Obseravtions and Problems

Hardware

Software

Setup

Copying Audio CDs

Recording Audio

Copying Data CDs

Archiving Data

MP3 Audio

Observations

Useful Links

CW 7502

A number of times the CW 7502 hangs upon trying to write for the first time. You'll see this when cdrecord has the line

Track 01: 0 of ## MB written

and never goes any further. The BUSY light on the recorder stays on, while the WRITE light goes on, then off. I have not been able to determine the cause of this as it is not reproducable at will. You need to turn off the recoreder to reset it. Sometimes the CD-R media that was in the recorder after this happens can be used to again, sometimes it is ruined.

The CW 7502 has now failed after only two weeks of service. Upon power up, the BUSY light does not go on, and the tray no longer ejects. Power is fine since the internal fan in the drive continues to operate.
The vendor replaced the device and all is well again.

Media

I have succesfully used TDK brand and Fujifilm brand CD-R media. I have also had media failures on both as well. I have even had an CD that cdrecord appeared to write succesfully. Upon read back however, there were media errors, that show up like this on the console:Feb 18 21:21:48 monster unix: WARNING: /sbus@1f,0/SUNW,fas@e,8800000/sd@6,0 (sd6): Feb 18 21:21:48 monster unix: Error for Command: read Error Level: Retryable Feb 18 21:21:48 monster unix: Requested Block: 729908 Error Block: 729908 Feb 18 21:21:48 monster unix: Vendor: TOSHIBA Serial Number: 04/09/97 Feb 18 21:21:48 monster unix: Sense Key: Media Error Feb 18 21:21:48 monster unix: ASC: 0x15 (random positioning error), ASCQ: 0x0, FRU: 0x0

CD Recording Speed

I try always to record at the fastest speed possible (here it is 4X). But I have been told that ruins more CDs that recording at 2X. The person who recommended this has the recorder on an PC however, and says they get a 60% failure rate at 4X. I have not seen this level of failure on the Sun.

`read_cdda`

The read_cdda can output Sun .au files, but if you want to listen to the raw file extracted via audioplay you need to use audioconvert with the input format of rate=44.1k,channels=2,encoding=pcm,format=raw and the output format of rate=44.1k,channels=2,encoding=pcm,format=sun.

`galette`

The galette program writes out audio file in Sun .au format, but it's header is not right. If you want to listen to it with audioplay you must use audioconvert and use the same format for in and out (rate=44.1k,channels=2,encoding=pcm,format=sun) use the -p option as well to overwrite the file. If you want to write this to a CD you must use the procedure as descriped in the recording audio section.

`sox`

Don't use the sox program to convert audio files to the cdr format for writing to the CD, this dosen't seem to work.

`cfs`

Before compiling cfs (version 1.3.3) under Solaris you should make as small change to the file cfs.c in the initstuff() routine. Find the line that says

umask(0);

and place this after it:

setsid();

This will prevent signals from the tty you start cfsd in from killing it. There also appears to be a memory leak in cfsd as well, as I have seen the process grow to use 120 Meg of memory.

`lame`

You need to supply the byte swap option (-x) to lame if encoding a WAV file. Do NOT use the option if encoding CDDA. Strange behavior.

Obseravtions and Problems

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