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[lukecro]

I used to play back CDs using the default "digital" setting at both my home computer (an old Win98 orphaned laptop with an analogue CD drive) and my work computer, which is a decent machine (specs to follow at end of this message).

After I upgraded to MJ8, I could no longer use the digital playback . . . which means that not only were the "visualizations" inactivated, but I could also no longer use the scroll bar to move forward or backward in a track (or, with MC9, at least, the pause button, or stop button).

Worst of all, however, is that MJ8 (and now MC9) would only play ONE TRACK off any CD.  I have to manually click any given track I want to play.  All of the tracks get placed in "playing now", but MJ8/MJ9 will not change tracks . . . at the end of the track, the track simply ends . . . and no track change occurs.

WMP (errgh) and REAL (yuck) and everything else I've tried work just fine . . . no problems. But ever since MJ8 came out I haven't been able to play a CD through the system of my choice (and the only jukebox I'm actually paying for, which is ironic).
 
I've tried using both Wave Out and Direct Sound, and, under settings, I've tried "primary sound Driver",  "SoundMax Digital Audio", and "Yamaha SXG driver", and (with the Wave Out) the Wave Mapper. With digital playback, I get endless buffering but no playback at all . . . . And un-checking the "digital playback" only allows me to play one song (no auto track change) and cripples the pause button, and any fast-forward, track-search, stop, play, etc. features . . .

-- Luke


Media Center Registered 9.0.126 -- C:\Program Files\J River\Media Jukebox\

Microsoft Windows 2000  Workstation 5.0 Service Pack 3 (Build 2195)
Intel Pentium III 996 MHz MMX / Memory: Total - 259 MB, Free - 62 MB

Internet Explorer: 6.0.2600.0000 / ComCtl32.dll: 5.81 / Shlwapi.dll: 6.00.2600.0000
Shell32.dll: 5.00.3502.6144 / wnaspi32.dll: Internal ASPI Layer

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: No /  Copy volume: 32767
 Eject after ripping: No /  Play sound after ripping: No  

Burning /  No burners found.
 Test mode: No /  Eject after writing: Yes /  Direct decoding: Yes /  Write CD-Text: No
 Use playback settings: No /  Normalization: None

[JimH]

Luke,
I shortened your post to make it easier to read.

We've seen this problem a few times before.  It was definitely solved a few weeks ago, the last time we saw it, but I don't remember the solution.  You could try a search here.  Try searching on "only one track" or similar.

Try updating your sound card driver.

Try updating Windows.  IE Tools/Windows Update.

Disable any other software running.

[JohnT]

Go into Options/Devices and click "advanced ripping settings". Try setting the drive type to IDE or ASPI and see if it works better (in digital mode) with either setting.
If this works, please let us know the details.

Thanks,
John T.
JRiver, Inc.

[lukecro]

I've tried changing to IDE or ASPI, I've updated my SoundMax driver, I reinstalled my CD-ROM driver, I've tried using Wave Out and Direct Sound, and I've tried multiple combos of the above.

However, still -- when I'm using the digital playback setting, all MC9 will do is say "buffering". It buffers forever.

With analog playback, something has changed -- Pushing the "play" button will now reset the track to the beginning, and pushing the fast-forward/rewind buttons will now make MC9 progress from one track to the next (no internal searching/scanning of a track is allowed, though). The stop button doesn't work at all. Prior to messing around with all of my settings and drivers, using the analog playback setting completely crippled ALL of the playback/fast-forward/rewind/stop/etc. buttons. After playing 1 track, MC9 still stops playing, until another track is manually selected. CD-lookup is working fine.

Anyway, if this were really a soundcard or CD-Rom problem, would it really be likely that RealPlayer and WMP and even the rinky-dink "Microsoft Cd Player 5.0" would all be able to play CDs without any hitch? Everything else I've tried can play CDs, allow me to fast-forward (etc.) within a track, and moves from one track to the next automatically. Why not MC9?

I was hoping the IDE or ASPI changes would work. But I've spent a few hours trying different combinations of this out  and fooling around with buffer settings, but nothing works.

I'm going crazy. Errr. Computer specs follow:

DVD/CD-ROM Drives - LG CD-ROM CRD-8482B SCSI CdRom Device
Disk Drives - Maxtor 5 T040H4 SCSI Disk Device 37.25Gb
Display Adapters - Intel(r) 82815 Graphics Controller 4Mb
Floppy Disk Drives - (Standard floppy disk drives) Floppy disk drive
IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers - Intel(r) 82801BA Ultra ATA Controller
Keyboards - Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mice and Other Pointing Devices - Microsoft PS/2 Port Mouse (IntelliPoint)
Monitors -- Dell M781p/M781mm - Dell Computer Corp.
Sound Devices - SoundMAX Integrated Digital Audio
USB Controllers  -  Intel(R) 82801BA/BAM USB Universal Host Controller - 2442
Intel(R) 82801BA/BAM USB Universal Host Controller - 2444

 WINDOWS 2000, 5.00.2195, service pack 3

--Luke  

[JimH]

Luke,
Try a thorough search here.  I think you'll find the answer.

