Problem with Plextor drives and 3.310

[songpony]

I think it's wonderful that MTU has expanded their list of drives that now function within Hoster, but it's unfortunate that it appears to have been at the expense of the Plextor functionality. I have had nothing but problems with importing a song from a singer's disk since upgrading to 3.310. I have a Plextor Premium. I have removed and reinstalled both .NET 2.0 and Hoster and things are as good as their going to get. As such, I'm so nervous about doing the import during a singer's song that I just won't do it anymore. I make people either sit through the silence (which is now quite lengthy, since it frequently takes 60-90 seconds for it to even "read" the track before it starts processing) or I do it while I'm singing (and hope I know the words to the song). I would tend to say the import causes problems 40-50% of the time - it freezes the graphics on the singer's display (as well as within the little display windows within Hoster) for the entire "pre-process" time. Once it goes from the hourglass to the status bar, the display comes back, the the SND comes up as the active screen and blocks out part of the singer's display. I've noticed that the "countdown" of the currently playing song also freezes during this time, but I think this occurs even when the graphics don't freeze. I'm using a Shuttle PC that's only about a year old - 2.4GHz processor, 1 gig memory, Windows XP SP1. I hate the thought of having to ditch my expensive Plextor drives, especially when these were the ones we were told to buy in the first place. Any modifications that can be made in the future to put Plextor back at the top of your list (or at least not at the bottom) would be greatly appreciated. I have posted in the Hoster Help forum but nothing has resolved my issues.

[ddouglass]

Songpony, you need to update your XP if you are only using SP1. You should be running SP2. This could be some of your problem. I have a similar system (faster CPU) with a Plextor 760 and yes there is still a 30-40 second prep, but it doesn't interfere with current singers display at all. This system is up to date except for the last batch of security updates Microsoft released last week which I will take care of this weekend.

[bryant]

Also, a few tips on the 60-90 second silence.
I assume you have a microphone for yourself, if so, use it a bit to talk to the crowd, have a trivia thing, entertain them, show your personality a bit, they will like it and won't see it as a wait. I do this all the time, and always get compliments as to how the karaoke guy down the street has no personality.

[a2kmike]

Concerning Songpony's comments on his problems with Plextor drives, I too have a Plextor Premium with the same problems. I also have two Plextor 2410's and a 5224 that will not function during the import function. Both my systems have Windows XP service pack 2 and all updates....so I don't believe if he does get the updates it would help. I have posted my problems in the Forum repeatedly and also posted in the new trouble reporting system....received a ticket number to track the problem with no resulting help.

Mike Summitt

Admin note: Songpony is a Fillie not a Stallion.

[a2kmike]

Songpony.....seen this in the Hoster Help area of Forum

Originally Posted by admin

I believe you have an older Plextor drive that doesn't support MODERN RAWDAO96 operations. Hoster 3.303 didn't use RAWDAO96, which is why it worked fine with your old drive.

Hoster 3.310 uses RAWDAO96 to communicate with MANY, MANY, MANY drives, since Plextor is the ONLY drive maker today supporting the older CDG commands.

I see two simple solutions to your problem:

1. Reinstall Hoster 3.303 and be happy with it and your older drive.

2. Buy a new MODERN drive that supports RAWDAO96 operations and use Hoster 3.310 and be happy.

does this shed light on your situatuation?? it does mine.....it kinda says use 3.303 or buy another drive ...huh...that 's what I get!!

MIke Summitt

[ddouglass]

A2KMike and Songpony please keep in mind that MTU doesn't write the drive interface code for the program themselves, but get it from a third party vendor. This is not to excuse or dismiss the problem and I know it is still an issue MTU is trying to resolve. Sometimes it takes time to resolve issues like this.
With this last upgrade of Hoster, MTU expanded the number of CD/DVD drives usable even more. Unfortunately, for what ever reason the people who wrote the new MMC coding leftout or changed something in the code that only allows for RAWDAO96 format instead of choosing the correct interface for the drive in question.
MTU is not the only one to do this kind of thing...just look at the things Microsoft does to us!! And we take it in stride.

