8

Can anyone tell how to play videos with .bin extension in VLC?

The file came along with another file same name but with extension .cue.

0

8 Answers 8

5

.bin and .cue are fileformats for ISO images. The .bin is the actual data, and the .cue contains info about blocksize etc. The files can be mounted with DaemonTools and others, and appear as a virtual drive in your filesystem.

There are also CD Recording programs that can open these files and burn them to a disc.

EDIT: Nero Burning Rom, Feurio! and CDRWin seem to be able to understand this format and burn it as an image.

2
  • Can you please provide a good example of such program?
    – Dyppl
    Jun 8, 2011 at 20:04
  • Dyppl: I updated my answer
    – Daniel
    Jun 10, 2011 at 5:04
5

Audio CD's .BIN files are pure PCM raw data. As such, they have no header, no metadata, no compression, no nothing. And, because of that, archivers like 7-Zip, WhateverIsoWhatever and so on doesn't and will never recognise them as archives, because they really are not. For the same reason, media players, like VLC, cannot play them, as they must, at least, know what kind of data is being passed to them.

The elegant solution is to import the .BIN files to a program like Audacity (File - Import - Raw Data... - Signed 16-bits PCM, 2 channel (stereo), 44100 Hz) and, then, export as .WAV. Now, try to do that with tens of .BIN files...

Here is a hacky and much faster solution to "convert" audio .BIN files to .WAV files, so that media players can recognise them: add a valid "generic" .WAV header to every .BIN file.

I use this header (saved as "wav.hed", using HxD free binary editor) for typical 16-bits 44100 Hz stereo PCM audio CD .BIN files:

52 49 46 46 FF FF FF 7F 57 41 56 45 66 6D 74 20 10 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 44 AC 00 00 10 B1 02 00 04 00 10 00 64 61 74 61 00 FF FF 7F

In a Windows (sorry!) command prompt, a command like this would do it:

copy /b wav.hed + trackXX.bin trackXX.wav /b

It works because most media players ignore many of .WAV headers' data, looking only for the essential ones to be able to get the audio stream and play it (header size, bitrate, bits/channel and number of channels), completely ignoring fields like file size and data size, assuming that data is over when they reach EOF. On the sample/example header, file size is set to 0x7fffffff and data size to 0x7fffff00, just in case some weird player actually checks those fields (well, if it would really complain about that, it would probably also conclude that the .WAV file is broken, missing something around 2 GB of stream data...)

Maybe I should stop being lazy and code a proper C program to properly create headers for the .BIN files, possibly picking the proper track names from the .CUE files, and properly generating the corresponding .WAV files, but hacking through them has been enough for me.

2
  • Awesome answer! This helps a lot, and I don’t have to deal with stupid conversion programs.
    – Herman
    Dec 29, 2020 at 6:52
  • Amazing answer! The shell (linux) equivalent command would be cat wav.hed trackXX.bin > trackXX.wav
    – MestreLion
    Mar 19, 2023 at 3:42
3

Easy, drag and drop the file onto the VLC Player Window. It will play the file automatically if it contains valid video files. No need to pre-mount it in any tool.

1
  • This worked for me (using VLC 1.1.11)!
    – Ryan
    Jan 2, 2014 at 18:11
2

AS for now (v.2.2.4), VLC Player is not able to play .bin or .cue files that belong to regular audio CD's, which is a shame.

As for DVD-video images and other formats than regular Audio CD, it might work, or it might not. If you're unable to open the file (.bin/.cue) with VLC Player, you need to mount the disc image on to a virtual drive first.

1

It is a CloneCD image. You should first burn it to CD or find a tool to open the CD image, you can't play it directly with VLC.

0

Not sure about the .bin files, but the .cue files (as the name implies) provides the player with information on the track name and length. I have used them with .ape audio files and I suppose they will work on any album length audio track (.mp3, .wav, etc) of the same name in the same folder.

Simply drag the .cue file into VLC, or open it from the menu drop down, and the album tracks will be displayed in the play list. The track length, though, will appear as the length of the entire large file, but you can skip tracks forwards, backwards or select any in between just like any CD.

0

VLC version 3.0.8 can play .cue files associated with audio. Simply open .cue file from the top menu and it will list all separate track sections in a playlist window.

1
  • VLC win64 3.0.16 - can not play CUE file for a long video file of a concerto. No any reasonable error text is given either. The cue fle is opened, then... ps warning: garbage at input from 509, trying to resync... Jul 23, 2022 at 17:46
0

My recommended freeware solution is NCH WavePad (which has a mobile version also). It can convert .bin CD audio tracks (.cue is not required) as RAW PCM files to .mp3, .flac, or any audio file format. Then you can play the converted files with VLC or use them easier in other applications. Following are detailed steps (as of Windows version 17.32 Mar 30, 2023):

  1. Rename all your .bin files to .raw extension (copy them to the empty working folder first, if you need). Skip data track 01 for any CD-ROM games/multimedia titles, or you will get a noisy large converted file for that track. You can view the associate .cue file to see which tracks are CD audio.

  2. Start WavePad, click Batch icon in Home toolbar.

  3. In Add Files dialog, click Add File... then change the file type to Raw Audio Files (*.raw) and select multiple files. Or click Add Folder... for a folder of .raw files. Repeat this step for other files or folders. Then click Next button.

  4. In Add Effects dialog, click Add Effect... then Convert Files and OK. Then Next.

  5. In Output Settings dialog, make sure Convert to file format: is selected. Choose the target format you want, and click Format Options... for your preferred parameters. Then Next.

  6. The RAW Settings dialog will pop up. Check Remember for next files first, and make sure Format/Sample rate/Channels are fixed to 16 bit PCM (Intel Endian)/44100 Hz/Stereo respectively. (the last one is important; otherwise, WavePad will use Mono as default behind the scene if you leave it with Match Source, resulting in the twice longer duration/lower frequency output file!). Then click OK.

  7. The Processing Batch Commands progress dialog will start immediately. And will be closed after the conversion is completed.

Note 1: The RAW Settings dialog (in step 6) appears only once per source fully qualified file name (FQFN) and will not ask again, so if you want to make RAW Settings parameter changes for a converted file, you have to rename the file/folder or move it to another path first.

Note 2: NCH also releases a smaller utility called Switch, which could get the job done more easily. Unfortunately, it does not ask for RAW Settings as in step 6, so the result files are not as expected.

2
  • Can you please edit your question to explain how exactly this helps the OP to use .bin and .cue files with VLC? Apr 1, 2023 at 10:23
  • Thanks for your comment; VLC has been mentioned in the revision.
    – julthep
    Apr 1, 2023 at 11:40

You must log in to answer this question.