[aprssig] RE: Re: *** APRS TNC Test CD Now Available *** --- Can't Play It

[Dave Baxter]

Hi...
 
Well, here are my findings, for what it's worth...
 
Windows 2000 Pro (fully licensed and legit and up to date.)
 
The CD (Deluxe) player does not produce any sound, though it appears to "play" the disk, that is, you can hear the disk drive start and move the pickup about etc, and the numbers go round, but no sound.
 
WiMP (V 9.0.x.x.xx)  Plays it OK, even ignoring the first data track, so getting the announcements right for the displayed track numbers.  Interesting watching the tones with some of the spectral waterfall type of visualisations...
 
Interestingly, the W2k CD player, does not produce any sound with a genuine audio CD.  Hmmm..   Currently listening to the 1492 CD (Vangelis) via WiMP while I type this.
 
As to the data track.  (TNC test disk in another drive now, a DVD-+RW)
 
The RTF file is corrupt, all I get (in any of 3 RTF compatible readers) is pages of square blocks, the Null character I think.
 
Several of the .gif's are also corrupt, neither IE6 nor Paint Shop Pro (V7) will open them.  IE shows the frame with a red X in the top left.  PSP burps and says it's not a valid gif format file.
 
1200-2200-DeEmph.gif is OK, as is the "flat" version of this.  All the other .gif's are bad.
 
The DigiStar.ico file is also corrupt, just a load of null bytes.
 
The Autorun.inf file, is likewise corrupt, just a line of block characters.
 
At least I can play the audio tracks on a "real" audio player!
 
My guess is your original Roxio file was OK, but odd things happened during the conversion to the Nero format.
 
It's worth noting, that there were some recent updates for part of the Roxio system, as some of the drivers caused compatibility trouble with other programs, auto updates etc...
 
All the best.
 
Dave G0WBX.
 
 

________________________________

From: Stephen H. Smith [mailto:wa8lmf2 at aol.com]
Sent: Mon 06/11/2006 17:22
To: TAPR APRS Mailing List
Cc: Dave Baxter
Subject: RE: Re: *** APRS TNC Test CD Now Available *** --- Can't Play It



dave at emv.co.uk wrote:
> Hi..
>
>
>
> Thinking about it, having a "data" track at the beginning, not the end
> of the compilation may indeed screw up some players, probably the more
> capable ones too, after all my old Discman just "played" it (silently)
> as any other track, perhaps some players "see" a data track, then assume
> the rest is data?  Most other mixed format CD's I've seen, have the
> audio stuff first, then the other content...   Not tried it myself with
> WiMP yet.
>
> WiMP, is however renown for sometimes doing odd things with mixed
> content disks, and also for the several odd way's to make it behave,
> though it does seem to vary from one machine to another.
>
>  


1)   I created the disk originally with Roxio Easy CD Creator 6.0 .   
CD Creator's default behavior for a "Mixed Mode Disk Project" is to
place the data track first, and then the audio track(s). 

2)   Using Easy CD Creator, I then made an image file in Roxio .CIF
format because the widely used and nearly universal.ISO format only
supports data-onlyCDs; not audio or mixed-mode disks.

3)   I initially only posted the disk image in the Adaptec/Roxio .CIF
format.

4)   Someone else then converted the .CIF image to Nero .NRG format
using a third-party format-conversion utility. Given that all the
complaints so far on various lists has involved disks made from the Nero
version, I am wondering if the CIF->NRG conversion was less than
perfect.  I simply have no way of knowing if the conversion was
perfectly accurate.  Since I don't have or use Nero Burning ROM, I can't
test or vouch for the .NRG version of the file.


Finally, 

5)   Win 2000's "CD Player" applet (not Media Player) plays the disk
just fine, allowing you to easily skip over the first (data) track that
some CD drives mistakenly think is an unplayable audio track.    The
applet "CDplayer.exe" produces a user interface that looks like a
typical car stereo CD player.  It is a single 330K exe file located in
the /SYSTEM32 subdirectory underneath the main Windows directory.   
This file requires no installation or hooks to the Windows registry.  It
can be copied from a Win 2K system and easily used with Windows XP.






--

Stephen H. Smith    wa8lmf (at) aol.com
EchoLink Node:      14400    [Think bottom of the 2M band]
Home Page:          http://wa8lmf.com  --OR--   http://wa8lmf.net

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