I am lost how to deal with my Cactus protected discs

[matura713]

just to add another not working drive to the list:

* LiteOn DH-20A3P

[scsi_wuzzy]

just to add another not working drive to the list:

* LiteOn DH-20A3P

After seeing what a struggle CDS can be, I kinda wish I had some CDS protected discs to do my own experiments on. However, I've almost completed ripping my audio CD collection, and I haven't found one yet. Most of my discs are North American releases, and I think that's why I've unwittingly avoided CDS. From reading about it, it sounds like it was more common in Europe compared to the Americas or Asia.

Do you know if there's a comprehensive list of CDS discs anywhere? MusicBrainz has about a handful of discs tagged as "Cactus Data Shield" (~8 discs), but there are obviously many more than that. That was the most extensive list I found in my searches so far, though.

[matura713]

Most of my discs are North American releases, and I think that's why I've unwittingly avoided CDS. From reading about it, it sounds like it was more common in Europe compared to the Americas or Asia.

yes, indeed, and in Asia, more specifically Japan, they used some special "builds" of Cactus. however, in Europe, a lot of discs released in Germany and especially in the UK use it, that applies for CDs in the period 2001 to 2004.

Do you know if there's a comprehensive list of CDS discs anywhere

I don't know any available lists, but such discs have the Cactus logo on the back cover. In any way, it's a lot more than 8 discs. I've just check that site MusicBrainz and I noticed they seems to use the term "Enhanced CD" for some Cactus titles I know. So, that seems like a code word.

[matura713]

Bad news - chances for a possibility of 'DiscImageCreator' dumps for Cactus CDs are getting slimmer and slimmer.

So, finally, I found cheap PX-708A and got it - that one contrary to my previous cheap buys of PX-712A and PX-716A is with working laser on CDs - it also has its original laser, i.e. warranty seals is unbroken. Unfortunately, It fails miserably on Cactus:

* PX-708A : really struggles, speed goes down to under 1X, i.e. 0.8X-0.9X, at the end it fails to even rip my test track (if i recall correctly "lost sync" or something like that was the exact EAC error in such case). Performance reminds that of Asus BW-16D1HT, which goes to even slower speeds...

I read in other forum that Laser OPU from PX-708A is compatible with PX-712A and now I personally confirmed that - I took the laser from that PX-708A unit and installed it in my PX-712A unit with broken laser - it immediately came back to live, in fact PX-708A laser in PX-712A is beneficial, because the performance on Cactus CDs of PX-712A (even with PX-708A laser) is much better than PX-708A itself. That shows the laser is not of primary importance. So, to put  PX-712A Cactus performance in few lines:

* PX-712A : it doesn't struggle, reads the tracks with speed 2 to 4 times faster than PX-708A and basically reaches the speed of NEC ND-3530A, but unfortunately all the track hashes are totally wrong, i.e. it just gives the illusion it works fine, but it's not

BTW, another 2 totally fake cdrinfo dot com reviews, because they said, both PX-708A and PX-712A, are "OK" for Cactus:

https://www.cdrinfo.com/d7/content/plex … 08a?page=6

https://www.cdrinfo.com/d7/content/plex … 12a?page=5

I am interested to hear their exact definition of "OK" for CDS200 protected disc! I mean be able to read, doesn't mean what you read is correct. So, what I see from PX-712A: it can read the disc - many of the drives I listed here are not even able to do that, but what it reads it's not 100% correct data, which after all is the goal. PX-708A is much worse than PX-712A in that regards and it's very good comparison as for both I used the exact same laser that came from my PX-708A unit.

[matura713]

Wow, I've just spotted album from 2003 reissued in 2008 and the reissued disc in 2008 still has the Cactus logo on it - that is really unbelievable, because I was thinking by 2005 no more such discs were made, because I have album from 2004 (and that is using the latest revision of Cactus, at least the latest one that I know of, who knows what is the wild), which when was reissued in 2005 they dropped the protection, i.e. only 1 year later, but this one 5 years later reissued and still with Cactus. Now, I wonder do they use the same revision of Cactus or 5 years later use even newer and harder revision of the protection? I guess with second hand prices like 1-2 bucks shipped, that's an easy thing to answer, i.e. if they use same revision, but unfortunately, if the disc is scratched we cannot judge if a drive can rip it or not with that particular Cactus revision and make a conclusion... it's still interesting if in 2008 they still used the same Cactus revision from 2003, though.

