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[soundsabound]

I have a 24-bit soundcard (Echo Mia) with the latest drivers installed on a Win2K box.

I tried adjusting (settings > options > playback) to give me 24-bit output but MJ refuses, giving the error message...

"There was an error starting playback.
Make sure your system has a valid sound playback device and that it is properly configured in Media Jukeboxe's playback options." etc....

I've tried all combinations of "Mode" (Directsound / Wave Out) with "Bitdepth" (24-bit / 16-bit / source bitdepth) and the only ones which work are those which use 16-bit or "source bitdepth".

The files I'm playing back are 16-bit ape files.

As a quick test, I just converted a 16bit wav to 24bit using CoolEdit and tried to play back the 24bit file with the same results.

For what it's worth, CoolEdit/Cubase/WaveLab can all play back the 24bit file, although WMP fails (but that's not surprising as WMP doesn't support 24bit files).

Any suggestions, ideas, insights, cups of coffee (or stronger libations), will be gratefully received.

[Matt]

Hey there,

I'm not sure, but with my M-Audio Audiophile 24/96, the WDM drivers didn't support 24-bit playback on W2K.  However, M-Audio eventually rolled out a new driver set that overcame the problem.  Any chance there's a similar issue with the Echo Mia?

Maybe try playing that same 24-bit WAV file with Winamp.  I'll bet it won't work either.

Let us know either way...

Thanks.

-Matt

[soundsabound]

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your advice.

Since last night night, I've done a complete reinstall of win2k (just to be on the safe side) and some more testing. I tried using winamp, it plays back just fine (although I don't know for sure that it's actually passing 24 bits to the lower layers, it may be truncating to 16 bits).

Am I right in assuming that MJ plays 24/44.1 files just fine on your Audiophile? If this is the case, then I have to assume it's a driver problem that only Echo can solve and let winamp run the 24 bit stuff in the meantime.

Thanks again for your assist

[Matt]

A few weeks ago I had the audiophile playing at 24-bit with no problems in MJ, but that was under Win98.

Can anybody else with a 24-bit card chirp in on this?  If not, we'll do some more in-house testing to make sure MJ isn't goofing something up.

Thanks.

-Matt

[soundsabound]

Matt,
Just to clarify a few things.

1) I got MJ to play back 24-bit files, but only if I select 'settings> options> playback> bitdepth = 16-bits' !! (selecting 'Source bitdepth' or '24-bits' will return the error I mentioned earlier).

2) I played with Media Editor and found that it will fail to load a 24-bit file most of the time. It goes through the load process, but then displays garbage (actually a flat line instead of the waveform).

3) If I prime Media Editor by loading a 16-bit file first. Then close that file and open the 24-bit file next, it (mostly) loads and displays properly, but it's response isn't consistent.

4) The volume control on MJ is stuck at Max in Win2k (this was mentioned by another user in an earlier post). The VC was stuck when I had an Echo Layla in the box with beta Win2k drivers. Now I've replaced that soundcard with an Echo Mia with release drivers (and complete re-install of Win2K) and the VC is still stuck.

5) The 24 bit test files I'm using include one that I loaded into Media Editor and saved from there. So that *should* eliminate the possibility of any nasties in the file format.

6) I've turned off Windows system sounds to prevent the OS from squirting any non-standard sampling rates (ie, 11khz, 8-bit, mono system sounds) into the card. (These can cause a card to stop accepting alternative bit rates/depths, or make it play back at reduced speed)

None of the above is a show stopper for me. Mostly I only want to play 24-bits when I'm still working on a master copy from a vinyl transcription, getting rid of the clicks'n'pops. It's just one of those things that 'It Would be Nice to be Able to Do (tm)'

Thanks again for your support, it's great to see a piece of software develop like this.

* Until I started using Media Jukebox, I had no idea I had five versions of 'Hoochie Coochie Man' in my collection, and no way to play them all segue *

[soundsabound]

Matt,
In my stupidity I forgot to mention that when MJ objects to playing 24-bit files, on the first attempt, I get the error message mentioned above. On a subsequent attempt it usually fails with a Windows error message...

"Program Error.

Media Jukebox has created errors and will be closed by Windows.
An error log is being created. "

If the dump produced by Windows would help, I'll zip it and send it to you.


Thanks again

[Hank the Dwarf]

I have an Audiophile 24/96 card under Win 2K.  Like soundsabound, I have to set the MJ playback bitdepth at 16 to get MJ to play a 24 bit file.  I can't get Media Editor to play a 24 bit file (I also get a flat line loaded).

[Matt]

From what I can gather, Win2K and WinXP don't support 24-bit playback via WaveOut or DirectSound.

It looks like Winamp started scaling the output to 16-bit sometime in the last few releases, because we had a cheese whiz card fail to play a 24-bit file with Winamp 2.70, but then work with 2.80. (and the card definately doesn't support 24-bit playback)

So, you're probably stuck with 16-bit playback unless you want to go back to WinME...

(if I'm half-baked on this, please let me know...)

Thanks.

-Matt

[Cotton-Eyed Loo]

This might be useful - it is certainly THRILLING>>>>>

http://www.rme-audio.com/english/download/download.htm

If you scroll down a bit you will see links to download various samples encoded at different rates.

[soundsabound]

Hi,

There's a pretty good review of the problem here http://www.tonewise.com/www/

Also a workaround that involves installing a wrapper to act as a virtual device to which old-style MME (WAVEFORMATEX) structures can be passed and converted to new-style WDM (WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE) structures.

Only one wee problem....MJ doesn't recognise the wrapper even though it's present in the Sounds & Multimedia' control panel

No matter, I can live with 16-bits while the rest of the world catches up with me.

There's nothing like bleeding edge technology, is there


Cheers

[Matt]

Thanks for the heads up.

MJ's player has been updated to use the new WAVEFORMATEXTENSIBLE stuff where possible.  However, this won't make it into 8.0 because it's a fairly sizable change, and we don't have time to do enough testing.

However, if you have a 24-bit card and want the new version of the player to mess with, drop me a line at matt @ jriver.com and I'll hook you up.

Thanks again.

-Matt