Bad Singer disc freezes Hoster

[deverett]

Hi,
Last night I had a disc from a singer that caused Hoster to freeze while importing.

I am using a Plextor 708 drive. The importing dialog box came up and the drive was working away. However the wait was about 3 minutes and a song ended before the import had started and I could not start the next song. I hit cancel, but the only way to get control back was to eject the disc and wait (after I ejected, the import dialog claimed to be importing the track and the progress bar went quickly from 0 to 100 even though no disc was in the drive) , after about 30 seconds I got control back and could play the next song.

The track was importable, I simply waited until I had a song of over 4 minutes playing and then started the import immediately so I had the maximum time.

Is there a way to safely cancel an import if I am not yet reading the track in?

Thanks,
Dave Everett

[Beavis]

what version of hoster are you running ?

[deverett]

3.303 Beavis.

The Plextor is a 708 external and my songs are on an external drive.

I'm running a full virus scan now just for the hell of it because of another problem I experienced last night. I noticed a POP whenever a new song started, even with songs I'd played previously and had no extraneous noises.

Dave Everett

[MTUSUPPORT]

Once the drive has started reading, it gets in a loop. The program can't cancel until the drive gives us control back, and stops trying.

This is part of the hardware, and until it finishes what it is doing it can't release the control back to the software.

[deverett]

Ok thanks.

I'll just wait for long songs before starting imports. The particular disc had 20 tracks on it and it was track 20 I needed. It seems that the drive needs longer to setup, the higher the track number.

Dave Everett

[MTUSUPPORT]

You might also try installing the latest version of Firmware for that drive from: http://www.plextor.com/english/suppo.../firm_708A.htm

[deverett]

I'll do that, thanks Bryan.

[Skybird]

How do I know if I need the latest upgrade or if it was already included with my new Plextor drive?

When songs take a long time trying to upload, and Cancel will not work, and I've waited as long as 15 minutes for 1 song to try to upload, I have no choice but to just press the eject button on my drive and stop the process.

Any other suggestions?
Thanks.

[gpayne]

Originally Posted by Skybird

How do I know if I need the latest upgrade or if it was already included with my new Plextor drive?

When songs take a long time trying to upload, and Cancel will not work, and I've waited as long as 15 minutes for 1 song to try to upload, I have no choice but to just press the eject button on my drive and stop the process.

Any other suggestions?
Thanks.

If you have the Plextools software loaded that came with your drive, you can start it and select drive information from the menu. You will see the firmware revision that the drive is currently using. Find out what it is and go to the Plextor website to see what the latest firmware version available for your drive is.
You can also look in the device manager under cd and dvd drives. Right click on your plextor drive, select properties and then click details. The firmware version will be listed on the far right hand side of the line that lists your drive. My Plextor 760A says "1.01".

Hope this helps!!!

gpayne

[Beavis]

if it aint broke i dont fix it !

[gpayne]

Originally Posted by Beavis

if it aint broke i dont fix it !

I think it's pretty much a good idea to always upgrade the firmware in your drives. I am not so sure about Windows updates but if you don't install windows netframe I don't think you will be able to use Hoster 3.310. I guess in that case if you install 3.310 your machine will be broke if windows netframe is not on it.

Later!!

gpayne

[MTUSUPPORT]

You should also see the Firmware version at the far right of the Default drive under Hoster.

If you go to the Tools Menu\CD/DVD Default drives under Hoster it should show you the Version of the firmware. This will show something such as Plextor Px-760A 1.01. The Firmware version on this drive would be 1.01. So you could go to Plextor's website and see if this is the latest version and if not download the latest version from http://www.plextor.com/english/suppo...downloads.html

[Skybird]

I got the latest firmware and some songs that previously uploaded with unreadable graphics will now upload with graphics that have some spots but can at least be read. But, there are still some songs that take so long to upload (several minutes), that I still have no choice but to click "Eject" to get it to stop because clicking "Cancel" does nothing. So upgrading the firmware did not solve this problem.

[ddouglass]

Skybird,
There are a lot of possible causes for long loading times. Some manufacturers use cheap disks for their production. Those cheaper, thinner disks cause a large number of errors which forces the read speed to slow drastically.

Importing from a singer's disk brings a whole lot more problems into play. The disk they hand you can be dirty, scratched, cracked or even a bad copy (not correctly copied). There is no way that any program can over come these physical problems. Importing a singer's disk is risky at best.

And as Bryan said previously once the disk is in read mode this is a hardware function and you cannot get out of it (except by ejecting cd) until it finishes. The Cancel button only works after the read is finished.

I personally still carry my CDG player and have it setup into my mixer to use for singer's CDs. The player is light weight, easy to set up, and is much more tolerant of bad tracks than the computer drive.

[bryant]

Dale,
Do you simply switch the video cord from your
laptop/computer to your karaoke machine to your
monitor(s). Then switch back over? Or are you Y'ed into a switch box of some sort?
Bryant
I keep my laptop on top of my karaoke (JVC) and use the mic inputs anyway fro the two mics hung by the singers' monitor. Buy I always seem to get tempted to try imports anyway, but cringe every time too.

[lmcmains]

I have a mixer and all I have to do is push a button to select the input. I have the computer pluged into one input and the player into the other input. It makes it easy to play a singers disc that way.

As Dale said there can be lots of things cause the proplem. If I use a singers disc the first thing I do is clean it before I play it.

Larry

[bryant]

The video out is plugged into the mixer too, hmmm.
I do know that the audio outs are as that is what I do, but the yellow video out goes to a Y in my case then to both the singer's monitor and the big screen across the hall. Now when you put a cdg in the karaoke player...wouldn't you have to reconnect the monitors to come FROM the video output of the Karaoke machine?

[Skybird]

Dale, I always use a CDG player at my shows - already know about all the problems that can happen.
I'm only referring to uploading my own back-up copies I personally made with Microstudio at 1x speed. Many of these upload with bad graphics or just take forever and I have no choice but to Eject the disk. And yet, I have found I can put these disks back onto my computer with Microstudio and then convert the CDGs directly from the hard drive into KMAs. I just wonder why - if Microstudio can read them, why can't Hoster, since they were originall made with Microstudio?
It's just a pain! I backed up all my CDGs several years ago until I could afford to go computerized & now it seems I have to start all over again. It's just double work & I'm just complaining.
It is, however, worth the effort. I LOVE HOSTER!!!

[lmcmains]

http://www.vocopro.com/frm_product.html Click on mixers. Go down to the DA 1050. It has two video inputs and two audio inputs. I have been using these on my two setups for seven years and they work very well. Just push one button and it changes from on to the other.

Larry

[bryant]

All this time I didn't know that, ge, thanx, Incs !