[EDIT]
OK, it seems some re-branding was going on around 2005-2006, after Macromedia acquired Cactus. So, CDS300 has nothing to do with CDS200, but they continued to use same/similar logo and it's just using fake TOC and session to confuse the CD drive, but not C1/C2 errors like the previous very hard and evil CDS200 and CDS100. Basically, CDS300 is from technical point of view completely unrelated to CDS100 and CDS200. Now, from what I read, CDS100 could be even more secure than CDS200, because reportedly after first revision of CDS100 it was abandoned due to even home and car equipment refusing to play the CD. I know only one CDS100 disc - if I find and buy it, then I will test and tell more. Anyway, allegedly there is one revision of CDS100 and 7 revision of CDS200 - last CDS200 ones are 5.10.90 and 5.11.90. My test CD, based on which all above posts are made is 5.10.90 and that is the, again allegedly, the strongest among CDS200 - in 5.11.90 they supposed to relax it a little bit again to avoid too many home and car equipment completely not working. I cannot confirmed any of those statements right now, just making summary of my research so far. BTW, I made another post about list of some Audio CD copy protections with some Cactus information there as well:

/viewtopic.php?t=34468 … otections/

in any way, as far as I can tell from forum posts all over the web and all over the years, people seems happy when they were able to read the disc and think that they cannot get perfect copy anyway - something that I proved is wrong - PX-5224 and NEC ND-3530A can get perfect copies, i.e. tracks are byte by byte identical with later re-releases of some of those Cactus CDs without or with weaker protections. So, I am glad my efforts so far, were not pointless, but bring new information and results.

[scsi_wuzzy]

Regarding the failure of the Plextor drives, as someone who was far too frugal to purchase a Plextor during their heyday (and my CD burning days), I always felt like maybe I was missing something. I had my cheap LiteOn or AOpen drive (or whatever drive I found cheap at a local retailer), and there were legends about the great Plextors that cost however many times what I was paying for my drives.

Having since acquired some Plextor equipment, I feel like it's...not that great. At first, I thought it was just because of the age. For example, I splurged and bought a used Premium some time back. The Premium is absolutely awful at reading damaged data discs. I thought it was just because it's 15+ years old. However, I went back and looked at the review of the Premium on cdrinfo.pl. They reviewed it back in 2003 and found it was among the worst of all the drives they tested for reading damaged data discs. (It was essentially tied with another Plextor drive, the PX-W4824A, for last place.)

On the flip side, the same review acknowledges the Plextor as a good audio reader. In fact, the review claims that the Premium can read CDS200-protected discs. However, I'm not sure they actually test such a disc in the review. I didn't go through the whole thing (and I'm reading it through a machine translator, so some details are iffy in any case), though.

Then there's the fact that it's nearly impossible to find a fully working Plextor DVD drive, which I also attributed to age. However, from reading about that, it sounds like PX-716s were dropping dead shortly after they were made too.

Anyway, my apologies that this rant isn't directly on topic, but I've been dealing with some damaged data discs (actual scratches -- not manufactured errors), and I was amazed to see how much better almost every drive I own is at reading damaged discs compared to the Premium. I'm still happy with the drive just to have another drive for dumping with DIC, though. And, I guess Plextors were really famous for their writing quality more than their reading prowess, so maybe in some ways my frustrations aren't fair.

More on topic, I think I might hunt around some at a local shop and see if I can spot any CDS discs. If I end up with one, I'll add my experiences here in trying to rip it.

[reentrant]

True. All my Plextors: 2x760, 716, 4012 are not that great at reading scratched discs. Other drives perform much better.

[matura713]

Having since acquired some Plextor equipment, I feel like it's....not that great.(It was essentially tied with another Plextor drive, the PX-W4824A, for last place.)

