(no subject)

[arethinn]

enotsola gave me a LightScribe DVD writer for Christmas. The drive does post and I can read data DVDs just fine (I haven't tried burning one yet), but when I play video DVDs or video files from data discs, there is all kinds of popping, crackling, skipping, garbly noise in the soundtrack. No change in the PowerDVD audio settings fixes it (in fact, picking DirectSound instead of Stereo or Dolby Mix-down makes it worse, and makes sound come unsynced from video), switching to Windows Media Player does not fix it, and it is not a general problem with my computer because it does not occur if I use either of the programs to play video files from my hard drive or the CD-RW drive. Video playback is fine, not choppy or anything; it's only the audio. So it seems to be something peculiar specifically about audio data transfer, which perplexes me. Trying that little analog cable with four pins that plugs from the drive directly into the sound card had no effect, as I expected it would not. I checked the DMA mode vs my work computer, thinking maybe it was in a wrong/slow one or something, but they both say "Ultra DMA Mode 2". The drive itself is a different brand, but I don't think that would affect it (unless the drive is just defective itself) and anyway I have no way to test that (I can't swap the drives).

The only things I can think of that I haven't tried (besides throwing money at an overall faster computer, since this is only P3 1.2; enotsola claims a friend has the same drive working fine on "a slower computer", although without knowing ALL its specs versus mine, that is not a meaningful statement) are:

1. Throw money at a better sound card (doesn't seem to be a logical response to the symptoms - sound works fine for all other applications, despite the dinosaur of a sound card I have. sound drivers are as updated as I think they can be.)
2. Switch the drive from the slave to the master position, which is recommended in the instructions even though it came factory-jumpered as a slave (also doesn't seem logical - the slave position isn't slower than master, is it? even if it were, wouldn't that mess up everything, not just audio?)
3. Check codecs, that is, compare filenames and versions between my work and home computers, which have the same version of XP, WMP, and somewhat different versions of PowerDVD (you'd think PowerDVD would have installed right codecs for DVD audio? and anyway that still doesn't explain what is going on with video files)

Any ideas?

Comments

[twopiearr.livejournal.com]

re: slave and master

my understanding here is a little murky here...slave isn't slower per se, but if i have it right, slave mode assumes the drive will be passing data to another device before it gets to the CPU or RAM or something meaningful, so it passes data in a mode optimized for recipt and handof rather than immediate execution, whereas master drives don't have that issue. however, most after-market drives are added to existing chains, so slave is a more useful default position.

i could be making this up - no great hardware geek I - but that's my understanding.

LightScribe Drives Suck.

[foxgrrl]

It's not a problem with your computer. The Lightscribe Drives are just plain broken. I have one in my AMD64 box at work. I spent almost two weeks trying to figure out why almost every CDR I owned, was now suddenly bad.
These were all data CDs too, and not Audio CDs.
I made a pile of like, 50 bad CDs; Brought them home to see if I could salvage any more data off them; And discovered that every one of those discs read perfectly in my Plextor drive at home.
When reading the data disks, there would be random blocks of garbage in the middle of files and ISO9660 structures. Yet, I wasn't getting any ATAPI error messages back from the drive. According to the Lightscribe, everything was A-OK. They will give sector errors when you try to read the last few sectors of a CD however. Even though the last few sectors can be read perfectly by every other drive on Earth.
In summary: Lightscribe DVD drives silently corrupt read data.

Re: LightScribe Drives Suck.

[starlightforest.livejournal.com]

I was a little worried when I saw it was manufactured by Lite-On, since their standalone recorders seem to be about half crap (50% of people get one that works and love them, 50% of people can never get them to work). Expressing this concern to my dad, he said "they're one of the major manufacturers of this kind of drive, though, and people seem to be happy with them". In any case, as far as I can tell it reads other kinds of data fine. I can copy files off the discs with no errors that I know of. Video is fine - I watched very closely when I tried playing a commercial DVD again last night and the video motion is completely smooth. I would be willing to accept your assessment except that it seems bizarre for it only to affect audio data.