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Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) Glitch Profile I am trying to find some software that will let me play audio CD's across my local network. So far the only thing that I have found is PlextorManager. With this software the .cda tracks on the audio CD appear as .wav files to Windows. The .wav files can then be played across the network with many different players. The problem with PlextorManager is that it only supports Plextor drives. I am trying to make this work with my Nakamichi CD changer. Does anyone know of a software package that does the same thing as PlextorManager? I have searched the net for a few hours and have come up empty. Most of the software that supports .cda files will only play them on the local machine (via the CDROM to sound card cable). This functionality will not work for my purposes. I realize that another way of doing this is to rip the CD and store the music as .wav or .mp3 on the hard drive. I am really trying to do this without using harddrive space or having to go through extra steps. I know that this is technically possible since I have done this with the PlextorManager software. I really need something that supports a wider range of equipment. Thanks. I'm confident that someone here can help me. Glitch Electronics run on smoke, if you let the smoke out they won't work 05-12-2001 11:33:54

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) Perplexer Profile You betcha. http://www.sonicspot.com/alternatecdfsvxd/alternatecdfsvxd.html I used this extensively about a year ago and was very pleased with the results. 05-13-2001 19:01:07

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) JamesW Profile OT! Glitch, where did you buy your Nakamichi CD changer? Is it one of the 16x ones? I have physically seen one but can't find anywhere to buy one. Also (you may or may not know) how does it work under Win2K? I used to have one of the Teac 8x changers and it was great until I upgraded to Win2K. Then (as expressed over at "Dan's Data" : -------- Windows 2000 treats IDE CD changers as one drive. Win98 gives them multiple drive letters; Win2000 gives them only one, and there's no elegant way to access what's in slots other than the one you're using at the moment. You can mount and dismount discs "by hand" from the Computer Management console. You can even semi-automate it by making a script. But there's no way to even see the names of discs other than the one currently mounted. Microsoft have a rather sniffy document on the subject here (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q227/4/25.ASP), in which they try really hard to explain that this is actually a good thing. --------- Help! 05-14-2001 21:38:10

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) geekgranny Profile Anyone tried XP. I have a 7 disk changer that I got for Hubby several years ago. He spilled tea in it... and I don't know if it is working or not. I left it hooked up to his system because it is SCSI and really a hassle to get back there and fool with things and I'm not sure which device has the terminator on it. Also have a mix of connectors so didn't want to fool with that either. Anyway XP, which I have, but haven't installed yet, may be able to do it. I'll check out the hardware compatibilty list and see what's on there. "Ah crapola....sorry for the multiple posts..." (Greenspark) THEGeekGranny-epodsgranny@hotmail.com 05-14-2001 22:07:34

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) Glitch Profile Perplexer: Thanks, this is the type of thing I was looking for. Too bad it only supports Win9x. I am trying to get all my computers converted to Win2k. I think that I have every recent variety of Windows running somewhere in my house. I'm trying get down to one (maybe two) OS's. My memory isn't good enough to remember the fine details of that many OS's. Oh well, enough digression. JamesW: Yes, I am talking about the 16x 5 disc changer. The only place that I know of to get one is eBay. I've been told that Nakamichi stopped producing these a year or two ago. I've seen a few trickle though the surplus places, but it has been very spotty. There always seem to be one or two of them active on eBay. Internal models go for about $40-$55. BTW, they made them with both SCSI and IDE interfaces. I've been hoping that Nakamichi would come out with a replacment for this drive. So far I haven't seen one. I just got tired of waiting and decided to try eBay for one of the older machines. The other idea that I've been thinking about is to get one of these. I'm not too sure about the software to run them. If they drop the price in to the $400-$500 range I'll probably get one to play with. $700 is too much for something that is iffy to get running. I've been watching these for a long time and I don't believe that even one has sold. It is just a matter of time before they decide to just dump them. Glitch Electronics run on smoke, if you let the smoke out they won't work 05-15-2001 07:00:18

