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aeneas

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Posts posted by aeneas

  1. More extensive investigation reveals that the 2 codec packages being discussed herein and referenced as DSP-worx and DSFP Version 5.1 are in fact the same with respect to what, I think, are the purposes associated with this post.  They came from different sources and the DSFP Version 5.1 package includes additional codecs NOT found in DSP-worx.  However, the audio codecs are the same package with the exception that several of the .dll modules are slightly newer in DSFP Version 5.1.  The differences were verified by computing and comparing an MD5 checksum on files with the same name.  The file named DCBassSource.ax, which appears to be the basis for setting up the filters is exactly the same.  Interestingly the 4 (of 9) .dll modules with different last modified dates of 2011 rather than 2010 appear to include the ones related to the projects associated with this post.  In that, files named bass.dll, bass.aac.dll, bass.alac.dll, and bass.ape.dll are the ones that have changed.  According to participants in this discussion aac & alac codecs are used in connection with .m4a type files.

    I'm afraid none of this provides a very good explanation for the problems reported herein.  The good news is that I now have the DSFP Version 5.1 package with the slightly newer .dll files installed and it seems to be working properly.  While I cannot be certain I do suspect that getting these DirectShow Filters to work properly may necessitate rebooting Windows after running the install/uninstall scripts.  I think some of the problems I reported may have involved experiments undertaken after making changes but prior to rebooting.

    It might also be worth pointing out that I found a program called Direct Show Filter Manager also on the free-codecs website which allows one at minimum to list the running codecs.  On Windows 10 this requires setting compatibility mode which I set to Windows 7 which seems to work but on Windows 7 it works better with Windows XP3.

  2. Just discovered how to use IMGburn to burn audio CDs from music collection.  It seems that the process involves creating something called a .cue file, which appears to basically be a list of the files to be written onto the CD as tracks.  However, it also looks like this .cue file only provides a portion of what is needed to burn the CD.  In that, it depends on the structure of the file system at the time it is created.

    What if, at some later date, one wanted to burn another CD.  For example, the original CD is damaged and in need of replacement.  It doesn't look like you could depend solely on the .cue file to remake the CD.  However, it is recognized that a set of 3 files with types .cue, .bin, .cdt are what results when making an image copy of an audio CD.  It would seem like good practice to make the backup image before burning the original CD.  Then using that set of image files to burn the original CD allows one verify that the backup set is capable of producing the desired result.

    Is this possible using IMGburn?  If so, how can the .cue file created by IMGburn be used to create the backup image set of files?

  3. Another finding which invalidates one of my prior conclusions.  The error I reported regarding the Windows 10 experiment with the DSFP-5.1 filter is problematic.  It now appears like that failure pertained to the files that were used for testing.  What I can say now is that this (DSP-worx) package, which I thought was working on Windows 10 only works on certain files.  As it turns out it has yet to fail on a file that came from iTunes.  However, it is also true that it has yet to work on files that were created by Windows Media Player (WMP) on this same Windows 10 computer while there is no problem using those (WMP created) files on the same IMGburn version running on Windows 7.  I suspect that the failure I reported above when testing the DSFP-5.1 filter was on the same WMP created files that also fail when using the DSP-worx filter.  I'll have to do some more testing to confirm.

  4. 6 hours ago, Ken852 said:

    Free-Codecs.com is back online again! :)

    So you did not use a virtual machine for your testing? I guess what you did should also work, but uninstalls tend to leave some stuff behind that can hinder future installations or modifications. So I would rather use a snapshot to wind back the clock completely as if I never installed anything. Using virtual machines is great for this kind of testing.

    I haven't had to work with DirectShow filters for a very long time, but I would assume they come with some kind of script or "wizard" that helps you install it. Registration or installation is the best way to describe it in my opinion, because in my mind "activation" means that something is already present but not switched to "ON" position yet.

    I am tempted to do some testing myself, but I just realized that I don't own/have any M4A files. So first things first, I will have to find some samples online.

    Yes!  I have now downloaded some of the other filter packages.

    I've always run my computers using multi-boot with about 3 instances of Windows per computer.  Usually, all 3 are the same version of Windows.  In this case, one computer is Win10 the other Win7.  This allows me to experiment without fear of messing up the instance of Windows I really depend on and if something bad happens to that one (which has yet to happen) I've got other readily available options.  When I end up really screwing up the test system I have an image of a good copy of Windows with all the basic software installed such as IMGburn that just involves running the Windows installer to restore.  I started doing this on Windows NT, well before virtual machines were readily available, and it still works even though Win10 was a bit of a challenge.  I do see some advantages to VM but then you essentially have another underlying system to maintain.  I just haven't come to the point of wanting to invest the time into learning about it.