Jim

[lukecro]

I've been digging through interact with no luck so far. Will keep looking, though.

The problem I found most similar to mine is this:

"General / Media Center 9 / Re: cd-rom won't stop playing   -- Mar 11th, 2003, 7:18pm  "

Although this fellow couldn't get his cd-rom to stop playing at all -- and mine stops after playing any one track -- the rest of his problem seems to be very similar to my own (i.e. MC can not control the CD-ROm in any way when "digital" playback is not clicked on).

The solution this guy came to was to turn digital playback on, even though historically he did not have to have it on (and Microsoft Media player was working fine). However, as I've noted above, digital playback does SEEM to be my solution . . . except that digital playback results in endless buffering . . . never actually playing the CD.

[lukecro]

When ripping, MC9 has no problem ripping ALL of the CD tracks, in-so-far as it seems aware of there being more than one track and is capable of moving on from one track to the next (as opposed to when I simply want to PLAY the CD).

However, the resulting MP3 files are TERRIBLE. I mean, absolutely horrible. They skip, jump, echo, and warble consistently. I've tried "Auto Config" (which results in ASPI), ASPI, and IDE. I've had "digital playback" both on and off. I've had "Analyze audio during ripping" both on and off. I have "digital large buffer" on. I've tried both regular MP3 encoding and VBR. None of this makes a difference.

Again, it's MC9's inability to play more than one CD track on EITHER of my PCs that is really driving me insane, and I don't mind using AudioCrusher to rip CDs (it's faster and cleaner and has CDDB look-up) . . . but ideally MC9 would both play and rip my CDs. The fact that it can't really do either (on my home laptop or work PC) indicates a possible connection in reagrds to the problems, though, so I'm mentioning it here.

Very frustrating . . . and even more so since MC7 used to give me none of these problems, and every other audio ripping and/or playing program I've tried is also not having these issues.

I realize this problem is probably due to some simple setting which I'm not swift enough to figure out on my own . . . but it seems  . . . mmmm . . . odd  . . . that I don't have to jump through all these hoops to play or rip a CD with Windows Media Player, or Audio Crusher, et al. . . . At least it doesn't try to take over my computer like REAL.

[JohnT]

I'd like to troubleshoot the ripping problem first, it's simpler than troubleshooting playback and once we fix the ripping issue, we've probably fixed the playback issue.
I looked up the specs on your drive and it appears to be ATAPI, so you should have the "type" set to IDE. For testing, try leaving the encoding set to "uncompressed wave" to eliminate encoding issues. For copy mode, try ripping one track with it set to "digital large buffer". If you get the poor sound quality you're talking about, try settng the mode to "digital secure".
Please let me know the results. For testing, just try ripping the first track on the CD. Try a couple different "clean" CD's to eliminate media problems as a culprit.
I assume you're getting good sound quality playing other (non CD) files in Media Center.

Thanks,
John T.
JRiver, Inc.

[lukecro]

Taking your suggestions (thank you!) I set the type to IDE and used the digital large buffer . . . I continued to have some problems until I changed my output to Wave Out - Wave Mapper (I'd had it on Direct Sound, which I think had been causing minor distortion on all of my files). Tried out a few other combinations using Digital Secure until I was getting 100%. Then I went back to digital large buffer and tried various encoders (MP3, MP3 VBR, etc.), and those are working great as well. Now everything's perfect as far as ripping and file playing is concerned!

The CD playback is still not working, however. MC9 Plays one track and then stops. And the only way I can make it stop playing that one track (mid-track) is by ejecting the disk -- even exiting MC9 does not stop the track from playing (with non-digital, that is . . . with "digital playback" on it still just buffers forever).

Thank you once again for all of your help.

Luke

[JohnT]

I've got a hunch about the digital playback problem. There was a bug fix in the ripper control that would also affect playback, however the playback plugin didn't get re-released. Just to test if this is the problem, try deleting this registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\JRiver\Media Jukebox\CD Reader

Then try playing the CD with digital playback enabled.

Note: If you'd rather not mess with editing the registry, just wait until the next build of MC which will have the updated CD playback plugin (in_cda.dll). A new build should come out this afternoon.

[lukecro]

Good god, man  . . .  you're a friggin' genius.

Ha!  The reg edit did the trick!

Works like a dream!

Thank you thank you thank you thank you . . . . may you find a million dollars in your bath tub.

Luke  !

[lukecro]

Sooooooooooo . . . . everything was working splendidly until recently, when suddenly I could no longer playback using "digital playback" (endless buffering) and non-digital playback would only allow me to play one song and then stop.

And ripping became completly awful.

So, after fooling around with various options, I finally went back and deleted the reg key, like last time . . . only this time it didn't work. Not only that, but it's completely screwed things up . . . pretty badly.

I tried installing the latest update (9.0160), hoping the reg key would be fixed. . . at least patch the new problems and just leave me with the old problem  . . . but no such luck. What -- oh, what -- do I do now? You would think the simple act of playing back a CD wouldn't be such a problem . . .