It is a great pity that the only dump we have of the Sonic CD 510 build is in ISO/MP3 and no BIN/CUE exists. Should we (could we?) try to track down "Sega Extreme" to get a BIN/CUE image?
Can't you just mount the ISO/MP3 and re-rip a BIN/CUE from the virtual drive? Or is that not how it works?
Hendricks 266 probably wants the music in higher quality than the MP3s. I think it's worth a shot for archival purposes.
That would work for your own personal use, but in the interest of preservation, you really want a 1:1 rip of the original disk image — the ISO/MP3 already has lost data given the MP3 part. In fact I think I'll go make that topic now.
In theory you can, but it would be useless and defeat the purpose. There would be no reason for me to convert the existing dump. MP3 is by nature a lossy format, and for archival we need a proper archival rip.
Do we even know who dumped it originally? Like mentioned above, and on the wiki, it was "discovered" by Sega Extreme; I'm not sure what discovered means in this instance. I assume they found the actual CD? Is Sega Extreme the same as the forum given by the first google search result? So many questions.
Surely somebody still has the original disc, right? Would it be anyone that we can still contact these days?
Sure, but guaranteeing completely accurate audio extraction requires a program that is specifically designed to do so, and most ‘raw’ rippers aren't; rather, they just take everything off the disc as fast as they can, and assume what they read on the first attempt is accurate. So, whilst it would be better than MP3, you probably can't say with 100% certainty that the audio is bit-for-bit accurate. Not that any errors are likely to be anything more then negligible and inaudible if they do arise, but y'know! And then there's the existence of audio offsets per-drive to take into account. Man, CDDA is a real watertight format!
I somewhat doubt that there would be any errors in the ripping process, as that would mean that the data track would likely get screwed up as well.
The music in the 510 build in CD quality is worth extremely much, as it is unedited. Unedited = no fading out, no cheap loop edits, and of course the full special stage music!
Count me in as an Exact Audio Copy fanatic enthusiast. Do check out the 712 build's audio tracks. They don't fade out either, and it still has the 510 title screen. Not sure about the rest. In 712, the Special Stage is the same two-minute cut as the final, and it also has the final's speed shoes theme rather than the 510 beta's version.
I researched 510 history back when I was researching every single Sonic proto out there (I even found 920 and got it dumped in BIN/CUE), and I have bad news for you. The original 510 was sold on eBay to some guy in Brazil many years ago (I want to say about ten years, but I'm not sure). The way it was released is, a fella named "profund darkness" contacted the then buyer and got a CD-R copy of the iso/mp3 dump from him which he then uploaded to the internet. I was not able to find the then buyer and I'm unaware if the prototype has changed hands since.
I checked my email archive and correction: profund got the iso/mp3 from the seller, not the buyer. Also now that I think about it, I think I know the seller (and I think he owes me protos... lol). Profund told me this on 9/20/2006:
It's been a long time since I last checked, but I recall that the 712 (which we have a bin/cue of) also has no fade outs, and the full special stage music is just a "cheap loop edit".
This might sound kinda dumb, but I wonder if Sega themselves may be willing to release a bin/cue dump of it? After all, it's just a barely playable prototype, they wouldn't have much to lose by releasing it, especially considering that it's already out, but in inferior form.
That's assuming Sega even still has that particular proto. Even then, I doubt anyone working at sega would know or care enough. They probably would have a reason to not release it anyway, since a port of Sonic CD is coming out.
Last I heard, SEGA threw out their old prototypes (and that was sorta how we wound up with all the QA disks drx released a while ago)