SB Live! and Mixer "Audio CD" slider problem

Hello !

On a freshly installed XP (sp2), I have a SB Live! 5.1 sound card and
installed the 5.12.2.252 drivers. The PC has two optical disks
devices, a DVD-ROM and a DVD writer.

There's an audio cable between the DVD-ROM and the Audio-CD connector
on the card, and another connecting the DVD writer to the Aux connector
on the card.

Despite this, when I put in an Audio CD, it is the WAVE/MP3 slider of
the Creative (or XP) mixer which control the volume. Both "Audio CD"
and "Aux" sliders seems inoperative.

Why is it so ?

How can I make the appropriate slider control the Audio CD volume ?

Thanks..

Louis wrote:
Hello !

On a freshly installed XP (sp2), I have a SB Live! 5.1 sound card and
installed the 5.12.2.252 drivers. The PC has two optical disks
devices, a DVD-ROM and a DVD writer.

There's an audio cable between the DVD-ROM and the Audio-CD connector on
the card, and another connecting the DVD writer to the Aux connector on
the card.

Despite this, when I put in an Audio CD, it is the WAVE/MP3 slider of
the Creative (or XP) mixer which control the volume. Both "Audio CD"
and "Aux" sliders seems inoperative.

Why is it so ?

How can I make the appropriate slider control the Audio CD volume ?


Since this is a fresh install of XP I think digital audio
extraction enabled by default, which according to this MS KB
article would cause what you are experiencing with the mixer volumes.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/271647

HTH
Eddie

E a formulé la demande :
Louis wrote:
Hello !

On a freshly installed XP (sp2), I have a SB Live! 5.1 sound card and
installed the 5.12.2.252 drivers. The PC has two optical disks devices, a
DVD-ROM and a DVD writer.

There's an audio cable between the DVD-ROM and the Audio-CD connector on
the card, and another connecting the DVD writer to the Aux connector on the
card.

Despite this, when I put in an Audio CD, it is the WAVE/MP3 slider of the
Creative (or XP) mixer which control the volume. Both "Audio CD" and "Aux"
sliders seems inoperative.

Why is it so ?

How can I make the appropriate slider control the Audio CD volume ?


Since this is a fresh install of XP I think digital audio extraction enabled
by default, which according to this MS KB article would cause what you are
experiencing with the mixer volumes.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/271647

HTH
Eddie

That's was it !

Changed from "Digital" to "Analog" on device properties and wmp and
everything works as expected.

Thanks..

On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:27:51 -0400, Louis
wrote:

E a formulé la demande :
Louis wrote:
Hello !

On a freshly installed XP (sp2), I have a SB Live! 5.1 sound card and
installed the 5.12.2.252 drivers. The PC has two optical disks devices, a
DVD-ROM and a DVD writer.

There's an audio cable between the DVD-ROM and the Audio-CD connector on
the card, and another connecting the DVD writer to the Aux connector on the
card.

Despite this, when I put in an Audio CD, it is the WAVE/MP3 slider of the
Creative (or XP) mixer which control the volume. Both "Audio CD" and "Aux"
sliders seems inoperative.

Why is it so ?

How can I make the appropriate slider control the Audio CD volume ?


Since this is a fresh install of XP I think digital audio extraction enabled
by default, which according to this MS KB article would cause what you are
experiencing with the mixer volumes.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/271647

HTH
Eddie

That's was it !

Changed from "Digital" to "Analog" on device properties and wmp and
everything works as expected.


Ok but why would you want to transfer analog data over the
cable when it should sound better uninstalling the cables
and transferring the audio (data) over the data cable for OS
decoding and playback or *recording* (converting to a new
file)?

Perhaps you do want to but for typical listening scenarios
you would just check the (Device Manager) properties for the
optical drive and make sure the digital audio connector box
is checkmarked.

kony wrote:
On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 11:27:51 -0400, Louis
wrote:

E a formulé la demande :
Louis wrote:

snip

That's was it !

Changed from "Digital" to "Analog" on device properties and wmp and
everything works as expected.


Ok but why would you want to transfer analog data over the
cable when it should sound better uninstalling the cables
and transferring the audio (data) over the data cable for OS
decoding and playback or *recording* (converting to a new
file)?

