Software decoding

[gpayne]

Is there no way to turn off software decoding in Hoster Version 3.310? I know that 3.310 is suppose to automatically determine whether you need it or not but I did import some Chartbuster disks that had snow in the graphics with the disk drive speed set at max. I changed it to 6x (slowest) and still had a little snow. I am using a MTU certified Plextor 760-A drive.

gpayne

[ddouglass]

Gary, if I remember from the beta testing that if you are using a plextor supported drive, then software decoding is turned off.

[gpayne]

That would make sense because you should not need the software decoding with one of their drives but if you had a poor disk, the software decoding theoritically could make the import better than hardware decoding. I don't think it is possible to turn software decoding on or off in this version of hoster! My backup system has a Plextor 716A drive and I have looked in the tools/default CD/DVD drives menu and there is no on or off selection for software decoding. However, this is also a MTU certified drive. I don't have anything but MTU certified drives and I have had 3 of them now. It was my experience with Versions earlier than 3.310 that hardware decoding was better even though I was using brand new disks.(Mostly Chartbuster) I could play older disks on my external karaoke player and have no snow but import them into hoster and have snow although if software decoding was turned off the imports were better. Before this version, there was no way to slow down the read speed of the drive so maybe that was why hardware decoding worked best for me. At any rate for the disks that I have been importing under version 3.310 the import process is slower becuase I have to slow down the read speed of the drive to get better quality imports. Maybe MTU could tell us how software vs hardware decoding works now that you can slow down the drive read speed. I know this was done so that it would work better with more drives. To me, it appears that it has slowed me down a bit. I am for sure not going to buy any Sound Choice disks. I wonder if this version of Hoster is better or worse for the majority of Hoster Users.

gpayne

P.S. My name is George. I sign off with gpayne so there is no confusion with the other George who posts in these forums.

[ddouglass]

I'm sorry George...I knew that but had a senior moment.

I think their reasoning was to eliminate the confusion factor for those who are less computer literate. There was a lot of problems with people not setting it correctly when the previous version was released.

I don't think being able to turn it on will make your import any cleaner for the plextors.

[gpayne]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

I'm sorry George...I knew that but had a senior moment.

I think their reasoning was to eliminate the confusion factor for those who are less computer literate. There was a lot of problems with people not setting it correctly when the previous version was released.

I don't think being able to turn it on will make your import any cleaner for the plextors.

I see! I would not want to turn it on as my experience is that my imports are better with it off (hardware decoding). You are saying that you believe that Software decoding is turned off automatically if you are using a MTU approved drive. Therefore if software decoding is turned off, you are using hardware decoding. That might be so, but my experience was with the prior version, with software decoding turned off that my imports were good and fast. Now with the new version software decoding is turned off as I am using a MTU approved drive but my imports are not as good and much slower. I can live with it if I have too. In your opinion, what types of things would help? These are brand new disks. I read in the Troubleshooting section of Hosters help menu that a lot of Chartbuster disks are warped and that is the reason you must slow down the read speed of the drive. Are any other manufacturers disks better? I have not seen their recommendations but I am assuming they would not recommend one over the other. It is possible that the three disks I just imported are worse than others and I have not imported them on my backup system yet(716-A drive) so it is possible that this is more of a drive issue. I am going to import them into my backup system and see. I will post what I find.

Thanks

gpayne

[ddouglass]

I have found more problems with Sound Choice and their cheap disks than I have with Chartbuster. I do all my imports on my backup machine with a 716 and have had the least problems with it over my 760 on show machine.

I don't slow the speed down unless the disc shows a lot of snowflakes. I also use the least compression as I have a 250GB and a 300GB hard drive so space isn't a problem. Less compression also helps eleminate snow also.

You can also import the worst through Microstudio (current versions) and reburn them onto a good cd to load in Hoster and that will also get rid of most of the snow. The version being worked on now will allow export as a Hoster KMA file directly (according to the News page), so that will save a bunch of steps.