Sound files in PSone CD

[MegaTuga]

Probably this isn't thread-worthy, but I noticed that the CD has sound files, two to be exact, they don't play a thing in the playstation 2 I own, but in the radio it's a different story, it's mainly static though so I don't know what it is about.

Maybe I'm imagining things because I never had a PSone game in my hands before this one and probably they all have sound files that can be heard in CD players and such.

By the way it's an European PAL CD, if that is anythign relevant to this case.

PS: My first thought was it was one of the featured themes for the game, but they were only possible to hear in the original version (AKA the japanese version)

[SketchMan3]

I've had quite a few PSOne games with CD tracks. Megaman 8, Rocket Power, 2 Xtreme (which was AWESOME!), Small Soldiers...

The first track is usually blank (I assume that's the data for the game), and the music usually starts on track 2. But sometimes it will have multiple tracks that don't play anything.

[HF]

"Cut No.1 contains computer data, so please don't play it. But you probably won't listen to me anyway, will you?"

[MegaTuga]

Well... I know I probably shouldn't have played it but curiosity killed the cat no? XD

The game still works fine so I'm not worried. I just wanted to know if anybody else had noticed this.

[Trege]

"Cut No.1 contains computer data, so please don't play it. But you probably won't listen to me anyway, will you?"

Your disc probably wouldn't be hurt by that anyways, that line is an old joke in Castlevania Symphony of the night if I recall, after that line the disc plays some crazy song remix of multiple tracks.

Some games like Tomb Raider I think actually let you play all of the music and some voice clips I'm not entirely sure though, legends doesn't.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF2htc3XDaw Thats the hidden bonus track on castlevania.

[blayze16]

The early mixes of DanceDanceRevolution (1st and 2nd) have that too. All songs can be played on a cd player.

Potentially edgy example. In a rom download site, some PSX games (Rockman dash and 8, for example) I got have multiple .bin files (which are named track 2 and so). I don't know if that indicates playable audio tracks.

[SketchMan3]

my Megaman 8 disk has that cool credits theme as track 2 on the disk. That's been in constant rotation on my music devices since I got it so many years ago, lol. I even recorded it to a cassette tape.

[Chiz]

on early disc-based systems, like the PS1, there were 2 ways to store audio. You could store it as data, like an .xa file, or you could take advantage of the fact that the game was on a CD, and use 'Redbook audio', or CD-Audio like a music disc might use. The benefit of not using data is that, in the mid-90s, CD-Audio offered a lot more quality than data audio formats could compete with. After all, this was still a time when most companies used midi-esque music.

Now, since games that took advantage of the 2nd option were partially, in effect, audio discs, they could be played on standard disc players. Unfortunately they were only partially audio discs, and as such only partially compatible with players; the Redbook standard does not have any allowance for data portions on the disc, so old disc players (usually made before burners were common) that did not take into account the fact there might be non-standard parts of the disc will try to deal with them in the only way they know - play 'em like audio. This results in screetching and static, that may be painful to hear, ruin speakers, and traumatize pets and small children.

This was usually combatted with an CD audio track that plays before anything else, either with complete silence or a short message saying that the game was not, in fact, suppose to be played on a CD player. This would be followed by the data track, and then any proper audio tracks meant for the game.

Megaman Legends was a game that used data audio, .xa format, so it does not have anything that can be played on a CD player. However, it does have a roughly 4 minutes CD audio silence before the data track, for the purposes of dissuading listeners. This 4 minute's silence is only otherwise useful for sparking conversations about the Backstreet Boys.

Nowadays, most* CD players are smart enough not to play data tracks, or skip anything that is not proper audio. As such, modern listeners will get the silence, or the warning, and then immediately jump into the game's soundtrack (if available) without being at risk of hearing damage.

* - Unfortunately, not all CD players will skip it, even still, and some will outright choke on a disc with data content. This is partly why copy protection on CD-audio failed so badly - not every disc player can play a copy-protected disc, because the copy protection is technically a data section meant for computers (although it's usually positioned at the very end).

These techniques largely don't occur anymore because 1) all DVD players and newer are smart enough to recognize when portions of the disc are out of their league, and 2) the DVD-Audio format (yes, it exists, and no, it's not popular) offers nothing over other, easier-to-license-and-implement formats like MP3 or OGG or an in-house solution.

[SketchMan3]

Lol, read through the thread. That was fun. I once put my "Boards and Blades 2" disc into my computer and turned on Windows Media Player, and it assigned the album info of a gospel rap group called "Grits" to the CD. Given that the soundtrack of the game was hip-hop, I was like "WoW! I didn't know Grits made the soundtrack to this game!"

That was funny.