Give them some time and hopefully a cure will be found. Mean while if you have room try another non-Plextor for your singer imports, keeping the Plextor to do disc imports.

Admin has been talking about another upgrade before the end of the year, so keep your fingers crossed.

[admin]

SongPony, you need to visit the Microstudio Beta 10 Thread (you can see it because you are a Microstudio Beta Tester ) and download the test file in post #23 (page 2). Follow the instructions.

Please post your results in the Beta Testers thread as this is experimental and the results are private.

For the others of you posted in this Thread, know that we are actively seeking a solution on our own. Our "vendor" that supplied the drive interface code is not responding fast enough to our liking. We recognize there is a problem with Plextor drives, and hope our "test" will turn out to be the solution.

We'll make any successful results public. If it fails, we'll try something else until we solve the problem.

[a2kmike]

Well.....after two and a half months I finally receive a straightforward answer concerning this problem....many thanks ddouglas and admin.

I am now waiting in anticipation of a cure for these four plextor drives I have. I wish you guys luck in finding a cure soon, I know you have the skill so a little luck may be all that's needed.

Thanks again

Mike Summitt

[songpony]

Admin - just got back in town so will give it a try and post results. Thanks.

[admin]

We got a new SDK from our vendor that allows us to access the raw data feed from the CD/DVD drive. With this, we can stop the software error correction they were doing, when the Plextor drives already did it! That's what is damaging the songs from Plextors. Things were up and running Friday, but the lyrics are blank. Sometimes things don't come easy!

We're back on it today. This will be in Hoster 3.312 which will be a free upgrade for 3.3xx owners. We're trying to release this and Microstudio 3.000 (has the same import problem with Plextors) before the end of October. This is the biggy we must solve, then a bunch of small bug fixes.

[admin]

I moved this From New Features Request Forum as it is a problem looking for a solution.

[Eric Whitehouse]

I have a Plextor 48/24/48u and a 48/24/48a drive. Firmware is upto date and I can't seem to import from either hard drive or cd. Are these Plextor drives the ones you are looking at for a solution.

[ddouglass]

Eric it is all Plextor drives that were effected.

[admin]

Originally Posted by admin

We got a new SDK from our vendor that allows us to access the raw data feed from the CD/DVD drive. With this, we can stop the software error correction they were doing, when the Plextor drives already did it! That's what is damaging the songs from Plextors. Things were up and running Friday, but the lyrics are blank. Sometimes things don't come easy!

We're back on it today. This will be in Hoster 3.312 which will be a free upgrade for 3.3xx owners. We're trying to release this and Microstudio 3.000 (has the same import problem with Plextors) before the end of October. This is the biggy we must solve, then a bunch of small bug fixes.

After struggling with the new SDK for several days, we called our vendor. It turns out they only communicate with ALL CD/DVD drives in RAWDAO96 mode. They never even send the command to the drive to provide hardware error corrected data, like Plextor drives have.

In Hoster 3.303, we wrote our own source code to read tracks from CD drives. It allowed reading from hardware error correcting drives (plextor is the only one today) OR from other drives using software error correction (which was inferior to the hardware corrected data). That currently is NOT available in Hoster 3.310 - 3.312 as we are using our vendors code to both identify and read/write data with MANY MANY MANY more CD/DVD drives. It is a tradeoff we are not happy about as you can see below.

OUR CURRENT DIRECTION... is to improve our 3.303 Reed Solomon error correction software so it can correct not only 1- and 2-byte errors in the RW code (appear as graphic flecks), but also 3- and 4-byte errors (appears as really bad fleck). It also turns out we may have discovered a bug when processing a 2-byte error. If so, then just fixing this alone will make a world of difference.

We are hoping for the new code from our contractor by Friday, October 20 so we can be beta testing it over that weekend.