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) Glitch Profile JamesW: I forgot to answer one of your questions. I haven't tried this with Win2k. I had it in my son's Win98 machine. It showed up as 5 drives there. It would be nice if there was a driver that gave one the choice of how the discs map into Windows (one or many). I have had the need for both mapping strategies in the past. I had a old Torison 3-disc changer that had a choice of drivers. It was nice to have options. Unfortunatly, the drive itself wasn't that nice. I haven't tried to track down similar drivers for the Nakamichi. Glitch Electronics run on smoke, if you let the smoke out they won't work 05-15-2001 07:29:13

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) Perplexer Profile OK Glitch, how about this Winamp plugin? http://www.url.ru/~copah/CDReader.htm Haven't played around with this one, but it looks like it'll do what you want. 05-15-2001 10:23:56

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) Glitch Profile Perplexer: Thanks again. I gave this a try tonight and it will let me play the CDs through the sound card's D/A as advertised. However, it doesn't want to recognize a "network CD drive" as a "CD drive" (I hope that makes sense). It will let you add the tracks from across the network to the playlist but won't play them. If you keep the suggestions coming, I'll keep trying them . Glitch Electronics run on smoke, if you let the smoke out they won't work 05-15-2001 21:06:41

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) JamesW Profile Glitch : Thanks for that. I can't believe how hard it is to find desktop CDROM changers. I also didn't know that Nakamichi stopped making those drives - they still list them proudly on their web page! The Jukebox tower you're looking at - that's scary (500 CDs?!). Nifty that it can use CD-Rs as well, but be careful with the drives. My experience with those sorts of boxes is that they require special drives which are almost impossible to find (they have an open front to accept the jukebox feeder). The drives in the box - from the specs - are mind numbingly slow. Not just the 4x speed, those access times are truly fightening - three times slower than most modern CDROM drives. The writers are even worse! Do you have 500 CDROMs? I don't even have that many CDs. :) All I'm looking to do is have the Britannica 200x CDs centrally available, so I don't really need all that many slots. I wonder where I can find out how the Nakamichi works in Win2K... WHQL is pretty useless. Also, can you imagine your 500 disk changer under Win2K - all one drive letter? Or, just as bad, Win9x - 500 drive letters (which won't work...)? 05-16-2001 05:18:15

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) Glitch Profile JamesW: One thing that may detract form the popularity of CD changers is the poor software support. Some programs will only look for the CD on the drive letter which was used to install the software. This isn't too bad. Many programs will only look at at the first CD drive that it finds. It seems that the basic assumption of the software industry is that computers only have one CDROM drive. This may be why some CDROM drive manufacturers write the drivers to show up as one letter. This method wouldn't be too bad if there were a program to change the disc based on the program that was accessing the CD drive. This would be akin to the video drivers that change the resolution/etc. for the different games being played. Nope, I don't have 500 CD's. I only have around 300-400 (never really counted). However, I was thinking of using the DRM-5004X as a music jukebox. The slow drives wouldn't matter since you only need 1x playback. The slow disc change time wouldn't matter since you would only be playing one disc at a time. While one song is playing the other drive could be getting ready for the next song. Pioneer makes changers exactly for this purpose for radio stations. I haven't asked what these cost. As the saying goes: If you have to ask... <g> The other hiccup with the DRM-5004X is that you would have to but a third party driver. I'm guessing that the driver would cost as much as the DRM-5004X from HiTech. The alternative is to write the your own driver. The heart of this program would be to send a simple SCSI command to "load disc 87 from magazine 4 to drive 2". This driver could be incorporated into a WinAmp plug-in. This could be pretty cool but it will likely fall in to the catagory of things that I will never get around to doing . Wouldn't 500 drive letters show up as "D" though "SI"? I forget what Windows does when you go over 26 drives. Whateverr it does, it sure would confuse a hacker if your system was ever comprimised <g>. Glitch Electronics run on smoke, if you let the smoke out they won't work 05-16-2001 07:42:27

