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[WTWASP]

I have purchased Media Center 9.0.180 and have all updated softwares for it.

However it seems everytime I upgrade, I get problems??

The current one(s) involve CD burning.

Although the music gets tranferred to the disc alright, there are two major screwups EVERYtime:
1) The track marks are mis-placed resulting in tracks starting at the last couple seconds of the previous track
2) The CD text is all messed up - song titles are assigned to the track prior to it making the disc itself being entitled as track one, and the last track having no text.
?

This situation was even worse before... the text used to come out as absolute jibberish... punctuation and random letters, even non-characters - the LED's would just be lit up in odd shapes and manners. At least now it is merely misplaced, but it is still not acceptable.

I want to know how to get this corrected.

Also, for some reason some features have mysteriously gone missing. I cannot find the option for using a 2-secong gap for burning discs (although I rarely use it, I like to know it is there if I do decide to use it), and I could have also sworn there was some kind of volume levelling feature that would record tracks at a consistent level??

If there's one thing I hate more than upgrades that don't work proper, it's upgrades that have features REMOVED, instead of added to.

SOMEBODY HELP!

[JohnT]

The new version gives you complete control over track transitions, not just a choice of gap or no gap. Check the "use crossfade/dsp" option on the burn dialog and click the button, then select gapless, or any gap length you wish up to 6 seconds. You can also crossfade the tracks with different crossfade durations.

Volume leveling is much more effective using the "Replay gain" feature in DSP studio. While you're in the "crossfade/dsp" options dialog noted above, click the DSP studio button, check "Replay gain", then select "automatic based on current playlist". If the replay gain value hasn't yet been calculated for the tracks you are burning, it will do that when you click the "start" burning button. The old "normalization" method of volume leveling just wasn't very effective in the majority of cases.

I'm not sure why you're getting misplaced track marks. Try unchecking the "direct decode" feature to see if it makes a difference. Let us know if it does. The CD-text issue may be related.

Post your system info (from MC's help menu) here, or send me an email and we can do some testing to see what's going on.

John T.
johnt @ jriver.com

[NoCodeUK]

I have seen this too, the misplaced track marks.  I only noticed once as I usually burn data cds but I did an audio cd once for my old car player.  It appears that the track changes  at the point that MC would normally buffer the information for the next track eg.  If you have set the DSP settings to crossfade with a five second gap MC normally starts buffering the next track 5 seconds before the previous track starts to produce a smooth fade.  When this happens on the CD the first five seconds of the song become the last five seconds of the previous song then there is a check mark.  Hope that makes sense

Adam

[JohnT]

I have seen this too, the misplaced track marks.  I only noticed once as I usually burn data cds but I did an audio cd once for my old car player.  It appears that the track changes  at the point that MC would normally buffer the information for the next track eg.  If you have set the DSP settings to crossfade with a five second gap MC normally starts buffering the next track 5 seconds before the previous track starts to produce a smooth fade.  When this happens on the CD the first five seconds of the song become the last five seconds of the previous song then there is a check mark.  Hope that makes sense

Adam

Do you mean that you had cross-fading selected for the burn? If that's the case, then the track boundary should be at the start of the song, which would mean you'd hear the previous song fading out as the next one fades in. Or do you mean you did not have cross-fading selected but the burned tracks still had the boundary misplaced by 5 seconds?

[NoCodeUK]

I think I had it set up to do gapless in the recorder settings and the track markers were all off by about five seconds.  It was always the same amount of time before the end of the track that MC buffered for.  I cannot remember now whetehr the marker was 5 seconds before the beginning of the track or 5 seconds after.  I will do some tests when I get home tonight.  WIll using CDRW vs CDR make any difference as if not I will use a CDRW to avoid coastering

Adam

[gkerber]

I've had cd-text errors too, but never spent the time to track it down, since I only play cd's in my car now....

There are still other cd burning problems though:

1.  Changing the order in the cd burn window results in missing and duplicate entries.  Try it, set up a burn window with 10 or more songs and then drag a few tracks around.  Makes a mess of things.  This have been verified by others here.

