CDA garbles tracks under Windows XP

habaneroburger wrote on 3/15/2002, 12:37 AM

I'm one of those trying to get CDA working properly under Windows XP. Unlike most others, I didn't have to do anything special to get it to recognize my CD burner (an HP 9110i, which worked flawlessly with CDA under Win 98) under XP, once the 4.0g update was installed.

My problem is that sometimes it will burn a CD just fine, and sometimes, partway through, the audio will become garbled -- it sounds like the CD is skipping in that the audio is chopped up and bits of it play out of sequence. It's not an actual CD skip, though -- CDA is writing bad (but, to the CD player, valid) audio to the CD. Once the problem crops up in a track, it happens throughout that track and throughout the rest of the tracks on the disc.

The installation of XP and Sound Forge/CD Architect are less than a month old, so I doubt it's bitrot in the OS or the drivers.

Anyone know anything about this? I haven't tried flailing around yet by recording at a lower-than-maximum speed or twiddling with Windows Compatibility modes or anything like that, but I thought I'd see if anyone else knew anything about the problem.

Comments

NyX wrote on 4/1/2002, 11:21 AM

I hate to say this- but it sounds like your burner is not working correctly.
You might want to check (verify) that you have the DMA enabled for your burner.

If you don't know how ( it isn't in the same place as Win98se )- here is how:

start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management
Click on Device manager (this is NOT the same as the one from system properties!!)
click the + beside IDE ATA/ATAPI
now select primary IDE channel and then advanced tab
verify that your burner is useing "DMA if available"
Your burner should be using Ultra DMA Mode 2

If your system doens't give you this option - you MUST go to your system BIOS and tell it to use ULTRA ATA/DMA for your cd-Burner. Then repeat steps above if needed.

I use a Plextor 40x in XP Pro and CD-A 4.0g and I have zero problems with bad audio. If you still have problems, try another burner. The HP burners are not known for their "great" quality or their compatability.

Good luck.

NyX
aka Frank

habaneroburger wrote on 4/3/2002, 10:05 PM

Thanks for the hint about where to find the DMA settings. However, my burner was already set to use DMA.

I doubt it's the hardware, because I burned hundreds of CD's with CDA under W98 with zero problems. Under XP, it's kind of sketchy.

I found that if I burn at 4x instead of the 8x maximum the drive allows, I get a lot fewer problems (maybe one disc in 10 is bad instead of 1 in every 2-3). I've started leaving the computer idle while it's burning instead of doing other stuff with it, even though I've never had reports of buffer underruns on either good or bad discs. Probably more voodoo than anything else.

Sigh. I wish CDA were still supported. I understand why Sonic Foundry would drop it if it weren't selling (honestly, I do -- it's not hard for me to believe unit sales not breaking 1000 per year, a number I've made up but find credible, and there's no way to build a business around those kinds of sales without an extremely high price point), but it's a shame since it's such a fantastic product, other problems notwithstanding. I suppose I could get VV3 for its CD burning, but I've already spent a lot of money on SF+CDA, and don't want to spend a lot more money to get the CD burning I'm already supposed to have, some other features I don't need, and a product that in all likelihood will have an even shorter support lifetime.

NyX wrote on 4/4/2002, 2:01 AM

Hello,

If your drive has a max burning speed of 8 - then obviously is is an older drive. I am glad that the DMA setting is working correctly.
But at this point I don't have any real clues on why you are getting problems. All I know is that my audio burns at 24x and I have ZERO garble.

You probably have tried this already, if not try it:
Before you start your burning, reboot your machine and don't have any programs running in the background if you can help it. to turn off hidden programs go to :
Start>Run then type in "msconfig"

Then go to th startup tab and disable the stuff you don't need on a daily basis for your computer click apply then close, now restart and try burning again.

Also, it has been suggested that the built in buring software in Winxp could be the cause of it as well. Try disabling the built in Windows burning software. (I used a program called "Tweak XP" to do that but I don't remember HOW to do it right off hand.)

Good luck and let me know.

Regards,
NyX
aka Frank

Sneddy wrote on 4/14/2002, 8:22 AM

Do you ever have clicks and pops (and the occassional big spike) when reading audio?
I have a Matsushita 7502 burner/reader. I am currently using 98SE but am soon upgrading to XP home. I have purchased Vegas Video for its CDA feature. Have you tried Vegas Video for this purpose? Thank you, Bob Kroeger

dischead wrote on 5/1/2002, 4:23 PM

Funny, I ran the same setup AND same burner and had/have exactly the same problem!
Burns with CDA 4.0g were never a problem with my 9110i HP burner....ever, under 98se.
I was happily surprised that everything still worked under XP but I noticed the skipping prolem after a couple of burns...maybe about halfway or so into a CD the skipping thing would start and continue to the end of the CD. I did get the microsoft XP OS CDR upgrade that they have on their update site but to no effect.
I then upgraded to VV3 (from VA 2.0). I opened a CD architect file and did a test burn of an audio CD. Guess what, skipping.....
Instead of pursuing it, I went out and purchased a Plextor IDE 24/10/40, so may never know what the problem is but since we are experiencing the same thing I don't really beleive it's the HP burner going bad...maybe just an XP/9110i issue. I would assume that Microsoft or HP won't do anything since it is somewhat of a "legacy" burner...

habaneroburger wrote on 9/11/2002, 4:00 PM

Since the HP burner started giving me lots of power calibration area errors for a coaster rate of about 50% of discs burned (this is the second CD-R drive to go flaky on me in about 3 years), I got a TDK 4800B 48x burner, and it's worked almost flawlessly so far. No garbling like I saw with the HP, so I agree that it was an issue with that particular burner under XP.

I made some coasters when recording at top speed on the TDK (though I was only using 40x rated media and was burning at 48x; I don't know if that really matters), but I turned the max recording speed down to 32x in the Windows XP settings for the drive, and all the discs since then have been fine. I don't know for a fact that CDA actually obeys the max recording speed in Windows XP (you only get to choose "Max" speed with the ATAPI MMC driver in CDA), but in any event, it seems to work.

Recording at 32x doesn't seem all that much slower than the bit I tried at 48x, so I'm not unhappy about leaving some performance on the floor. I may try again when I get 48x-rated media, though.

matrix_pl wrote on 9/12/2002, 8:09 AM

I have never used CD Architect but would like to share my experiences with CD burning using VV-3. Recently upgraded my CD writer as my Sony 12x8x32x died on me. I got a retail version LG 32x10x40. I never had a 'bad' burn with the Sony writer, but with the LG I have not been able to create even one 'good' CD. I get exactly the same problems you described in your post. The LG does not allow me to select lower burning speed than 8x. I've tried 8x, 12x, 16x, 24x, 32x with the same end-result. First few songs play OK and the remaining songs are garbled. I have P-4 1.6, win98se,512 ram. Just wanted you to know that a win98se user is having the same problem