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) geekgranny Profile I ran into the problem when I installed Encarta 2000 (Full version with 5 or 6 CDs. Previous install was Encarta 98. Up untill the 2000 install programs would install and run properly (under 95 and 98) seeing and using all of the different drive letters. Also shared the programs across the network. I tweaked and tweaked the program and registry untill Hubby got tired of finding me in his recliner when he got home. I purchased a new program (downloaded) that is a virtual CD drive where you create virtual CD drives on a hard drive. It works great except Encarta still refused to accept more than one or two drive letters. I have not finished tweaking that install so I'm not sure if there is a solution for programs such as Encarta. But my thinking is "I can find a solution!! Just need the TIME!!!" The virtual CD program is a great program and with today's low cost of hard drives is a viable option. I've been trying/using virtual CD programs for several years now and this one is by far the best. It is fast and does compress the info as much as possible.I haven't tried it in W2K but don't see why it wouldn't work. If anyone wants to know what program it is I'll supply the info when I get a chance. One of the disadvantages of a CD changer, especially after getting used to very fast access on newer systems/drives is that when system starts up or you go to, for instance, Explorer or My Computer, it takes a bit of time for system to read all of the separate CDs. There is probably (hopfully) a cache setting somewhere that I am missing that would take care of that. As Hubby is not using the still-hooked-up SCSI changer since he spilled tea in it I am not really sure about this, but it seems that the SCSI changer was way faster in reading all the CDs than the IDE changer. The external SCSI changer has individual trays for each CD whereas the internal IDE changer has one slot where you load all CDs. It mounts a CD when requested to do so. I would think that audio CD's would not present any special issues. The Virtual CD program and the cost of a hard drive seem to me to be much less money and hassle. "Ah crapola....sorry for the multiple posts..." (Greenspark) THEGeekGranny-epodsgranny@hotmail.com 05-16-2001 09:34:49

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) JamesW Profile Yes, you're probably right. I thought about this further and it looks like the best option may be the Pioneer network attached CDROM changers such as fetch up on Ebay occasionally. They have a 6 disk magazine + a 5.1GB HD which provides caching. You can even load 6 more CDs onto the HD and have a 6+6 arrangement plus a (small) cache of most recently used files. They show up in Windows networking like a server with shared drives, so I'm hoping this will solve the Win2K single drive problem. Goodness knows what they end up costing, but at least it solves some problems. As for the reading of disks on bootup, good luck with Win2K (see the link to the KB I posted above). With Win98, you can't avoid it going chunka-chunka-chunka through all the disks the first time you try to view a disk - easiest way around this is to put a shortcut to My Computer in your startup folder. That way it gets all the sorting done at the beginning of the session rather than sometime in the middle when you need the information. 05-16-2001 20:12:48

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) JamesW Profile BTW, Glitch, sorry to have dragged this thread OT... Personally I think your best option is to go the high quality rip/MP3 route. I know it's a pain, but it will make everything simpler in the long run, especially since disk space is so cheap (in fact, I've found that even reading MP3s off tape on my DDS3 unit is perfectly acceptable!). I did my music collection this way and it only took two or three evenings while I watched TV. :) 05-16-2001 20:16:54

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) Perplexer Profile Hey Glitch, I'm almost tapped out of ideas ;) On my Win2K box, under my CDROM properties, there's a checkbox for "enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM device." I'm pretty sure it's in Win98 somewhere under "enable digital audio for digital devices" or something like that. This MIGHT work for playing CDA tracks across the network. Of course I haven't tried it yet. ;) 05-17-2001 00:10:38

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) JamesW Profile I think all that does is read the CD across the IDE bus rather than the audio cable on the back of the CDROM. 05-17-2001 18:54:09

RE:Playing Audio CD's Across Network (modified 0 times) Perplexer Profile Yes, that's exactly what that option does. However, now that the CDROM is functioning differently, reading data off the IDE (or SCSI) bus instead of just feeding audio to the sound card, another Windows PC on the network MIGHT be able to play those tracks. 05-18-2001 12:47:17

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