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[gkerber]

CD burning takes almost ALL of my 2.5gig processor.  When burning all seems to be okay, if I do nothing else during the burn.

However, since it's taking almost all of my processor, anything else takes forever, in fact, it took 16 seconds for a stop click to stop the music using mjextman.

Screen updates are very jerky.

As you can see I have a 2.5gig machine with 1 gig of memory.

(how do people get images pasted into posts)

I never had any problem burning, playing music, surfing, doing email, whatever with v8, therefore this is either a bug in v9 or some bad interaction between my cd burner and v9.  I have a very mainstream 32x LiteOn burner.

Media Center Registered 9.0.161 -- C:\Program Files\Media Jukebox\

Microsoft Windows XP 5.1 Service Pack 1 (Build 2600)
Intel Pentium 4 2542 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 1048 MB, Free - 702 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.82 (xpsp1.020828-1920) / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2800.1106 (xpsp1.020828-1920)
Shell32.dll: 6.00.2800.1145 (xpsp2.021108-1929) / wnaspi32.dll: Internal ASPI Layer

Ripping /   Drive I:   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 I: LITE-ON  LTR-32123S         Addr: 2:0:0  Speed:32  MaxSpeed:32  Use MJ Engine:Yes
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: Yes
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[gkerber]

I turned off "decode files directly to cd" and things got way better.  Still slower than v8 overall, but usable now.  Why should decoding take almost all my cpu's?  I know it's processing, but my machine is no slouch.

I was decoding from APE, not mp3.  I've done decoding from mp3 to cdr before on v8 with no problems, so I think maybe the problem is in the APE->WAV->CDR on the fly decoder....

Even with this option off, it's slow just to draw the screen.

I select a few files and click "burn cd" and I can watch the various parts and button of the burning screen draw, was not this slow with v8.

[xen-uno]

> I turned off "decode files directly to cd" ...  Why should decoding take almost all my cpu's?

I can think of a good reason. Decoding has to take place in real time (actually much faster) to keep the CD burners' buffer full to prevent burn errors (underruns). So with this option checked, the encoding process becomes a high priority on the thread level (above all others except system threads...or the process IS a system thread). This option has to work for all file types (some decode faster than others) and more importantly...all burn speeds. So yes...it will max out your cpu.

10^-27

use this button while composing your post. You put your URL where it says URL

disabled example (of the button above):
[ img]http://www.musicex.com/YaBBImages/img.gif[/img ]

edit: With this option checked, it is probably one reason why some people are crashing while burning (unless it rolls back the burn rate to suite). For instance, if I stick a CD-R in my Yam (which can burn R's from 40 to 44x) and decode a mp3 directly to disk, my comp would have to deliver nearly 1 MB/s (sustained) of data to keep the buffer at a constant level. This doesn't sound like a whole lot but the system is doing alot of other things at the same time. This could be problematic for slower computers.

[gkerber]

I can do mp3->wav->cdr no problem, but can't do ape->wav->cdr without it killing my processor.

The data rate to the burner needs to be the same mp3 or ape.  There is more data to be read from the hd for ape (bigger files), but I don't see why the huge difference in processor needs.  I suspect the algorthm for ape needs some tweaking.

With a 2.5 gig processor and it kills my processor, what kind of machine would I need to do this?

The Monkeys decoder doesn't kill my machine, I can set it convert a full album ape file to wav, no problems.  It's the same data rate to the hd drive for the resulting file as MC needs to create for burning to the cd burner.

[xen-uno]

> I suspect the algorthm for ape needs some tweaking

You may be right. I would think decoding a lossy to wave would be more intense then lossless to wav (or whatever format Direct to CD produces)

> With a 2.5 gig processor and it kills my processor, what kind of machine would I need to do this

Two heads are better than one. There is dual processor 933 MHz PIII Xeon here, but MC is not installed on it. (Ideally) MC would run primarily on one processor, while the user would run on the other.

10^-27

[JohnT]

Is this problem fixed (or improved) with the latest builds? I made several changes that should improve performance.

- John T.

[gkerber]

I will test it out this evening, and let you know either way.

Thanks for following up.

[Matt]

If you're using APE, don't use 'extra high' mode.  It's silly -- 4 times the processor usage for like $3 worth of HD space after a few hundred CD's.

I'd recommend 'normal' or 'fast'.

[gkerber]

CD burning with direct decode of APE files is so much better now, it's like night and day!  I do notice a slight, very slight sluggness of the computer during buring, but barely.

I've always used NORMAL for APE files.

Thanks for the fix.