    Your point about install verses activate does have validity.  Not something I'm worried about.  Thanks again for the help.

  5. 3 hours ago, Ken852 said:

    One suggestion I will make here is that you need to do your testing cleanly, i.e. starting off from a non-working state and make it work. Because if I understood correctly, you have first installed "DSFP-5.1" on a Windows 7 computer, and then "DSP-worx" on top of that, and similarly, "DSP-worx" on the Windows 10 computer followed by "DSFP-5.1" on top of that. This is a recipe for disaster and unreliable results. I hope ImgBurn still works on both your systems after these experiments. After all the trouble I wouldn't want to see all that work go to waste. So if you can, do these types of test in a virtual environment rather where you can use snapshots to roll back the clock so to speak and undo the changes you're making.

    I did exactly what you suggest.  In that, ran the uninstall script/s and verified that IMGburn produced the same erroneous result as previously experienced before activating a different codec.

    While they use the term install & uninstall to describe the procedures I think activation & deactivation would be better.  It looks to me like what is being done is to setting (activating) and un-setting (deactivating) some registry keys.  One of them uses the term register and unregister which is pretty hard to quarrel with but for some users it may NOT convey the desired meaning.  But of course I'm also guilty of nit picking when saying this.

  6. I did try this (DSP-worx) package, suggested by Lightening UK, on Windows 10 and it solved the problem.

    Therefore, I have both Win7 and Win10 working properly but with different Directshow Packages.  At this point, I concluded that I did NOT have much of any reason to think that either package might work on either system, which led to the idea of trying the DSP-worx package on Win7.  This failed but with a different error message (both screenshot and log file attached).

    As a result, I decided to also try the DSFP-5.1package that is working on Win7 on Win10.  It failed.

    I suppose even though still perplexed this means I am lucky to have gotten IMGburn to work properly on both Win7 and Win10 prior to free-codecs disappearing even if it means using different Directshow Filter packages on each system.

    If free-codecs re-appears I may experiment with the codecs mentioned in the guide.  Will post findings if that happens.

    Many thanks to both participants for helping to solve my problem.

    IMGburnWin7Error.png

    IMGburnWin7Log.txt

  7. 1 hour ago, Ken852 said:

    Are these the same files (or same file type at least) you tried yesterday when the initial error occurred? Are you having problems with more than just M4A files?

    I've only tried .m4a files when it comes to using IMGburn to produce an audio CD!

     

    1 hour ago, Ken852 said:

    Have you tried installing any one of these?

    The one initially referenced was found by doing a web search (duckduckgo) that specifically asked for Win7.  However, it was also from free-codecs.com which I'm also NOT able to access at the moment and I think it includes links to the codecs.com domain.

     

    1 hour ago, Ken852 said:

    Any source on this? In what context? To enable ImgBurn to write Audio CD discs or something else? Then why is it throwing the same type of error you see in Windows 7?

    Statement is based on findings lots of information about how to use the API but nothing about the need to add anything to the Windows 10 base software.

     

    1 hour ago, Ken852 said:

    Mere presence of M4A file format support you see in Windows 10 is not a guarantee that you will not need DirectShow filters to enable MP4 encoding and decoding in a given software application. The term "support" goes deeper than that. Things have to be put in a context, because everything is relative. You may be able to play MP4 files on a Windows 10 computer without any additional software, but that may only be possible if you use the default media player that ships with Windows 10. If you try using a different media player, especially an older one, let's say... Winamp! Then you may not be so lucky. I'm pretty sure Winamp still installs on Windows 10 and plays what it was designed to play, but M4A files are not on the list of things it will play. Unless of course someone comes along and hacks it to play things it's not supposed to. A similar thing has happened with Windows Media Player, per your description. I would call that a "beneficial bug". It's not supposed to let you play things it was not designed to play. But if it works, it works, be happy for what does work and not sad for what doesn't. For it to fully support M4A in all the ways you expect it would need to be reprogrammed.

    Why you need DirectShow filters for ImgBurn on Windows 10? I know nothing about the implementation details of neither Windows Media Player nor the new "Groove Music" media player, but if I have to guess I would say that Microsoft has switched to using Media Foundation rather than DirectShow in its new media player. It's something that ImgBurn isn't programmed to take advantage of. It's relying on the old technology called DirectShow, and there may not be any (easy) way to bridge the two for backwards compatibility with older software such as ImgBurn.

    Yes this explanation fits with my experience as well as a few more trials I've undertaken which I'll post separately from this reply.

