CD Q-Subcode Decoding and Display

Electrical Engineering 498 Final Project

December 5, 1995

Group Members:

George Barrett

Robert Dunn

James Gabel

Group member E-mail addresses.

Objective

The project goal was to investigate and design an interactive remote control. This would result in a wireless system to remotely display musical Compact Disc Q-Bit Subcode information, see Figure 1. We needed to decode and display Q channel Mode 1 data--data from the music areas on a CD. The specific data displayed is the "Track Number" (TNO), "Time-In-Band" of the song being played, "Absolute Time" of the CD being played, and control data such as Stereo or Quad recording. Our main challenge was how to "decode" the desired subcode information from the serial data stream of the CD. Such a feature would not only be innovative, but would be a benefit to those who have trouble seeing the display of a regular CD player.

Figure 1. System Overview Diagram.

In developing the specifics of our project, we made sure we addressed these three project criteria:

DESIGN: We had to analyze the CD subcode data stream to design a method of decoding and displaying useful information to the consumer.
CONSUMER PRODUCT: Our project focuses on a value-added enhancement of the home CD player. This design can be incorporated in existing CD players with remote control systems. The user would need no technical support to use our feature--just read the display in the hand-held remote.
TIME-FEASIBLE: Due to the lack of time we could not fully implement a hardware prototype of our design. We did, however, prove our design using a computer-based program to model a mock-up of the desired CD information display.

The project will be composed of several distinct parts. Of primary importance is capturing the Q subcode data from the CD disk. Since this information is normally routed to the display, finding this information is a matter of discovering where the Q data enters the display driver chip. With this found, a small IR LED driver would broadcast this information. Because the relevant simplicity of building an IR link to transmit the data, we concentrated on the decoding the Q channel data from the player.

In the remote display device, an IR detector would capture the IR transmission. The signal would be adjusted for gain, and then decoded by a display driver. The display driver would connect to a LCD display, which would show the same information as that on the CD player's main display. Such a prototype is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Sketch of remote control with Q-bit data display.

Q-bit Subcode

Q-bit subcode is the term for the information on a compact disc that holds the track number, track length, and time in track. Every music disc has special subcode control information encoded along with the music information. The Q- bit subcode has several modes, which distinguish the type of information the code carries. When you play a CD you cannot access the subcode information directly. All CD players have circuitry that can decode and use subcode data. Some of this Q -bit subcode is displayed on the front display of a CD player. This information, such as time in track and track number, is useful for determining what song is being played, and how far along the song is. There is other useful information in the Q-bit subcode, such as absolute time in the CD.[1] Our project allows more of this subcode data to be available for the user.

Q-bit subcode is 98 bits long and is stored in the subcode region of every 291 bit long frame of music on a compact disc (see Figure 3). In each CD frame, the Q-bit subcode occupies a single bit. Because only one subcode bit is in each of these frames, it takes 98 frames to complete a subcode block. The Q- bit subcode block rate can be determined by taking CD frame rate (7350 frames/sec), and dividing it by the number of bits to compete a frame (98 bits/frame). [2]

(7350 frame/sec)/(98 bit/frame) = 75 bit/sec

Thus, 75 times a second, the Q-bit information is updated.

Figure 3. Position of Q-bit subcode in each CD frame.[3]

The Q channel can be in three different modes. Each mode describes different information about the track and CD:

Mode 1 has the primary data of the track number and time.
Mode 2 gives the disc catalog number.
Mode 3 gives the ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) for the track being played.

Our project decodes and displays Mode 1 data, but data from the other two modes could have been decoded. [4]

MODE 1 Q CHANNEL DATA

See Figure 4 for typical Q channel Mode 1 information during a music track. The first two bits are for synchronization, followed by four control bits. These four bits indicate several functions in the CD player, as listed in Table 1.

