Device Settings
Audio CD Settings
Use Digital Playback
Media Center can play audio CDs in either digital or analog mode. In analog mode, there must be a cable connected from your CD drive to your sound card. If your drive is capable of it, it is usually preferable to select "digital playback", which allows you to use the Equalizer and view Visualizations.
The Visualization, Equalizer/DSP and Playback Mode (cross fade, for example) functions all require digital playback. If you are having problems playing back your CDs, try disabling “Use digital playback”. This will often fix the problem.
Enable on-line CD Lookup
Media Center uses YADB to get the artist, title, track, credit, and other information about the CDs you play. This service is FREE and automatic.
Audio CD Rip (Copy)
These options control how Media Center performs digital CD copying, also known as "ripping". Set Media Center to do any of the following:
•
Analyze your audio files for replay gain, BMPs and intensity after ripping a CD. See Audio Analysis for more information.
•
Automatically retrieve the cover art for the album over the internet. Files will be placed in the cover art directory specified in Tools | Options | Track Images Location.
•
Eject the CD after ripping
•
Play a sound when ripping is finished.
Advanced Ripping Settings
•
CD Drive. If you have more than one CD drive, select the one you want to view/edit options for.
•
Copy mode. Choose between digital ripping modes or analog ripping.
•
Digital Large Buffer. This is the default and fastest mode - use it unless you are having problems. Multiple sectors are read from the CD at once to improve performance.
•
Digital Small Buffer. Try this first if you are getting "Aspi" errors. Some CD-ROM drives can't handle a large buffer.
•
Digital Unbuffered. This is the slowest digital method and should only be selected if you are having problems with the buffered methods. It reads one sector at a time from the CD and may work better on older systems that have slower CPU's.
•
Digital Error Correcting. Use this method if your recorded tracks have clicks or pops in them. This indicates that your CD-ROM drive does not position itself accurately during digital ripping leading to a defect called "jitter". In error correcting mode, the software reads overlapping sectors and then synchronizes the data before writing to disk.
•
Digital Secure. This method does multiple read passes to ensure the extracted data is correct. It will generally be half the speed of other methods and possibly much slower than that if the media is damaged or the computer is very busy doing other tasks.
•
Analog. If none of the digital modes work for you, you may have a CD-ROM drive that is not capable of digital ripping. In this case you can choose analog mode and set the recording volume as described below. This is the slowest ripping method and will take the same amount of time to rip a track as it would to play it. Note that analog ripping only works if your CD-ROM drive is connected to your sound card. If you can listen to audio CDs on your computer then analog ripping should work.
Analog Settings. If you choose analog mode for CD copying, Media Center will play the tracks and record them with your sound card. The recording volume should be adjusted to get adequate volume without distortion - too low and the background noise will mask the signal, too high and there will be unpleasant clipping distortion. If it's adjusted correctly, the sound may be just as good as on a digital copy. Put an audio CD in your drive and press the "Settings" button. Press the "Start Test" button and in about 90 seconds Media Center will automatically select the best volume. Or you can set the volume level yourself.
•
Read Speed. This is the drive speed during ripping. Normally you should leave this at Max, but if you experience problems during ripping try lowering the speed. This has no effect on some CD drive models.
•
Auto Rip CD Database lookup options. This is used in conjuction with Media Center’s auto-rip feature. It establishes how Media Center looks for the CD information from YADB.
•
File Management. You can have Media Center automatically overwrite existing files that have the same name. If this is unchecked (default), Media Center will append a number at the end of the file name, when it encounters duplicates.
Action to perform when media is inserted
You can determine Media Center’s behavior when you insert an Audio CD or DVD into your drive. By default, Media Center will ask you what to do, but you can have it automatically Play or Rip a CD, or Play a DVD.
Data CD & Portable Devices
The checkbox "Display files in subfolders" determines how data CDs are displayed in the content pane when you select "CD, DVD, & Handhelds" in the organization tree.
•
If it is left unchecked, music files on the data CD will not be listed until you select the folder in which they reside.
•
If it is checked, the content view will list all music files in the currently selected folder and all it's sub-folders. If you select the drive itself, all music files on the CD will be listed.