I totally agree with you and I am one miserable original owner of PX-W4824A - in fact it's the only Plextor that I purchased until few weeks ago when I joined here. It stayed for 20 years in the drawer, because was total disappointment. So, at least those 2nd hand Plextors I bought recently for testing purposes, they were all sold as faulty (and were in fact faulty, except 708A I bought), etc and that's why sold cheap, not like my PX-W4824A, which buying it as new cost me a lot of money.

the same review acknowledges the Plextor as a good audio reader. In fact, the review claims that the Premium can read CDS200-protected discs. However, I'm not sure they actually test such a disc in the review.

I don't believe it, those reviews are all fake - I mean I already proved that cannot be for 4 reviews:

* NEC ND-4550A: https://www.cdrinfo.com/d7/content/nec-nd-4550a?page=4
* PX-708A: https://www.cdrinfo.com/d7/content/plex … 08a?page=6
* PX-712A: https://www.cdrinfo.com/d7/content/plex … 12a?page=5

and my favorite fake review of:

* AOpen CRW2440A:

https://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Review … cleId=5095

because they praised it as most capable to read Cactus (it failed only on 2 tracks on the disc) from a long list of drives including Plextors and Yamahas of that time. So, all those reviews are fake, there is really no other explanation.

it sounds like PX-716s were dropping dead shortly after they were made too.

That I will not attribute to Plextor alone, but to Sanyo OPUs they used, e.g. DB10 in PX708/712 and DS10 in PX755/766. Those were used in NEC drives as well and I have literally pile of NEC drives next to me with dead DB10/DS10 OPUs, exactly like the Plextor. the OPU in PX-716 is the only one that no one was able to identify, but I guess is again some re-branded Sanyo.

Anyway, my apologies that this rant isn't directly on topic...

actually, it's all on topic from my perspective. And speaking about things not directly on topic and ranting, I want to say that I understand I am new here, but I am already very confused by some of the directions taken by the community here and lack of common standard, when exactly otherwise is claimed. So, for example, when make DiscImageCreator dump of Wii disc - it's decrypted, i.e. all protections are stripped down and thus the dumped image is not anything close to the source, i.e. it's not byte-by-byte identical to the source data - it couldn't be even, the source and the dump data, to be more different, in fact. However, at the same time, when Cactus disc is dumped, not only its 2nd session is not stripped (which is only there as part of the protection), but DiscImageCreator even refused to start dumping with capable PX-5224 drive, because of that 2nd session instead remove it:

/viewtopic.php?p=26283#p26283

So, where is the common standard?! I mean, if that is the standard for Cactus discs, then why not leave the Wii image encrypted and that way list it in the ReDump database? So, if we use the DiscImageCreator own standard for making Wii dumps, i.e. strip its protections, then what make sense is to do the same for Cactus 2nd session - ignore it and do not dump it, because it's garbage data - everything on the disc is in the 1st session. Anyway...

I think I might hunt around some at a local shop and see if I can spot any CDS discs.

IMHO, it's very good to have, especially if you find one that is with no any heavy scratches, i.e. even more C2 errors and using Cactus from 2003/2004, i.e. with latest heaviest versions. So, it's excellent for testing real drive performance for correcting errors, because it has like 5000-8000 C2 errors pressed at factory as part of the protection. So, it really gives you idea about the drive performance like nothing else.

True. All my Plextors: 2x760, 716, 4012 are not that great at reading scratched discs. Other drives perform much better.

Cactus protection is like scratches on steroids, I mean I haven't seen yet, a scratched CD that can go into thousands of C2 errors...

[matura713]

Another not working drive:

* LG GGW-H20L

and this one is really bad - with it, even ExactAudioCopy cannot see the Audio Tracks, let alone try to copy it. So, this is worst drive of all tested so far!

[EDIT] I need to investigate further, because ExactAudioCopy now even stopped to work with Plextor. Maybe, something messed up in my installation...

[matura713]

PX-716Ais not working either - in fact I see no any difference in its behavior and performance compared to my previous tests with PX-712A. if I didn't know it's 716, I would think it's 712.

So, currently, PX-708, 712 and 716 confirmed - as not capable to deal with Cactus.

Only 2 are left: 755 and 760. I already bought cheap 755 and it's on its way to me - I hope it has working, laser because otherwise the test will take more time until I find spare laser for it.