Figure 4. Information in Mode1 Q-bit subcode block.[5]

CONTROL BITS

Table 1. Q Channel Control Bits: [6]

Control Bit #	Function	Zero-Bit	One-Bit
1	# of Channels	Stereo	Quad
2	undefined	--	--
3	Copy Permit?	no	yes
4	Pre-emphasis	off	on

The first control bit is where "the number of audio channels" (two or four) is indicated. Control bit number two is not used at this time. Control bit number three is "the digital copy" (permit/deny) bit. This bit "regulates the ability of other digital recorders to record the CD's data digitally." [7]

With control bit number four, "pre-emphasis (on/off) is indicated. The player reads this bit and automatically switches to the appropriate de- emphasis circuit." . The standard de-emphasis for a CD (when used) has a flat response (0 dB) from 20 Hz up to about 3 kHz and then rolls off to about -10 dB at 20 kHz. "By attenuating high frequencies without affecting overall signal frequency response, the signal-to-noise ration of the signal may be improved." [8]

OTHER MODE 1 DATA

Mode 1 during track play also contains other data of interest:

The number of the track playing (TNO)
Time within a track (Minutes and Seconds)
Absolute disc time (aMinutes and aSeconds)

NOTE: The absolute time is set to zero at the beginning of the program area and increases through-out the disc, see the bottom of Figure 5.

Figure 5. Information stored on the Q-bit subcode block.[9]

All of the time and track number information is coded in the Q channel as an 8 bit word representing two-digit BCD (binary coded decimal). The first four bits represent the tens-digit and the second four bits represent the ones- digit. Each digit is decoded from the BCD representation in the following standard:

Table 2. Binary-Coded-Decimal Representation:

Decimal Number	BCD 4-bit Word
--------------	---------------
0	0000
1	0001
2	0010
3	0011
4	0100
5	0101
6	0110
7	0111
8	1000
9	1001

Infra Red Link

The IR link has become common place for consumer electronics today. The relative simplicity allows their use in many applications, from calculators to remotes. In our proposed consumer product, a remote control would have in addition to the standard equipment, an infrared photodetector, a decoder chip, and a small LCD display. The display would show the user, at the very least, the track, and time in track in minutes and seconds.

An additional feature would incorporate new commands into the remote control transmitter. The controls would allow the user to control what data was seen on the display. For example, the user could toggle between displays showing track number and time in track, absolute time in the CD, time left in the song, and absolute time left on the CD. Most of this information is already present in the CD's mode 1 Q-bit subcode.

Because of the large number of infrared projects proposed for this quarter, and that one group member had already built several, it was decided to forgo producing a hardware IR link as part of this project. Creating the IR link would not have been too difficult. The serial information of the Q-bit subcode data could be easily transmitted over a IR link with little modification. In the remote control, the entire Q-subcode package would be composed of a photodetector, a single integrated chip, and a LCD display. Thus the receiver would be part of the integrated circuit. Because transferring data has been done remotely, it will not be repeated during this project.

Project Procedure

The time line used for completing this project was set up into the following parts:

Find Q-bit Subcode Serial Data.

Capture Q-bit Subcode Serial Data.

Display Q-bit Subcode Serial Data, as track number and time in track, and absolute time in CD.

The first step in this project was finding the Q-bit Subcode Data. In most compact disc players, this data is separated from the audio information at some point, and sent to a display driver circuit. At this point, the data is in serial form. We needed to find the points where probes would be installed to find this data. The group tried several of the CD players in the lab, until we found a model which was well suited to the project. The Pioneer PD-M6(MK) compact disc player has as a feature, a Q-subcode port on the back of the player. Figure 6 and Figure 7 show a schematic and block diagram of the Q-bit Subcode portion of the player.

Figure 6. Schematic of CD Q-subcode port on Pioneer PD-M6 CD player. [10]

Figure 7. Block diagram of CD subcode port on Pioneer PD-M6 CD player. [11]

The next part of this project was decode the Q-subcode data. The group needed to see how the data was fomatted in order to interpret how to decode it. The data could not be displayed on a standard oscilloscope. A Philips PM 3580 100 MHz logic analyzer was used to capture and display the bitstream coming from the Q-subcode data port.

We next experimented with available equipment to decode and display the subcode data. We found that LabView from National Instruments was available in the design lab in the University of Washington Electrical Engineering department. However, the only hardware available for data input to the LabView software was a GPIB (general purpose interface bus) interface card. GPIB is an interface system through which interconnected electronic devices communicate.