  8. Fortunately I have some test systems which allow for low risk experimenting.  I'll give it a try.

    However, I am still confused.  Another observation I've made is that Windows Media Player (WMP) on Windows 7 does NOT support .m4a files.  However, now that I've installed the mentioned filter package it can play .m4a files.  At the same time .m4a is NOT an available choice for the format in which ripped files are created.  On the other hand, Windows 10 (out of the box so to speak) can both play and rip to .m4a format.  Why would I need to add this kind of filter package to Windows 10 which seems to fully support .m4a format?

  9. The files I tried today are type .m4a (i.e., apple lossless compression sometimes called ALAC).  I think this might also be referred to as mpeg4 audio.  The files came from iTunes.

    The error received (screenshot attached) on Windows 10 is the same as on Windows 7.  However the referenced filter package obtained from codec.com had to be installed on Windows 7.  Windows 10 was NOT among those stipulated for that package.  Also my research on Windows 10 suggested that a separate package need NOT be installed on Windows 10.  If Microsoft might have had an installation package for Windows 7 it doesn't surprise me that they stopped supplying it when Windows 7 support was withdrawn.

    Maybe it would be better to state my question as "how to fix the error preventing IMGburn from creating such a CD on Windows 10?". 

     

    IMGburnError.png

  10. I've been using IMGburn for a long time but just now wanted to create an audio CD (i.e., CD that can be played on an ordinary/traditional CD player) from files in my Windows music library.  Following instructions in the guide provided on this forum produced an error that referred to the need to use "directshow".  I think that refers to an API supported on Windows for accessing the codecs used to make necessary conversions of existing files that could have been created/encoded in a variety of different file formats.

    In the case of my Windows 7 computer it appears as though a standard OS installation does NOT contain the necessary software.  I couldn't find a way to get anything from Microsoft that could be used to add the necessary capability.  However, I did find a third party package called Direct Show Filter Package (DFFP Version 5.1) that was pretty easy to add to a Windows 7 system and get the needed support.  Initial trials at creating audio CDs seem to work as expected.  However, as a present novice I'd want to get more experience before saying just how good it is doing.  No problems so far.

    Windows 10 looks like a different situation.  Insofar as I couldn't find any indication that there was a separate add-on package available but plenty of information about how to develop software that uses the interface.  This leads me to think that for Windows 10 the interface (API) may have changed.  This would explain how my Windows 10 system might contain the underlying software needed to support the directshow API but NOT support the interface being used by IMGburn.  This suggests that these features of IMGburn simply can NOT be made to work on Windows 10.  This idea is pure speculation but leads me to conclude that it is either correct or I'm in need help figuring out how to make this feature of IMGburn work on Windows 10.

    Would appreciate suggestions for those with the necessary knowledge.

  11. Yes, I can mount the drive on a computer running Windows.  The easiest way to do this would be using a USB controller that supports SATA.  Therefore, ImgBurn can be provided access to the drive/partition via Windows.

     

    Diagnostics are something one would prefer not to need but I did find these ones very useful for determining that the hardware on the computer being salvaged looks to be good whereas the WV is shot.  The idea of retaining these diagnostics, which are known to work independent of WV, simply seems like the prudent thing to do but I don't want to consume any disk space on the new system for this purpose.

     

    I am not familiar with Hiren's Boot CD but the diagnostics supplied with the computer seem to be nicely tailored to the motherboard and related set of integrated adapters.  Why not retain it?

  12. I'm rebuilding a computer which was originally operated using Windows Vista (WV).  WV does not boot anymore but the hard drive appears to be good.  There is a small DOS (fat16) partition which is bootable that contains diagnostics which allowed a pretty thorough amount of testing to determine that the hard drive is working properly.  The hard drive will be replaced by a solid state drive and the new system will run Linux.  The computer does not have a diskette reader.

     

    I'd like to retain the ability to run the diagnostics and would prefer to have them on a bootable CD.  How do I create a bootable CD using the content (i.e., version of DOS plus diagnostics) that are presently stored on that utility partition?

  13. I've been using IMGburn for a long time and have loved it. However, I've also been using the poor practice of only operating my computer with a sign-on that has administrative privileges. I'm tired of being victimized by various mal-ware and feel that I have to stop the poor practice and start using a sign-on with less authority. However, it appears as though IMGburn will not detect my optical drives such that I can use them without administrator privilege. It doesn't seem to me that burning a disk should require such authority. I'm hoping that there is something I've done wrong or a work around of some kind. I'd be grateful for some help overcoming this problem which I do think is serious.

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