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Extraction & Tools
This chapter describes those Zulu2 functions that cannot be considered actions. These functions do
not record, they do not appear in the Action List, nor do they use the same interface as an action.
This is a collection of tools for disc extraction or for other purposes.
Rip Audio
The Rip Audio function works outside of the DX-2 Disc Publisher system. Drives inside the DX-2 Disc
Publisher system are not used with this Action.
When the disc in the drive becomes ready, its content is shown in the window. When an audio track is
detected, a checkbox is put in front of it; check the box to indicate that you want to rip that track.
Audio tracks are contained in Audio CDs, in CD Extra discs (all are audio tracks but the last, which is
a data track), in old-style Mixed mode discs (all are audio tracks but the first, which is a data track)
and on some other disc types, like Portfolio Photo CD and some games, where you find audio tracks
at the end of the discs containing narration or background music.
The Zulu2 Rip Audio function features a small but efficient Track Player that you can use to quickly
recognize and select the appropriate tracks.
File Naming
Naming the extracted files can be very tedious but very important if you want to give some
consistency to your collection of digital music.
There are many naming formats currently in use. Zulu2 tries to help you in creating files that do not
need to be immediately renamed. You can select among different naming formats in the Edit menu,
and in the Target file field of the Rip Audio window you can verify how the files that you extract will be
named.
By default, the name is composed of the Album Title plus the track titles. If the disc has CD Text, as
do many recent Audio CDs, the CD Text information will be put in the list and in the Album Title. If
not, you can enter the Artist and Title of each track with the Track menu, or by double-clicking on the
appropriate list column. The Artist and Title information are also inserted in the audio file into the
appropriate fields, so you will see them displayed (regardless of the filename) while you are playing
those files with the Media Player.
If you need to put the same Artist name to all the tracks, you can multiple-select and enter the Artist
just once.
Because entering all the titles can take some time and effort, you can save them on text files to be
used at a later time, using the File menu.
Digital Audio Format
If you do not have Microsoft Windows Media 9 run-time support installed, you will be able to extract
only in the standard Wave format, which is the 44KHx, 16 bit stereo PCM format used by Audio CD.
You will not have any quality loss but, the file dimension is considerable.
Windows Media 9 represents the latest Microsoft multimedia technology, with enhancements in
compression and WMA sound quality. It guarantees encoding in many different WMA formats, from
phone low-quality high-compression to professional quality up to 500Kbit per second. You can select
the WMA codec and the format in 2 controls inside the window.
Please note that Zulu2 does not rip in MP3 format. The reason is twofold; first, MP3 involves
expensive licensing fees for the user, and second, today's WMA technology has greatly surpassed
the MP3 formats in sound quality. You will find that most of today's players, consumer devices or
other, are compatible with both MP3 and WMA formats.
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