2.  I have a 2.5 gig processor and 1 gig of memory.  And decoding directly to the cd burner virtually takes over my computer.  It actually works faster with the option turned off, letting it do 2 passes, one to convert to wav and then to burn than to do it all at once.  These are APE files.  Nero has a plug in for APE files which works just fine, so I know it can be done more efficiently without taking so much processor time.

I know the devlopement team is working on 9.1, but I sure wish these and some other nagging problems with 9.0 would be corrected.  CD burning is a basic feature that should work flawlessly, Nero does....

[WTWASP]

Ok... I understand that the "gapless" setting should allow me space between tracks if I desire them.. I will try it sometime soon.
Also, I understand the Replay gain acts as volume levelling. I suspected this, but was not sure. I assume that I should uncheck the EQ and effects options if I don't want a "surround cound" kind of disc when Ijust want a "raw" copy (I normally have these on for playback)?

As for the misplaced track marks, the marks end up severing the end of songs, resulting in the last couple seconds of the previous song being heard at the beginning of the next track... I do NOT have any of the DSP features turned on... no crossfading, nothing.
So I am still no wiser what to do there..?

I do believe that the "decode files directly to disc" box was originally unchecked, and I tried burning with it checked and unchecked... I don't think it makes a difference at this point.

I just want my MC to work as reliably as it did before the upgrades. Should I try uninstalling it and then re-installing it? If so, what exactly is the way to do it?

Oh... and since I am asking how things work.. is there anyway to re-arrange the columns? Either in the media library or the playlists? I would like certain columns to appear in order according to personal importance...

[WTWASP]

I know the devlopement team is working on 9.1, but I sure wish these and some other nagging problems with 9.0 would be corrected.  

Hear Hear!! I think that's part of the problem right there... being in such a rush to put out the latest version/upgrade, results in consistency and reliability of the product being compromised.

I think a little extra time should be taken to run a few extra testing sessions to ensure that what is being put out to the public is a fully-functioning and reliable product. Rushing the availability of these things just results in poor performance, and as a result, poor customer satisfaction, and in turn, a bad rep for the product.

Come on, MC... take yer time and make sure things are working right before you send it to us..!

[WTWASP]

Post your system info (from MC's help menu) here, or send me an email and we can do some testing to see what's going on.

Here it is:

Media Center Registered 9.0.180 -- W:\Program Files\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1  (Build 2600)
Intel Unknown 1195 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 260 MB, Free - 33 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpclient.010817-1148 ) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000 (xpclient.010817-1148 ) / Shell32.dll: 6.00.2600.0000 (xpclient.010817-1148 ) / wnaspi32.dll: N/A
Ripping /   Drive D:   Copy mode:ModeBurstBigBuffer   CD Type:Auto   Read speed:Max
 Digital playback: Yes /  Use YADB: Yes /  Get cover art: No /  Calc replay gain: Yes /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: Yes /  Play sound after ripping: Yes  Soundfile:   chord.wav

Burning /  Drive D: SAMSUNG  CD-R/RW SW-224B    Addr: 1:0:0  Speed:4  MaxSpeed:4  Use MJ Engine:Yes
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[NoCodeUK]

I think your comment about testing is a bit harsh.  These guys are the most consistent testers I have ever seen.  Nothing is rushed and if a bug is spotted and can be reproduced it is fixed within a couple of days.  I would guess this kind of bug is very hard to reproduce without having the exact same hardware setup as you.  Give the guys a chance and I am sure it will be fixed within the next coupla days.

Adam

[Sauzee]

I've got exactly the same problem with index positions of audio CD's made from mp3's and the same garbled CD text.

I'm using 9.0.175 with XP.  The problem has only developed today - last week all was OK.  I just burnt 3 CD's from mp3's with MC - all had the problem.

I then burnt the same CD's in Nero without a problem.  
Quite a few changes in my system recently including updating to the latest nVidia graphics drivers and allowing a couple of new apps to run in the background.  Haven't done any experimentation yet to try and isolate the problem.

I'm also using the same burning settings as WTWASP.

Is this a common problem?

[WTWASP]

I've got exactly the same problem with index positions of audio CD's made from mp3's and the same garbled CD text.

