I ran across a post on the Nuendo forums that were talking about DDP and Exebyte for mastering. Could someone provide some more information about what they are and how they apply to mastering?
Exabyte is a type of drive - DDP is "Disc Description Protocol" - Basically, a disc image of sorts.
It used to be somewhat of a standard as a delivery format to replication plants. It's still in use, but not nearly as often as it used to be. I haven't been asked for a DDP in a long time...
Thanks John. The post seemed somewhat confusing as one of the people kept saying that RedBook CDRs were not the normally accepted format for replication plants and that DDP was how audio should be delivered.
DDP is certainly still used - And it's an excellent format.
I think that a lot of clients find it "comforting" (I know I always did) to be able to listen to the exact physical production master before it goes in though...
The audio engineer at the replication plant is telling me it (DDP) provides for one less stage of errors during the burn...& less posibilty for error at their end, since if I sent them a CD-A they would simply rip it & create a DDP image anyway...'cause that's what they use for their optical transport assembly.
So...I had been thinking I needed to shell out $400 for GearPRO to burn the DDP as opposed to burning my red book track list right out of WaveLab?
Double-edged sword - To write a DDP with Gear Pro, you have to burn the disc first anyway.
Scratch that - I can't remember if GP will write *direct* to DDP... I think it actually will. But I don't like the assembly process... So I still assemble in Samplitude (or occasionally Wavelab) and go from there.
I have GP for those who *insist* on DDP, but in the last 3 or 4 years, no one has. Not an artist, not a producer, not a label, not a replication house.
