External USB CD Roms for Ripping

[George]

It's not just with Hoster. Most drives will not dependably process CDG tracks without problems such as letters not totally formed, or totally swept, or random spots on the screen regardless of the CDG program they are being used with..

Most of us have encountered that type of stuff on Commercially made CDG's.

Plextor has proven to be the most CDG friendly burner around, but every so often one of them will perform poorly.

Now, consider the nature of most of MTU's software. Hoster plays CDG's. Microstudio rips and plays CDG's. Karaoke Home Producer creates CDG's.

With this in mind, it is only logical that MTU would take the pains to see that a burner is available that allows their customers to get the full enjoyment of the software products they have paid for....thus the need for bench testing.

Another area is the quality of media used to write on. With regular audio, almost anything will do just fine, but not so with CDG's. The same trashy results will almost with certainty occur if cheap media is used. That's why MTU has searched the market and offers a superior media that writes CDG's flawlessly. I have not had a coaster in four years using MTU's bench tested CDRW drives, and their recommended media. I started with a Plextor 8X drive and now am using the 52X and a PX712 DVD drive in one pc ,and a 40X and 48X in my other pc, so I've had just about every Plextor MTU has marketed.

That's the story. I hope it clears up some mud.

I can't speak for any personal issues between you and ADMIN, so I'll leave that to the two of you.

George

[G-Force]

First off, very few cdr drives out there will read cd+g. Plextor is the only one out there that all their drives will read cd+g. I have found some Sony products to be able to burn them, but not read them. Same with some of the older Yamaha drives. Plextor is the only one I have found to read them.
But, Plextor is not perfect. This is why MTU sells their cdg certified drives. The software is not the problem as you had stated. It is the same with all the other programs out there too. I could list them for you, but I will not mention a competitors product in an MTU forum. That just isn't right. Same as talking about how much money you saved with your USB box and drive combo in a MTU forum when MTU sells certified drives that are guaranteed to work out of the box for you. And your setup doesn't even work. I originally bought a 716 from best buy when I first got hoster. It did not work yet because Plextor had not released the the driver info to MTU yet. I had to return it and order one from MTU. I have not had any problems since. Had I ordered from MTU first, I could have avoided the hassle. I don't want to get down on you here, but I think your reaction to how MTU responded was a little over the top. In a text type forum like this, things can be misinterpreted and read too much into and people can generally over-react to something that just isn't that big of a deal. Lighten up a little..Its the Holidays!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[Ragnar35]

Please stop posting in our Forums about how much money you saved, when you place no value on your time. I am leaving your posts here so others can see how frustrated you got taking your own direction.

Did I over-react? First, I NEVER bragged about how much money I saved! I only suggested that the cost for a Plextor CD Rom was extremely high. Second, the ADMIN states that he is leaving my post up, so as to make an example of me. I dunno - maybe its just me.

[flipper]

Paul -

This is a support forum where we come to get answers. Sometimes the answers are not ones we want to hear but never the less the facts are the facts.

A little investigative work prior to purchasing Hoster (prior version to the 3.30) would have avoided this problem. MTU goes out of their way to inform us on what hardware to use to get the result we want. It is everywhere in the forum and the .com site.

If you purchased the product without reading this information you can hardly blame them for your distress. They are offering a solution to your problem by purchasing a certified drive. My best guess is that these drives are not a huge profit maker for them, certainly not at $189 after bench testing them.

I commend them for offering support hardware like the Plextor Burners to get the best out of their software and for supplying us this terrific forum where we can come and share our experiences and solve problems.

My suggestion is take the help in the spirit in which it is given and that is to solve your problem.


Merry Christmas to All

[Ragnar35]

The only distress I have is the way I was talked down to by MTU Admin - while I find their CD Drives to be overpriced, i came here looking for advice. One person suggested doing exactly what I did - I ordered the stuff before someone at MTU suggested that I didn't. I am out a grand total of about $50.00 - not that big of a deal, considering I can use the drive for other things.

