Double image lyric lines on some cdg disks

[luigi77047]

HELP! Can someone please tell me how to configure the microstudio software to where it will play all of my cdg's?

Some of my disks play perfectly (ALL of my disks are new factory recorded disks, no scratches, no copies), but some disks: logos are displayed wrong(half of logo at top and other half at bottom), lyrics are ok ( I can live without the logos), but others have double lyric lines ( the same words twice in sync) that overlap, and sometimes run together depending on how many words are displayed.

I have the latest version of microstudio 2.1.0.3 , HP 9300i CDRW drive, 15gb HD, direct x 7.0, win 98(4.10), pentium III 550 monster E machines computer, 256 mb of ram, 8mb of video memory with agp NVIDIA Vanta video card, display set to 800x600(32bit) optimal refresh rate. I made ALL of the changes in the ini file,etc. as requested during install. I am not running anything other than my mccafee virus program, during microstudio usage. I have uninstalled and then reinstalled. I have saved cdg file to hard drive and tried to play it.... no change same problem.

Please advise of possible fixes. I really would appreciate any help. Thanks

[GordonF]

Even MTU warns that HP et al haven't tested their CD writers for CD+G compatibility our of their factory. So if none of these other ideas work, you may have to replace that drive and TEST the replacement drive.

I have a HP 9210e which is the same class of drive except in SCSI. It should be the same mechanism as your 9300i with few variations. I also believe the 9300i supports ATA bus mastering. With that in mind...

Update your ATA driver set to one that supports bus mastering (mistakenly referred to as "DMA" but DMA is really a holdover from the ISA bus). In theory your Win98 factory installation from eMachines should have this already but check with eMachines for an update. These guys have a picky little driver set unique to their machines and generic drivers from Intel or whoever makes the motherboard chipset might not work. A third party PCI to ATA adapter like the ones made by Promise Technology might solve your problem too.

Once you updated the driver or have ensured it supports bus mastering, go into Device Manager and turn on the DMA checkmark for the HP 9300i device in its Properties sheet. If you have other devices on the same IDE channel as the 9300i, ensure they also support bus mastering. If you find the 9300i and the hard drive are on the same IDE channel you really should separate them. I usually put hard drives on the first channel and ATAPI devices (CD and LS-120 for instance) on the other.

This bus mastering stuff reduces CPU time used when accessing the CD writer both for reads and writes, and reduces the risk of blowing any CD-R burning in progress by something as stupid as moving the mouse. This was why I chose the 9200 SCSI and a good bus mastering SCSI adapter instead of the 9300 ATAPI drive.

Clean the CD Writer before trying to read the disks or play them. Any Audio CD player lens cleaner will work, dry or wet, if you use the CD Player applet and treat the drive just like an audio CD player.

You already know about turning off auto-insert notification, etc but check that to make sure some other CD writer software hadn't re-enabled it.

Finally, you just may have a bad drive. I was fortunate that my PC vendor let me test this 9210 SCSI before buying it. I think MTU said HP drives had a two in five chance of failing even if the factory says they're OK, simply because they don't test for CD+G.

[admin]

luigi77047, actually from our experience, HP drives have a 40%-60% chance of not working correctly with CDG. However, your problem does not seem to be this type of failure. I expect your video card is doing something that doubles your display lines. This is not seem to be a Microeditor software problem, but rather a system integration problem... the toughest type to troubleshoot as every one is different!

Thanks GordonF for your excellent points to review. Luigi, read my post at http://mtu.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=151 "Problems and Solutions" and make sure you have eliminated all of them. These are for V2.013, but most also apply to 2.103. GordonF's point about the ATA driver could very well be the answer to your problem.

Try this also. Make sure your CD-Recorder is a master device on the IDE controller it is attached to. Check with eMachine as to how to do this if it is not in your manual. Don't have the CDR on the same IDE controller (use the other IDE ribbon cable connector at the controller) with your hard drive. This may cause problems.

[admin]

Luigi, did you solve your problem on playing the logos, or does it still exist?

What version of Microstudio are you now running? Version 2.312 is our latest.

[George]

Seems like a possibility exists that the p.c. color setting is not set at High Color 16 bit. This has solved quite a few play problems, including some I was having.

Hope it's that simple.

Take care,

George