NAME

       ecm-compress - selectively strips error correction codes from CD images

SYNOPSIS

       ecm-compress  cdimagefile [ecmfile]

DESCRIPTION

       ecm-compress  reduces  the  size  of a CD image file (ISO, BIN, CDI, NRG, CCD or any other
       format that uses raw sectors) by eliminating the Error Correction Codes  (EEC)  and  Error
       Detection Codes (EDC) from each sector when possible.

       Since  the  data  ecm-compress  strips  is  usually  nearly  impossible  to  compress with
       traditional tools, the resulting ECM file will compress far better than the raw CD image.

       Hard drives already have mechanisms to protect data integrity, EEC/EDC data  can  thus  be
       discarded safely.

       This data can then be generated again using the command ecm-uncompress.

       Because ecm-compress only discards EDC/ECC data for sectors where it's verifiably possible
       to recreate that data, the process is lossless. In case of copy  protection,  ecm-compress
       will preserve the bogus data.

EXAMPLES

       ecm-compress foo.bin
              strips  the  ECC/EDC  data from the foo.bin CD image and save the resulting file as
              foo.bin.ecm

       ecm-compress foo.img foobar
              strips the ECC/EDC data from the foo.img CD image and save the  resulting  file  as
              foobar

SEE ALSO

       ecm-uncompress(1).

AUTHOR

       ecm-compress was written by Neill Corlett.

       This  manual  page  was  written  by  Loïc Martin <loic.martin3@gmail.com>, for the Debian
       project (but may be used by others), using the documentation written by ECM  author  Neill
       Corlett.

                                        December 22, 2008                         ECM-COMPRESS(1)