to a shorter posting...

(1) Can we use alcohol instead of daemon for virtual drives?

(2) Can we just mount the image even if the image came with a unpack/inject file or do we first have to unpack/inject & then reburn the image before mounting the image to a cirtual drive?

(3) What is the point of unpack/inkject with .cli & bin/cue files since they already have the tracks embedded in the image? Is this no longer relevant with emulators?

 

[Agozer]

1) I don't see why you couldn't.
2) Try the former first, then the latter. I would use "recreate" rather than "reburn" though, unless you are really burning the images to CDs.
3) Not all games have embedded music to my understanding. I could be wrong though

 

[vashts2005]

Unpack.exe is a way of compressing the audio for bandwith purposes, the release groups came up with that one.

If you have a .cdi file (Discjuggler format), then unpack/inject the audio before you mount it (unless you don't want background music, you'll have sound effects, but no music).

If you have a .bin/.cue, unpack the files in the same directory as the bin/cue. The cue file should be set properly to read the .wav or .mp3 files and will load them when you load the cue file with whatever you use (be it a burning program or a virtual drive).

What is this .cli file you speak of, never heard of that extension before for Dreamcast games?