I'm using 9.0.175 with XP.  The problem has only developed today - last week all was OK.  I just burnt 3 CD's from mp3's with MC - all had the problem.

I then burnt the same CD's in Nero without a problem.  
Quite a few changes in my system recently including updating to the latest nVidia graphics drivers and allowing a couple of new apps to run in the background.  Haven't done any experimentation yet to try and isolate the problem.

I'm also using the same burning settings as WTWASP.

Is this a common problem?

Hmmm... that's the second time I heard of this "Nero" for burning CDs... could someone tell me what it is and where I can find it? I would like to try it.
My e-mail is displayed, if anyone can drop me a line with a description and possibly a link where I can obtain it, I would be grateful.


I have used Windows Media Player, MusicMatch Jukebox, RealOne Player, HP Record Now, and even some lousy software (Open MG Jukebox) that is essentially useless all around which was included with my MiniDisc walkman.... each have features that none of the others have, which is why I keep them, but for the most part, especially of late, each also have notoriously annoying problems that can't seem to be corrected... so I am really keen on trying something completely different and new.

Thanks folks.

[WTWASP]

I actually found this Nero thingy.. or at least a variation of it... it seems there's different types.. I downloaded the NeroMIX, based on it's CD text options and whatnot...

I tried it, only things I don't like:
- The skins are few and in a floating style
- The playlist display is too tiny
- The CD text seems to have a character limit, and long titles get cropped

Maybe it's more flexible in the full version, but for now, I'm stuck with the trial version.. at least til the end of June.

Other than the gripes listed above, this alternate means for CD burning will have to do til Media Center works out the problems at present.

[gkerber]

Nero is a cd burning package - www.nero.com

I don't know if they have a demo version or not.

I don't know what NeroMIX is.

Nero is included with almost all cd burners sold today, at least the ones I've bought.

Nero is quick for audio and data, does cd-text and burns up to 99 minute cd blanks.

[jlee]

? I'm having exactly the same problem with CD text and misplaced tracks.  This is what I know so far:

With the ver before 180 if I tried to burn with Xfade etc I got silly characters in the CD Text, some tracks were burned in the wrong order and the track boundaries were screwed up.  All of these problems disappeared when I turned off Xfade.  

Then I changed my system as follows:
- Upgrade to 180
- New burner LiteOn 52x (replacing Samsung 24x)

The first burn I did wrote the Text correctly but one track was missing from the burn and track boundaries were all screwed up i.e.

Tracks 1-13 Ok.  14 showed text of 'Jessie's Girl' but Jessie's Girl was not burned.  Instead what should've been track 15 played as 14 under the CD Text guise of 'Jessie's Girl'.  This track however continued 14 seconds into the start of the next track and from then on the start of every track included music from the end of the previous one.

Not clear?  This is what I mean:

I asked for- 14 Jesssie's Girl
I got - 14 It's All Over Now and no sign of Jessie's girl

I asked for - 15 It's all over now
I got - The end of 'It's all over now' then 'Start me Up'

When I burned again using a CD-RW (max 10x) it burned perfectly.

Ok - so before you fall asleep with the tedium of all this where does it point to?

I'm still investigating and will update the post with what I find but meantime I've just got a feeling it's related to the problem whereby you re-order tracks in the window before starting the burn and you get duplicates / tracks disappearing.  My suggestion to anyone trying to get a handle on what's going on is to screen print the window before burning (Alt+Print Screen then paste into Word) and then tick them off to the on-screen messages (writing track...) as it burns them.

[jlee]

Update - Just burned the same CD again on a CD/R at 48x and it was perfect.  The only thing I know was different was that after re-ordering tracks I gave it chance to sort itself out and display the track names / order correctly.  I did this by clicking on another view, leaving it for a few seconds and then clicking back again.

It would be good if MC can prove my theory by re-ordering tracks all over the place and then clicking start straight away.  I don't have time to do their system testing for them (that should've been done before taking my $39) and I don't need any more coasters!

Sounds like a gripe but I have to admit that you do get heaps more functionality in MC than it's rivals and they normally respond quickly with fixes to problems.  It's still no excuse, however, for releasing updates without properly testing a function as fundimental as burning.

Lee.