EXPERIMENTAL DATA SYSTEM

TECHNICAL ELEMENTS: For development of our project we used three elements:

The CD Data Source,

CD Data Acquisition System (Oscilloscope & GPIB card), and

Experimental Decode and Display Software (LabView 3.1.1). These elements work together as follows:

(1)- CD DATA SOURCE

For our project, we used a Pioneer PD-M6 CD player which had a Subcode output jack on its rear panel. This output was made available for "future audio applications." From this jack we used the "Sub-code Q output" serial data signal and "Sub-code serial output" sync signal. These signals are generated internally from the player "decoder" IC. We acquired a set of manuals on this CD player to determine which jack signals to use and in what format these signals were in. The data structure was not shown in the service manuals.

Our first task was to find the Q-subcode data. After the subcode data was found, the digital signal was displayed on an oscilloscope. Figure 8 shows the Q-bit subcode block signal and its sync pulse signal.

Figure 8. Oscilloscope plot of a Q-subcode block.

We used a Philips PM 3580 Logic analyzer (at North Seattle Community College) to determine the structure of the Q-bit subcode data coming from the CD player. From this experiment we verified that the first bit in the subcode serial stream is the S0 bit. Thus the S0 bit is sent out first as the most significant bit (MSB). We also confirmed that the numeric values such as track number are in two-digit BCD format.

(2)- CD DATA Acquisition System (Tektronix TDS 320 Oscilloscope & GPIB card)

For design test purposes our system uses a digitizing oscilloscope and LabView software to emulate a decoder system, see figure 9, CD- BITS.VI. This experimental system is basically a 98-bit serial to parallel converter. The actual product would be created using the same decoding algorithms implemented in compact circuitry including PLDs (programmable logic devices).

Figure 9. Diagram of the CD-BITS.VI LabView Virtual Instrument.

A Virtual Instrument (VI) is a software construction that has characteristics of a bench instrument. Figure 9 shows a diagram of CD-BITS.VI, the main VI file in our system. An overview of this figure follows. On the left, outside the large box is the control icon for initializing the GPIB to the Tektronix TDS 320 oscilloscope when this VI is first started. Next, the VI control goes to the large box which makes iterations of the internal functions in an infinite loop or until you interrupt it. The internal functions, as followed from left to right are:

sample the "TDS 320" for the next raw data set,
display the data as the "returned waveform",
send the raw data to our "GETBITS.VI", and finally,
display the resulting information in the "output cluster".

This sequence continues until you interrupt it. When the "Stop" button is clicked, VI control is sent from the iteration box over to another control for closing the GPIB to the TDS 320.

(3)- DATA DECODING

Our experimental decode software is shown in Figure 10. An overview of this figure follows. In the upper left, the "inarray" is an array of numeric values of the voltage waveform of the sampled data from the oscilloscope. This is compared to a threshold voltage to "discretize" the array of voltage levels into ones or zeros bits. This "bit array" is then bussed into indexing blocks which allow controlled selection of bits representing the desired Q-channel data. There are twelve of these indexing blocks, each with a different set of index pointer inputs. The index pointer labels and their functions are:

Mode - four bits representing the mode sent
Tx10 - four bits (BCD) of the TNO tens-digit
Tx1 - four bits (BCD) of the TNO ones-digit
Mx10 - four bits (BCD) of the minutes tens-digit
Mx1 - four bits (BCD) of the minutes ones-digit
Sx10 - four bits (BCD) of the seconds tens-digit
Sx1 - four bits (BCD) of the seconds ones-digit
aMx10 - four bits (BCD) of the absolute minutes tens-digit
aMx1 - four bits (BCD) of the absolute minutes ones-digit
aS10 - four bits (BCD) of the absolute seconds tens-digit
aS1 - four bits (BCD) of the absolute seconds ones-digit
Ctrl - four control bits (see table 1 of this report)

Beyond this indexing are some conversion functions to present the data in the proper form for the output cluster display. Note that the "Mode_sent" data is compared to the "mode 1" constant. When they match the "1 True" data line is high (true) and the other indexed data is passed on to the out cluster. However, if the "Mode_sent" data and "mode 1" constant don't match, then the "blank" word of zeros data is passed on to the out cluster.

