The Burning Issue

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Ludichris wrote on 12/9/2002, 8:49 AM
Hi,
I'm having a similar problem to the one reported by PaulO except that instead of hanging up completely, I get a burn error (and a coaster if I wasn't doing a test write). Everything looks fine when I start to burn the disc, but after the lead-in it only fills the burn buffer once, writes that information and then aparently doesn't replenish it again to continue writing. This happens regardless of the burning speed, burning WAV and MP3 files with no special crossfades or anything. If I use burnproof, it will refill the buffer, but only after a long pause during which writing stops, and then it waits for the buffer to completely empty again before reading any more data from the hard drive causing massive buffer underruns. This is not a problem of the computer being too slow as other programs, namely Nero and Cakewalk Pyro, burn CDs with no problem. I just updated the firmware on my CD burner to the latest version (1.0d) but that didn't make any difference.
I've got a Pentium III system runing Windows XP Pro SP1 and my CD burner is a Yamaha CRW-F1 (IDE). This is getting pretty frustrating. I tried several programs because I couldn't use CDA 4 anymore after I traded in my old Plextor 12/10/32a and I never had _this_ problem with any of them. Now I've shelled out $100 to upgrade and I seem to have gotten Coaster Disc Architect 5.0 instead of what I wanted. (;_;) Also, I can't use CDP Burn or Premaster anymore because neither of those work with the CRW-F1. It's possible this is an issue with CDA and this CD burner, but at least part of the problem is definitely with CDA. And what this MMC module thing? Does that mean it's using a generic driver?

Here are the error messages I get:
1- Actual write:
'ATAPI MMC Compatible'-(0)
'atapi'-(2)
-'YAMAHA CRW-F1E 1.0d'-(0)
Module atapimmc.cpp Line 1353
The drive is not ready.
The disc can't be written. It is an incompatible format.

Status: 00020202
Command: 2a 00 00 00 6a de 00 00 1a 00
Sense: 02 30 05
Info: 00 00 00 00
Specific: 00 00 00
Extra: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

2- Test Write:
A write error occurred. The disc may be dirty or corrupted.

'ATAPI MMC Compatible'-(0)
'atapi'-(2)
-'YAMAHA CRW-F1E 1.0d'-(0)
Module atapimmc.cpp Line 1353
A medium error occurred.
Write Error; padding blocks were written to fill the remainder of the track.

Status: 00020202
Command: 2a 00 00 00 64 44 00 00 1a 00
Sense: 03 0c 0a
Info: 00 00 00 00
Specific: 00 00 00
Extra: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

If a complete burn failure is a "medium error" then what would constitute a "maximum error" I wonder? Any ideas for working around this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris
PaulO wrote on 12/9/2002, 2:28 PM
To positively rule out the possibility that your machine cannot cope with the real-time demands of CDA (for whatever reason), have you tried burning with the pre-render option? If the problem is just as bad, this does point to the burn engine within CDA although it doesn't sound the same as my problem. It could well have its root in the same place though.

>what this MMC module thing?

MMC is a generalized standard which, in theory, eliminates the need for software writers to create different drivers for all the burners under the sun, as long as the drive makers conform correctly to the MMC standard. In theory.
Ludichris wrote on 12/10/2002, 4:02 AM
Good suggestion! Using the pre-render option I can burn at 44x with no buffer underuns. The bad news is that it takes _forever_ to render the image (6-7 minutes) and once I quit the session the image is deleted so if I want to burn another copy later I have to sit through the process (and put my hard drive through more wear and tear) all over again.
I tried saving the project as an image file (.wav) and burning from that, but even if I save it as a wav image, close and reopen from the image, I still get the burn errors unless I use the pre-render option. This doesn't make sense - isn't it pre-rendering when it creates a wav image?
I guess this isn't the same as your problem after all, since I don't seem to have any problem with DMA settings.
-Chris
Ludichris wrote on 12/10/2002, 4:10 AM
On a side note, CDA 5 does not appear to check for audio clipping when creating wav images like it does when pre-rendering an image for burning. Also I get a Red Book validation error about the offset of the last track in the resulting wav image, correctable by moving the boundary of the last track, but a little strange:
The length of Track 14 is not on a frame boundary. Offset is 587 samples.
So I guess pre-rendering and creating a wav image are different operations, unfortunately.
-Chris
freendeed wrote on 12/10/2002, 5:02 AM
rednroll,