Perhaps you do want to but for typical listening scenarios
you would just check the (Device Manager) properties for the
optical drive and make sure the digital audio connector box
is checkmarked.

This is mostly true according to this Annandtech article.
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.aspx?i=129

But does this setting in Windows effect third party software that
allows you to select either analog or DAE for converting CD tracks
to file (ripping)? I thought that as far as ripping CD goes, it
could be DAE or analog, depending on your ripping software.

As far as playback, the article lists the three methods of getting
the CD audio to your speakers, and some disadvantages of DAE. Two
of them being high System and PCI traffic, and a noisy drive.

The high spinning noisy drive always bothered me. But I usually
convert my CDs to MP3s, so I have music with a few clicks of a
mouse from the HD. I rarely play the actual music CD more than
once in my PC.

But to each his own.

On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:01:15 -0400, E
wrote:


But does this setting in Windows effect third party software that
allows you to select either analog or DAE for converting CD tracks
to file (ripping)? I thought that as far as ripping CD goes, it
could be DAE or analog, depending on your ripping software.

CD ripping is always done over the data cable by default.
If you were to use the analog cable you would be using a
sound recording application to record at the actual rate the
audio file plays back, and it would be a 2nd generation copy
that is lower quality.



As far as playback, the article lists the three methods of getting
the CD audio to your speakers, and some disadvantages of DAE. Two
of them being high System and PCI traffic, and a noisy drive.

There is no good reason not to use digital data transfer to
rip. Yes the drive is louder because it's ripping at
multiple times the speed, you can rip an entire CD in a
couple minutes instead of over half an hour. PCI traffic is
not an issue, if you don't devote the traffic to what you're
trying to do, what point was there to having a PCI bus?
There only time anyone would want to rip by playign analog
over the cable and recording that were if there were some
kind of DRM preventing normal playback but if that were the
case, normally the CD/DVD drive couldn't read a standard
audio track anyway, the DRM software would have to read the
file instead over the data cable.



The high spinning noisy drive always bothered me. But I usually
convert my CDs to MP3s, so I have music with a few clicks of a
mouse from the HD. I rarely play the actual music CD more than
once in my PC.

But to each his own.

It's not like the drive is spinning very long, would you
rather have it quieter because it's spinning only 1/3rd as
fast but have it take 3X as long to rip?

Regardless, try "Nero Drivespeed", if your drive is
compatible it will allow setting the max speed the drive
runs at so you can force it to run at lower RPM.

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:13:35 -0400, kony wrote:

On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:01:15 -0400, E
wrote:


But does this setting in Windows effect third party software that allows
you to select either analog or DAE for converting CD tracks to file
(ripping)? I thought that as far as ripping CD goes, it could be DAE or
analog, depending on your ripping software.

CD ripping is always done over the data cable by default. If you were to
use the analog cable you would be using a sound recording application to
record at the actual rate the audio file plays back, and it would be a
2nd generation copy that is lower quality.


Yes I agree. If you want to save music CD tracks to file (what I call
ripping), you want the best quality you can possibly get, first
generation, taking the data as seen by the CD drive (DAE). With no analog
step in between. We fully expect, and want, to use the PCI bus for this if
we want high quality copies. Unless you need to use the analog step, as a
work around for like you say, DRM, or errors on the music CD.


As far as playback, the article lists the three methods of getting the
CD audio to your speakers, and some disadvantages of DAE. Two of them
being high System and PCI traffic, and a noisy drive.

There is no good reason not to use digital data transfer to rip. Yes
the drive is louder because it's ripping at multiple times the speed,
you can rip an entire CD in a couple minutes instead of over half an
hour. PCI traffic is not an issue, if you don't devote the traffic to
what you're trying to do, what point was there to having a PCI bus?


Note that I make a distinction between ripping, and playback. When I say
ripping, I mean converting to file and saving to disk for later use. And
playback is simply getting the CD audio to the speakers, with no music
data being permanently saved. Yes, DAE for ripping. Playback depends on
other factors.

I would say the PCI bus is for everything you are doing on your PC, at any
one moment, that requires it.

What requires more total system resources if doing the following with
software and no hardware acceleration to get music out of the speakers?

A. Read a music CD encoded at 1,411kbps from the CD/DVD drive through the
IDE cable.
B. Read an MP3 encoded at 256kbps from the hard drive (which of course can
only be through the SATA or ATA IDE cable).