Figure 10. Diagram of the GETBITS.VI LabView Virtual Instrument.

Once our LabView virtual instrument was running, we calculated indexing values to pick out the bits we wanted from the Q Channel serial data stream. These numbers are shown as the index arrays near the bottom of Figure 11. We focused our work on displaying the mode number and the mode 1 control bits, track number, track time, and absolute time. Our system uses a digitizing oscilloscope and LabView software to emulate a decoder system. The actual product would be created using the same decoding algorithms implemented in compact circuitry including PLDs (programmable logic devices).

Figure 11. Control Panel of the GETBITS.VI LabView Virtual Instrument.

In summary, the Q-bit subcode data takes the following path. The Q-bit, separated from the audio information on the CD, is sent to the display driver IC (on the Pioneer, it is also sent to the Q-bit-Subcode port). The scope probe is connected to this port. The oscilloscope captures the Q-bit subcode serial data waveform. The oscilloscope sends the packet to the computer via a GPIB computer interface, and on command sends the packet to the computer. The LabView software then takes the waveform, and converts the waveform to a binary matrix. We use an adjustable threshold value to determine what voltage levels constitute a binary "one". The locations of the data needed for numeric conversion are indexed in the subcode. The resulting data is then converted into numeric values for the display.

Technical Results

EXPERIMENT RESULT: The result of our experiment was a better understanding of the Q channel serial data stream. The 98 bits per frame are sent with the most significant bit (MSB) first. Numbered data such as the track number (TNO) are sent as four-bit BCD words and so eight-bits are needed to represent the tens-digit and ones-digit of tracks up to 99. Eight bits are also used in BCD format to represent two digits of the minutes and seconds from 00 to 59.

TECHNICAL PROBLEMS: We had to quickly find a method of reading in real-time data from a CD player. We settled on equipment in one of the engineering labs. One problem with our system is the remote display is two seconds behind the actual time on the CD player. This is caused by the slow nature of our GPIB interface. This delay would be corrected when PLD's are used, which would allow a real-time display of the information.

PROTOTYPE PERFORMANCE: The computer-based model of our decoding and display algorithm performs well and is easily adaptable for experimentation. Figure 12 shows an active representation of the data display for the consumer. For our development software all forms of the CD data are visible on-screen. You can see the raw serial stream of the CD player, any of the individual bits, and the final numerical display of the desired information in the Q channel data.

Figure 12. The Data Display for the Consumer and the Raw Waveform (CD-BITS.VI).

We have made the LabView VI files that we developed available for FTP downloading, however, you may need to make adaptations for your specific equipment or application. Our VI files also require other LabView VI files for the Tektronix TDS 320 which should be available in the standard LabView 3.1.1 installation (in the TKTDS3XX.LLB in the VI.lib library). The LabView VI programs can be FTP downloaded as a zip file:

Labview VI Files: qcode.zip

Project Discussion

SIGNIFICANCE: Our results prove that the Q channel subcode from a CD player is easily decoded and all of the information can be displayed for the consumer. The results of this project show several things. First, the project has shown how the Q-bit subcode data can be shown on a device external to the CD player. Second, it has been shown that this information can be more detailed than that the display on the CD player itself shows, including: Quad or Stereo, copy protect, and inner track frame number. Even the time remaining on the disk can be calculated by subtracting the absolute time from the total disk time. The simple logic used in the LabView software can be incorporated directly into a single integrated chip. The single integrated chip allows for the device to be compact enough to be placed into an remote control without increasing the size of the remote by a large amount.

FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES: Our experimental algorithm presented in this report may now be implemented in a digital hardware circuit. The circuit could also be integrated with an off-the-shelf IR transceiver and an LCD package for a stand alone prototype system. We hope future CE EE498 students consider all or part of this and have as much fun learning as we did.