Some of you have a need to burn DVDs or even CDGs - I have no need for that. I simply wanted to find something that would allow me to rip my current CDG collection to KMA files. I didn't come here to stir crap. All I did was suggest that the price for a simple CD Rom was too high. The "spirit" of the MTU Admin's reply didn't seem to be sincere or helpful, but rather condescending. If a customer can't do that on these boards without being chastised like a first grader, perhaps the biggest mistake I made was choosing MTU's Hoster software to begin with.

[George]

Originally Posted by Ragnar35

The only distress I have is the way I was talked down to by MTU Admin - while I find their CD Drives to be overpriced, i came here looking for advice.
. All I did was suggest that the price for a simple CD Rom was too high.

Paul, You have repeated those statements many times, and that's where you keep missing the point.

It can't be put it any clearer than this:

MTU DOES NOT SELL A CDROM DRIVE, YOU'RE TRYING TO COMPARE THE PRICE RANGE OF DVDRW DRIVES TO CDROM DRIVES.

That's been the heart of this whole exchange. You are misreading the sales material of the drives they sell.

I also told you in a previous post that the version of Hoster 3.300 that was released just this week MAY do just what you want it to.

George

[George]

Paul,

I've kept quiet on this part of it, but ADMIN was right. You chose to go off in a direction that didn't work, and I believe his intent in his reference to leaving the thread posted would be a lesson to others so they wouldn't go down the same path.

George

[Beavis]

ragnar35

The only distress I have is the way I was talked down to by MTU Admin

i hate to break the news to you ragnar35 but david (admin) is one smart people you will ever converse with in this industry. when he speaks, you should listen !!

BTW: He is the owner and founder of MTU

also when bryan (MTUSUPPORT) speaks, listen as well ! you will learn plenty !

maybe you should read this David Cox


Merry X-Mas MTU

[Ragnar35]

Good God fella's! I never questioned MTU's technical expertise! It was the MANNER in which they replied that I questioned.

Apparently, my posts are not very clear.....although I am only re-stating things that have already been written in other posts in this thread, let me re-state my needs and position:

1. I ONLY want to rip CDGs to KMA files.
2. I have no need to play or burn DVD or video files.
3. I have no need to burn CDGs.
4. MTU's Plextor USB DVD Burner is an expensive option, considering I only want to rip my CDGs - again, I don't NEED a DVD burner!

I can't believe that you guys find that difficult to understand!

[Eric Whitehouse]

Hey Ragnar35,
Let's loosen up and take a deep breath. It's Xmas, these guys and MTU are trying to give you help from their vast and past experiences. If you don't want to take or listern to the advice go and buy a device elsewhere and take your chance. I wish you luck and a Merry Xmas.

[Ragnar35]

Who said I didn't want their advice? Hey guys - apparently there is a significant misunderstanding here. I just went through the thread again, to be sure that I wasn't out of line in any way. I can't find anything that says I didn't want anyones advice. I can't find anything where I questioned anyone's technical knowledge. I can't find it.

Trust me - it is clear that I was given bad advice by someone who recommended that I purchase an internal Plextor CD Rom, and a USB enclosure that could be used to adapt the internal CD Rom to an external CD Rom. That information is no longer part of this thread, because the MTU moderators felt that the advice was bad, and didn't want others to follow the same path as I did, so you can't see that recommendation early in this thread.

Remember, I immediately purchased these two items after a recommendation in this thread by a non-MTU staff member(Beavis). It was only AFTER I purchased the items that an MTU staff member made a post stating that this approach would likely result in problems. I GOT IT! I understood that perfectly! I am not questioning anyones technical expertise! I did ask WHY a Plextor CD Rom unit had to be bench tested - I think thats a fair question, and I received an answer. I GET IT.

In a nutshell, I wish MTU had a more affordable external USB CD Rom option, and I wish the MTU Admin hadn't talked down to me in his post. But the world isn't going to end anytime soon as a result of that - you guys have carried this on much longer than I would have by mistating things I've said about the MTU staff. Lets move on.