There only time anyone would want to rip by playign analog over the
cable and recording that were if there were some kind of DRM preventing
normal playback but if that were the case, normally the CD/DVD drive
couldn't read a standard audio track anyway, the DRM software would have
to read the file instead over the data cable.

The high spinning noisy drive always bothered me. But I usually convert
my CDs to MP3s, so I have music with a few clicks of a mouse from the
HD. I rarely play the actual music CD more than once in my PC.

But to each his own.

It's not like the drive is spinning very long, would you rather have it
quieter because it's spinning only 1/3rd as fast but have it take 3X as
long to rip?

As I said above, I make a distinction between ripping (saving to files for
later use) a music CD, and playing back a music CD. I agree with DAE for
ripping CDs. But playback depends on the user and his system.

Anyway, it seems my recently installed openSuse installation is using DAE
for playback and without the high rpm CD spin-up. The newer DVD-RW does
well with DAE for music CD playback. The older CD-RW drive seems to be a
little buggie with it, but it works. I also don't know where in Suse to
force analog playback of CDs. The older drive could probably use an analog
connection since it seems a little unstable with DAE for playback. The
instability would be acceptable for ripping to file, as long as the files
turn out ok. But I'll probably just use the DVD/CD drive if I ever want to
play a CD, since it seems quiet and smooth with DAE.


Regardless, try "Nero Drivespeed", if your drive is compatible it will
allow setting the max speed the drive runs at so you can force it to run
at lower RPM.

Apparently some part openSuse or the application I'm using to playback
a music CD, seems to implement a Nero Drivespeed type feature, since as I
said above there is no CD spin-up. I'll look into Drivespeed for winders
if me or someone else I know might want it.

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:13:35 -0400, kony wrote:

On Thu, 20 Mar 2008 15:01:15 -0400, E
wrote:


But does this setting in Windows effect third party software that allows
you to select either analog or DAE for converting CD tracks to file
(ripping)? I thought that as far as ripping CD goes, it could be DAE or
analog, depending on your ripping software.

CD ripping is always done over the data cable by default. If you were to
use the analog cable you would be using a sound recording application to
record at the actual rate the audio file plays back, and it would be a
2nd generation copy that is lower quality.


Yes I agree. If you want to save music CD tracks to file (what I call
ripping), you want the best quality you can possibly get, first
generation, taking the data as seen by the CD drive (DAE). With no analog
step in between. We fully expect, and want, to use the PCI bus for this if
we want high quality copies. Unless you need to use the analog step, as a
work around for like you say, DRM, or errors on the music CD.


As far as playback, the article lists the three methods of getting the
CD audio to your speakers, and some disadvantages of DAE. Two of them
being high System and PCI traffic, and a noisy drive.

There is no good reason not to use digital data transfer to rip. Yes
the drive is louder because it's ripping at multiple times the speed,
you can rip an entire CD in a couple minutes instead of over half an
hour. PCI traffic is not an issue, if you don't devote the traffic to
what you're trying to do, what point was there to having a PCI bus?


Note that I make a distinction between ripping, and playback. When I say
ripping, I mean converting to file and saving to disk for later use. And
playback is simply getting the CD audio to the speakers, with no music
data being permanently saved. Yes, DAE for ripping. Playback depends on
other factors.

I would say the PCI bus is for everything you are doing on your PC, at any
one moment, that requires it.

What requires more total system resources if doing the following with
software and no hardware acceleration to get music out of the speakers?

A. Read a music CD encoded at 1,411kbps from the CD/DVD drive through the
IDE cable.
B. Read an MP3 encoded at 256kbps from the hard drive (which of course can
only be through the SATA or ATA IDE cable).


There only time anyone would want to rip by playign analog over the
cable and recording that were if there were some kind of DRM preventing
normal playback but if that were the case, normally the CD/DVD drive
couldn't read a standard audio track anyway, the DRM software would have
to read the file instead over the data cable.

The high spinning noisy drive always bothered me. But I usually convert
my CDs to MP3s, so I have music with a few clicks of a mouse from the
HD. I rarely play the actual music CD more than once in my PC.

But to each his own.