Several more things could be explored if more time was available. Information from the Mode 2 and Mode 3 Q-subcode could be displayed. There is additional information in each song which tells about the year the song was created, and the country in which the song was produced. A look up table would be needed in order to correlate some of this information.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: We thank Professor Blake Hannaford for giving us insight to the core of our project--the data and encoding used in CD players. We especially appreciate Mr. Chris Prall, a UW alumni and LabView beta tester, for giving us a quick-start with LabView. We also thank Mr. George Andexler and Mr. Gregory Lipski for loaning us manuals on the LabView software and helping us use the lab equipment.

Notes and Sources Cited

Sources Cited

[1], Pohlman, Ken, The Compact Disc Handbook, 2nd Edition , 1989, A-R Editions Inc, Madison Wisconson, Page 91.

[10], Pioneer Electronic Corporation, Pioneer PD-M6(BK) Compact Disc Player Service Manual: Repair & Adjustments , 1986, Pioneer Electronic Corporation, Tokyo, Page 31.

[11], Pioneer Electronic Corporation, Pioneer PD-M6(BK) Compact Disc Player Service Manual: Circuit Mechanism Descriptions , 1986, Pioneer Electronic Corporation, Tokyo, Page 3.

[12], National Instruments, LabView Instrument I/O VI Reference, 1993, National Instruments, Dallas, Pg. 1-5.

Other sources used but not directly cited:

IEC 908: 1987 "Compact Disc Digital Audio System" Standard from the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

Serial Infra Red Remote Transmitter

IR-related ASCII Schematics V1.00

North Seattle Electronics & Engineering Technologies Division. North Seattle Community College has the digital analyzer used in this project.

Personal Computer Infra Red Remote Control

For further information on National Instruments and LabView check out these web sites:

LabView Student Edition

LabView Technical Support

FTP site with LabView Vi Files

NOTES

History of GPIB

Hewlett-Packard designed the GPIB (originally called the HP-IB) to interconnect and control its line of programmable instruments. The GPIB was soon applied to other applications such as inter-computer communication and peripheral control because of its 1 Mbytes/sec maximum data transfer rates. It was later accepted as IEEE Standard 488-1975 and has since evolved into ANSI/IEEE Standard 488.1-1987. The versatility of the system prompted the name General Purpose Interface Bus. [12]

Project Proposal -November 16, 1995

The goal of out project is to investigate and design a method for a wireless system to remotely display musical Compact Disc Q-Bit Subcode information.

We want to decode and display Q channel Mode 1 data- data from the music areas on a CD. The specific data displayed will be "Track Number" (TNO) and "Time- In-Band" of the song being played. Other possible data to display is the "Absolute Time" played on the CD.

The main challenge: How to "decode" the desired subcode information from the serial data stream of the CD.

Project Criteria

Design: We will be analyzing the CD subcode data stream to design a method of decoding and remotely displaying useful information to the customer.
Consumer Product: Our project focuses on a value-added enhancement of the home CD player. This design can be incorporated in existing CD players with remote control systems. The user would need no technical support to use our feature- just read the display in the hand-held remote.
Time Feasible: Due to the lack of time we will not be able to fully implement a hardware prototype of our design. We will attempt, however, to use a computer based program to model a display mock-up of the desired CD information.

Project Deliverables

Minimum Deliverables

Final Presentation of Results
Final HTML report of results and explanation of:
- Our experimental procedures on decoding and use of Subcode Q-bit data
- Block diagrams of the proposed system:
  - Description of required sub-systems
  - Description of IR transmission link

Maximum Deliverables

Above minimum plus:

Personal Computer-based Mock Up of Q-bit Subcode information display.

Project Schedule:

11/13 (Monday)

11/15 (Wednesday) Project Proposal with Schedule (this document)

11/20 (Monday)

11/27 (Monday)

11/30 (Thursday) Project Presentations and Demos in Lab

12/04 (Monday) WWW Pointers of Report due by email to Prof. Hannaford

12/06 (Wednesday) Edited Reports Returned

12/11 (Monday) WWW Pointers of revised report due by email to Prof. Hannaford

Robert Dunn
Email -- stangman@u.washington.edu
Web -- http://weber.u.washington.edu/~stangman
George Barrett
Email -- gbar@u.washington.edu
Web -- http://nsccux.sccd.ctc.edu/~electron/div-fac.html
James Gabel
Email -- jgabel@u.washington.edu