Regards,
Paul

[George]

Paul,

Glad you've listed the things we said that you got.

Now I'm going to list something you apparantly didn't get.

I told you twice that the new version 3.300 of Hoster has made changes that allow many CDRW's and CDROM's to read CDG's that wouldn't before, so when are you going to download the free demo version and see if that solves your problem?


Please let us know if this works or not.

George

[admin]

Paul, I would like to apologize to you for my attitude.

Why did I react the way I did?

Starting in June, I was out of work for nearly 4 months, and nearly died from 16 medical episodes. I was in a wheelchair for close to 2 months, and then with a cane for another month. Frankly that changes one's outlook on "what is important in life". Just as I came back to work, we moved our web site to another reseller, and changed web masters. That was requiring up to 80 hours/week. I read your Thread the day I posted and you had already bought a drive off eBay. I was extremely tired and pressured.

BACKGROUND: Since 1992, MTU has sold CDR drives and CDG Certified drives since 1997. I have talked to MANY customers who had bought as many as 6 CDR drives advertised to "read/write CDG discs", but discovered that none of them would. When they bought from MTU, ours worked as advertised... perfectly as defined in our web site page. Read the Important announcement above on the same page.

In the past, we have sold Yamaha, Sony, HP and Teac CDG capable drives. However, we found that to test properly, we had to burn THREE different disc images to insure we only shipped Professional grade drives for CDG importing, playing and duplication. When we bought 10 drives, and rejected only 4, we were quite happy. When we rejected 6 or even 10 per 10 testing lot for several times in a row, we were very unhappy and found a new vendor. Plextor has the lowest reject rate we ever found, but they were the most expensive. We learned what "Professional" quality required to protect our reputation.

We also discovered that we had to use the highest grade discs (gold metal in the early days) for the 3 we burned for each drive. Otherwise, the test discs could cause random dots to appear also, which tainted the drive results. We had to amortize the cost to test 10 drives consuming 30 discs ($1 each back then) over the good drives that were not rejected and returned. I assure you this was an "act of love" for our customers. There was no profit!

There was/is ONLY ONE CDROM drive that could read individual CDG tracks using the standard ASPI interface method. All other software only did a full disc image copy, which prevents making custom assembly discs, playing directly from the disc, or importing separate tracks. That was a Plextor SCSI drive that costs more than their CDRW burner at that time. As George and others have pointed out, ONLY Plextor today with the older ASPI means of interfacing will work. If you wanted a CDROM for CDG work, it would cost more than we charge for our burner... which is why we don't sell them. No other CDROM would work at all.

We have worked nearly full time since January 2005 to finish our MMC CD/DVD/ROM drive interface software so it will work for CDG. Hoster 3.300 released 4 days after George stated it was coming. It works with a number of drives to import tracks from CDG discs. Which drives? The jury is still out, but the list is growing. We tested our 3.300 against two other software products released for over a year, that use MMC software decoding. Hoster 3.3 with our CDG Certified Plextor drives creates a Professional import. One of the other companies we tested has stopped selling their CDROM drive and now sells the same Plextor drives we do, but they don't test theirs. WhY did they stop? Their imported files were very inferior, and their customers were complaining too much! They placed "cheap" before quality. Quality is everything at MTU... PERIOD!

Furthermore, our Hoster 3.300 with our MMC software decoding along with their drive imports far fewer random dots in the lyrics and background than their code. Since they license their MMC code, they can't fix their problems. We wrote and own our code and one of our new programmers with a Masters in CSC is now looking for a bug to fix and make our import as perfect as possible.

So, when I read this Thread, I was facing the old story of all those folks from our past with multiple "CDG capable" drives that failed. Then, when MTU's reputation was being damaged in our Forum, and users defending us, I was too terse because I didn't have the time then to explain. I knew your drive would probably fail, and the USB box had a slight chance of working; we have tested almost all that are available and they DO NOT work reliably if they work at all.

I hope this helps you understand why I reacted as I did.

Again, I apologize to you as I was wrong to react that way.

I wish you a Merry Christmas!