It's not like the drive is spinning very long, would you rather have it
quieter because it's spinning only 1/3rd as fast but have it take 3X as
long to rip?

As I said above, I make a distinction between ripping (saving to files for
later use) a music CD, and playing back a music CD. I agree with DAE for
ripping CDs. But playback depends on the user and his system.

Anyway, it seems my recently installed openSuse installation is using DAE
for playback and without the high rpm CD spin-up. The newer DVD-RW does
well with DAE for music CD playback. The older CD-RW drive seems to be a
little buggie with it, but it works. I also don't know where in Suse to
force analog playback of CDs. The older drive could probably use an analog
connection since it seems a little unstable with DAE for playback. The
instability would be acceptable for ripping to file, as long as the files
turn out ok. But I'll probably just use the DVD/CD drive if I ever want to
play a CD, since it seems quiet and smooth with DAE.


Regardless, try "Nero Drivespeed", if your drive is compatible it will
allow setting the max speed the drive runs at so you can force it to run
at lower RPM.

Apparently some part openSuse or the application I'm using to playback
a music CD, seems to implement a Nero Drivespeed type feature, since as I
said above there is no CD spin-up. I'll look into Drivespeed for winders
if me or someone else I know might want it.

On Sun, 23 Mar 2008 09:49:50 -0000, E
wrote:


What requires more total system resources if doing the following with
software and no hardware acceleration to get music out of the speakers?

A. Read a music CD encoded at 1,411kbps from the CD/DVD drive through the
IDE cable.
B. Read an MP3 encoded at 256kbps from the hard drive (which of course can
only be through the SATA or ATA IDE cable).


There's no real reason to care, either is far lower than a
significant amount of resources, and further each uses
different resources, there is not a grand total summary
figure that would adequately compare them.

With A), your bottleneck would be the CD drive except the
bitrate is lower than any drive can handle if working
properly and the disc is undamaged.

With B), your hard drive has higher throughput potential and
a lower bitrate, but slightly higher CPU utilization - a
Pentium 233 can play back MP3 fine so it's of little concern
for later systems unless one were heavily multitasking and
if that's the case, any and both of the above will be a
minor penalty - but an acceptible one since you want to
listen to music.



As I said above, I make a distinction between ripping (saving to files for
later use) a music CD, and playing back a music CD. I agree with DAE for
ripping CDs. But playback depends on the user and his system.

There's no good reason to play a CD over the analog cable
either, not today with systems easily having multiple times
the processing, decoding performance needed. Even a Celeron
800 would play more than 3 MP3 simultaneously.

Yes you can do it - play over the analog cable, and it might
even sound as good given an undiscriminating listener or
merely average amp and speakers - I don't mean to discourage
it, rather there's not anything positive, any reason to do
so if digitally over IDE cable works which it normally does.



Anyway, it seems my recently installed openSuse installation is using DAE
for playback and without the high rpm CD spin-up. The newer DVD-RW does
well with DAE for music CD playback. The older CD-RW drive seems to be a
little buggie with it, but it works. I also don't know where in Suse to
force analog playback of CDs. The older drive could probably use an analog
connection since it seems a little unstable with DAE for playback. The
instability would be acceptable for ripping to file, as long as the files
turn out ok. But I'll probably just use the DVD/CD drive if I ever want to
play a CD, since it seems quiet and smooth with DAE.

There were a lot of older CD drives that had more trouble
ripping, somewhere I still have many MP3 that have clicks
and pops in them from ripping with a circa '97 Mitsumi(?)
24X drive, but this kind of problem was soon fixed and
anything circa '00 and later shouldn't have this issue.




Regardless, try "Nero Drivespeed", if your drive is compatible it will
allow setting the max speed the drive runs at so you can force it to run
at lower RPM.

Apparently some part openSuse or the application I'm using to playback
a music CD, seems to implement a Nero Drivespeed type feature, since as I
said above there is no CD spin-up. I'll look into Drivespeed for winders
if me or someone else I know might want it.

Personally I just rip any CD I'd listen to, to the hard
drive using whatever compression is preferred then it's
stored on a fileserver for more convenient playback - I
choose not to swap optical discs back and forth, would never
buy anything that requires having the disc in the drive more
than one time to rip it, including games... I won't buy one
that doesn't have a no-CD crack for it.