Media Descriptor File (MDF) is a proprietary

disc image A disk image is a snapshot of a storage device's content typically stored in a file on another storage device. Traditionally, a disk image was relatively large because it was a bit-by-bit copy of every storage location of a device (i.e. every ...

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

developed for

Alcohol 120% Alcohol 120% is a disk image emulator and disc burning software for Microsoft Windows developed by Alcohol Soft. An edition named Alcohol 52% is also offered which lacks the burning engine. The software can create image files from a source CD/ ...

, an

optical disc authoring program Optical disc authoring, including CD, DVD, and Blu-ray Disc authoring, is the process of assembling source material—video, audio or other data—into the proper logical volume format to then be recorded ("burned") onto an optical dis ...

Daemon Tools DAEMON Tools is a virtual drive and optical disc authoring program for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. Overview DAEMON tools was originally a successor of ''Generic SafeDisc emulator'' and incorporated all of its features. The program claim ...

CDemu CDemu is a free and open-source virtual drive software, designed to emulate an optical drive and optical disc (including CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs) on the Linux operating system. , CDemu is not available in the official repositories of Debian, Ubuntu ...

MagicISO MagicISO (also referred to as MagicISO Maker) is a CD/DVD image shareware utility that can extract, edit, create, and burn disc image files. It offers the possibility of converting between ISO and CUE/BIN and their proprietary Universal Image Fo ...

PowerDVD PowerDVD is a media player software for Microsoft Windows created by CyberLink, for DVD movie discs, Blu-ray movie discs, and digital video files, photos and music. PowerDVD is offered in various versions, which vary greatly in terms of fun ...

, and

WinCDEmu WinCDEmu is an open-source utility for mounting disk image files in Microsoft Windows. It installs a Windows device driver which allows a user to access an image of a CD or DVD as if it were a physical drive. WinCDEmu supports ISO, CUE/BIN, CCD ...

can also read the MDF format. A ''disc image'' is a

computer file A computer file is a System resource, resource for recording Data (computing), data on a Computer data storage, computer storage device, primarily identified by its filename. Just as words can be written on paper, so too can data be written to a ...

replica of the

s and file system of an

optical disc An optical disc is a flat, usuallyNon-circular optical discs exist for fashion purposes; see shaped compact disc. disc-shaped object that stores information in the form of physical variations on its surface that can be read with the aid o ...

. Unlike an

ISO image An optical disc image (or ISO image, from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media) is a disk image that contains everything that would be written to an optical disc, disk sector by disc sector, including the optical disc file system. IS ...

, a Media Descriptor File can contain multiple layers (as used in

dual-layer recording The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

) and multiple optical disc tracks. Like the IMG file format, a Media Descriptor File is a "raw" image of an optical disc. The word ''raw'' implies that the copy is precise,

bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communication. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represented as ...

-for-bit, including (where appropriate) file-system

metadata Metadata (or metainformation) is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data itself, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive ...

. A Media Descriptor File may be accompanied by a Media Descriptor Sidecar file. This optional

binary file A binary file is a computer file that is not a text file. The term "binary file" is often used as a term meaning "non-text file". Many binary file formats contain parts that can be interpreted as text; for example, some computer document files ...

(with

file extension File or filing may refer to: Mechanical tools and processes * File (tool), a tool used to remove fine amounts of material from a workpiece. ** Filing (metalworking), a material removal process in manufacturing ** Nail file, a tool used to gen ...

.mds) contains metadata about an imaged optical disc, including a delineation of where disc layers begin and end ("layer breaks"), and which portions of the MDF belong in which disc layer. The MDS file also stores the location and value of the layer breach bit, a

CD/DVD copy protection CD/DVD copy protection is a blanket term for various methods of copy protection for CDs and DVDs. Such methods include DRM, CD-checks, Dummy Files, illegal tables of contents, over-sizing or over-burning the CD, physical errors and bad sectors. ...

mechanism. The MDS file is comparable to the

CloneCD Control File A CloneCD Control File is a text descriptor with the extension .ccd used by CloneCD to store the subcode data of a CD/DVD image. These files need to be combined with an image file (usually with .img extension) to be burned. It may also come w ...

and cue sheet (.cue) file formats. However, their capabilities are not identical; also the cue sheet is a

text file A text file (sometimes spelled textfile; an old alternative name is flat file) is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines of electronic text. A text file exists stored as data within a computer file system. In ope ...

format.

's MDF/MDS format is one of the few formats besides Nero's NRG, BIN/CUE and

CloneCD CloneCD is proprietary optical disc authoring software for ripping music and data CDs and DVDs, capable of making exact, 1:1 copies even of copy protected discs, bypassing several types of digital rights management (DRM). CloneCD can rip dis ...

's CCD/IMG/SUB disc image formats to support

Mixed Mode CD A mixed mode CD is a compact disc which contains both data and audio in one session. Typically the first track is a data track while the rest are audio tracks. The most common use for mixed mode CDs is to add CD-quality audio to video games on a ...

s which contain audio CD tracks as well as data tracks.

References

{{Disk images Archive formats Computer file formats Disk image emulators Hacker culture Optical disc authoring Hardware virtualization Warez Compact Disc and DVD copy protection

See also

References