TAO and DAO

I'm curious...and this knowledge could prove usefull. What does it mean when you burn something track at once vs. disk at once?
 
Track-at-once means that the drive stops burning after each track. There's a 2-second gap between tracks when using this method.

Disc-at-once means that the entire disc is recorded in one go.

There's also session-at-once, which is like DAO except that it stops after each session. AFAIK there is no practical difference between SAO and DAO for single-session discs.
 
Quote: from ExCyber on 4:37 am on Mar. 19, 2002

Track-at-once means that the drive stops burning after each track. There's a 2-second gap between tracks when using this method.

Is the end result the same as using POSTGAP 00:02:00/PREGAP 00:02:00 in your cue sheet?
 
"Is the end result the same as using POSTGAP 00:02:00/PREGAP 00:02:00 in your cue sheet?"

I thought that would be logical, but apparantly not. Working Designs titles on Sega CD (Lunar) just dont work unless you burn 'em TAO.. Others wont work unless you burn 'em DAO..

Some dont work at all no matter whatcha do :) At least not the ISO/MP3s I got.. (Road Rash, Wonder Dog, some others)

Odd thing is, comparing the 2 burns (DAO and TAO of the same title) with sector viewer in CDRWIN doesnt show any differences... ? It must have something to do with the disc being finalized and the way the TOC is written..
 
So if I have a single bin file, but in the cuesheet there are 3 or 4 (sometimes more) tracks listed, am I supposed to burn DAO since it's all in the same .bin file, or TAO since there are multiple tracks in the cuesheet?
 
Looks like I wasn't entirely correct. From the CD-R FAQ:

Because the laser is turned off and on for every track, the recorder leaves a couple of blocks between tracks, called run-out and run-in blocks. If done correctly, the blocks will be silent and usually unnoticeable. CDs with tracks that run together will have a barely noticeable "hiccup". Some combinations of software and hardware may leave junk in the gap, resulting in a slight but annoying click between tracks. Some drives and/or software packages may not let you control the size of the gap between audio tracks when recording in track-at-once mode, leaving you with 2-second gaps even if the original didn't have them.

Long story short: SAO/DAO is probably better unless you have some particular reason to need TAO.
 
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