Michael Cheney wrote:
I have been using the new sound card from Xitel to record digitally files I have
stored on my PC. When I load WinAmp and then start the recording process, I get a
wonderful recording, BUT I do not get any track demarcations.
Anyone else have this experience or have ideas about what I might do to output MP3s to
the minidisc with track markings.
Then Aston wrote:
On a related note, I've noticed that when I copy directly from CD to MD
(digitally), the track demarcations are there, even if there's no space
between the tracks on the CD,
I'm writing:
Someone suggested inserting 3 sec gaps between songs. Fine! It works. Your minidisc
notices the silence and put in a trackmark.
Aston noticed that when recording from a CD with digital out this is no problem. I'll
explain why:
When we are recording digitally to our MDs we use the S/PDIF interface (Sony - Philips
Digital Interface). You can read more about that at
http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/docs/audio/spdif.html
As you can see on the webpage mentioned above not only the sample data (the actual
music) is transferred. Also some other information is enclosed. These are bits 28-31
of each 32 bit word. Bit 29 is the user data subcode. In this subcode is all
information on tracknumbers, elapsed time etc. and this info is used by your MD to set
correct trackmarks when recording from a CD with digital out. (Read more on S/PDIF and
user subcode in the following product datasheet by Analog Devices:
http://www.analog.com/pdf/AD1892_0.pdf Check pages 8-12 for S/PDIF encoding and pages
16-17 for the user subcode.
Unfortunatly normalpriced soundcards like the Xitel card, SBLive! and Hoontech 4DWave
NX can't code user subcode (bit 29) on to the signal. Therefore no information on when
a new track starts is transferred to the MD. There is one exception: When using the
soundcards for recording directly from the digital output on your CD-rom drive the
soundcard acts just like a converter for the electrical signal to optical, so then it
might work (haven't tested myself though).
Lars Soderman
Stockholm, Sweden
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