why no auto track marks from some digital optical sources?

[upasaka]

Hi all. I think this sort of question has been asked before, but I couldnt quite find the answer I'm after...

I have an MZ-R900 (Australian model) and am having some difficulty with digital optical recording: specifically, no auto track marks.

I have a Loewe Xemix DVD player, and when recording standard audio CDs via its optical output to the MD, I get track marks inserted as expected.

Problem is, this DVD player died. So I'm trying to do the same thing using either the optical outputs of a Creative Audigy 2 Platinum PC soundcard, or the optical output (via higher AV pack) of an XBox (Aus/PAL version). Neither will give me auto track marks at all.

I know I could use 2sec gaps, but the thing is most of the CDs I wish to record to MD are DJ mixes - so a gap is pretty useless.

So my question is why? Is there some reason why one device gives the auto marks, and others dont? Does the digital output have to be a specific format - PCM vs AC-3 maybe?

For that matter, what exactly is it that indicates to the MD recorder that a track mark should be inserted anyway (in digital mode I mean)?

And help much appreciated, thanks!

[phish]

I have MZ-R900 and SB Live! 5.1 Platinum sound card.

I've experienced the no track mark problems while recording

from the sound card with optical digital connection to R900.

What I've found is Creative MiniDisc Center works good to

add proper track marks right after each track. However

my PC crashes sometimes if I use MiniDisc Center.

(I'm using Windows XP Professional SP1)

I tried many kind of pause plugins for Winamp.

No success. I found if there's no sound comes from

the sound card then R900 adds track marks automatically.

I test all sound volumes down to 0 while recording, then

R900 adds track mark.

I looked for some plugins control Winamp that way.

I couldn't find any. Sorry for long story.

Here's the one way I do now-this works great.

Open PC volume control and mute all except the source you

want to record. If you want to record from CD, then unmute

the CD only (of course main vol. control is NOT muted).

If you want to record MP3 files with Winamp, you should

unmute WAVe/MP3 vol. control-mute other sources.

Download Pause Between Songs 2.3 Winamp plugin

http://biphome.spray.se/urbansan/gen_paus/

Install it and set 3 sec.-less than 3 sec not worked for me.

Set R900 synch OFF. Connect optical cable from sound card

optical out to R900 opt. in. Play your files with Winamp.

That's it. You may want to control Rec volume or PC volume.

I ususally set all volumes up to 100% of PC vol. control and

Winamp volume at 88%. I set R900 recording volume to AUTO.

Audio level meter moves upto 7 unit on R900 display, but no clipping

so far since I normalize all MP3 files with MP3Gain ( I set 96dB),

http://www.geocities.com/mp3gain/

Good luck.

[phish]

One more thing:

You should check the PC Play Control volume of the sources

whenever you restart the system. In my case, I mute the all

sources except WAVE/MP3 and reboot then some sources

are unmuted. The track marking tricks I mentioned above

is ONLY working when only one source is UNMUTED.

I guess the unmuted sources send noise to keep my

MZ-R900 away from track marking.

When recording from MP3, only unmute Wave/MP3.

When recording from CD, only unmute CD.

If some audio track of CD or some MP3 files have long silent end,

then MZ-R900 may add double track marks. The first one is right

after the song and the next one is made by Winamp Pause plugin.

In the case, you can erase the silent 3-5 sec track without hassle later.

Play the track (silent track) and pause it.

Press left jog dial and set edit > erase.

Any other good way to record with MZ-R900, please post.

[MDX-400]

The problem is that a PC will NEVER output track marks through the S/PDIF stream because (in my experience) there is no consumer-level PC sound card or device (*with the exception of the Xitel DG2) that can output track marks over the digital connection. PCs also use 14-bit S/PDIF which is somewhat odd, but may be responsible for the missing subcode/track mark data.

The DG2 does not actually allow for the PC to pass track marks, rather it actually makes track marks itself where appropriate. (It is a hardware feature.) Still, it doesn't work correctly 100% of the time (though it is better than nothing) and it won't work with the latest version of WInAmp or with WMP 9. It works with them but the discrete mode does not. You have to use either the previous version of WinAmp or WMP 8 or earlier to get discrete mode to work with the DG2. Or you can use MusicMatch Jukebox or something like that.

As for DVD players--that's a tricky one too. Not all DVD players output S/PDIF from CDs properly either (pretty much every CD player with digital output WILL) but DVD players are different, unfortunately. Its usually caused by the processing inside the player that changes the internal sampling/resolution of the CD data or handles it in a manner unlike a CD player would... I.e. It doesn't stream the "pure" CD data out the S/PDIF output on the player.

Usually you can rely on companies like Sony, Panasonic, etc. to get it right and have a proper digital output for CDs from a DVD player, but many other manufacturers (mainly the "off brands") won't do this. I've even come across a Philips DVD player that didn't do track marks properly, and they invented the CD! For shame! lol... Anyway that is the story with DVD players.

[Cheese]

I can't tell you why you have your problem with trackmarks, but i also had that problem, with 3 soundcards i tried. I have many mp3s that i want to move onto minidisc, for a number of reasons and was really irritated that they'd record as one long track, with "digital silence" or not.

Now i have the answer, and it's free! (except for the time taken).

I made a minidisc titler interface that connects to the printer socket on my pc using instructions from http://www.southcom.com.au/~tpitman which i made as part of my college coursework.

It just works with winamp, starts the recording simultaneously, copies the title across automatically, and hits t-mark at the beginning of eack song, then stops the minidisc recorder. I couldn't believe it. The interface should be the same for all minidisc units and wasn't too hard to make, i also got all the components free from the college :happy: . His software mayn't work with your recorder if it isn't a sony 900 though.

But it's a great peice of equiptment to have.

[hpmoon]

Any advice from anyone on going the opposite direction? How about PC software that "listens for" and responds to track marks sent from a MD's optical output to the PC's optical input? The best I've been able to do is use Sony Sound Forge 8.0's threshold trigger (-50db) to detect pauses.