I have a similar problem with Soundforge. You select a portion of the file to "process", you change any parameters in the plugin or tool your applying, you preview and it sounds right but when you apply it "bounces back" and applies whatever the parameters where when you opened the plugin. Meaning if I opened a delay-type plugin that opens with the default of a chorus type sound, then I change it to a 50ms delay, preview it (and it sounds right with the 50ms delay), when I hit apply it applies the original chorus effect. It seems I was somewhere that there was a registry hack you could do to keep Soundforge from doing this, but this is a bug that should be fixed in SF and not a registry hack. Is this similar to what's happening to you?
freendeed wrote on 12/10/2002, 5:13 AM
I'm glad you mentioned this. I thought I must be crazy because I couldn't figure out how to keep the image for later burns (as surely there must be a way as in all other such programs). There's not? What could possibly be the reason for that? If they're worried about you eating up disc space by forgetting to delete old images couldn't they at least put an option in there to do so? So how do you make a copy later on? Do I have to use Nero or CDEX, rip the CD I made, and use it for copies? How redundant and time-wasting.
earthrisers wrote on 12/10/2002, 11:32 AM
I just sent the following "Product Suggestion" to SFdry. I hope others have also been asking for this... I know that others have complained about it! (Seems like such an obvious feature...)
--------------------------------
CDA should give us the ability to SAVE a pre-rendered file, so we can burn additional CDs from that image later without having to go through the whole rendering process again.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 12/10/2002, 3:59 PM
Sam here. Maybe a 'close option' of "Save Rendered File', as well as the 'Save Project ?' one, when applicable.

geoff
Ludichris wrote on 12/11/2002, 3:33 AM
>Maybe a 'close option' of "Save Rendered File', as well as the 'Save Project ?' one, when applicable.

This is definitely needed! But then, what is the point of the 'Save wav image' option? It compacts your project into one file, sure, but if CDA can burn from a pre-rendered file, why can't it burn properly from a wav image? When it pre-renders a file isn't it just writing uncompressed audio data, same as a wav file? If the burn errors I'm having were caused only by lack of computer processing power, shouldn't burning from a wav image work OK? That's why I still think there's something amiss with the burning engine in CDA.

-Chris
PS: Cakewalk Pyro, the program I used between CDA 4 and 5, doesn't let you save the pre-rendered files either although their development team assures me that is "absolutely at the top of the list" for the next update. The difference: Pyro cost $25. CDA costs $100 just for the upgrade.
Geoff_Wood wrote on 12/11/2002, 2:52 PM
The CDA 'save as a big wave file' thing is in effect the pre-rendered file, but is useless to other software without going through the cue-sheet rigmarole, as the PQ info is not embedded in a standard form.

An ISO image would be universally usable inpractically all burning software (which *is* a du=ifferent thing to authoring software, although you can obviously burn...) such as Nero for pesonal-scale stuff and DiscJuggler for a commercial production environment.

Last thing I recall was that SF have included ISO image saving as a thing 'to do' (?)

geoff
RikTheRik wrote on 12/11/2002, 3:52 PM
I cannot agree more on any of these issues !!!!
ISO would be beneficial to everyone here. Most guys probably have an external burning software which has a *monthly* upgrade to support new drives and correct burning specific problems (thinking to nero for instance).
I have been asking too for the render of a track. I do all my mastering in CDA and I would like much being able to save a rendered track in PCA format for archieving (wav be fine too) and reusing my mastered tracks in other projects and convert them to mp3.
I didn't saw any answer from sofo on this subject. Usually it means that we will have to wait for the next version.
PaulO wrote on 12/13/2002, 1:17 PM
On 12/3/2002 SonicDennis wrote -

>I've asked someone to look into the burn issue you're having

Anything to report on this problem?
SonyDennis wrote on 12/14/2002, 10:22 AM
Not yet, I'll ask them again.
///d@