Computer Help and Support

by Peter Daley

The playback of music in the home is being revolutionized. Forget about using disk based media CDs or LPs for music playback, network music players are the future. These devices let you listen to streamed music from the Internet, or to play back copies of your music CDs or LPs, stored on your personal computer, into your HiFi system. There devices plug into your broadband Internet connection and will stream the music of your taste directly from the Internet, into your home and business.

If you use a network music player for Internet streaming music playback, you don’t need to have a computer turned on. These devices will stream the music straight from your Internet connected broadband modem into your home or business sound system. The music will stream down the Internet at about 40 to 60 meg per hour on fast broadband connections, so you need a good download limit on your Internet service.

Transporter network player

There are lots of companies starting to produce network music players, http://www.logitech.com, http://www.netgear.com or http://www.linksys.com, are a few. The Logitech transporter seems to have very good reviews at present. Logitech make two models of network music players, Sqeezebox and Transporter, and they work on all operating systems, Linux, Windows & Apple Mac!

The squeeze box sells for US$249, while the Transporter,  is the Audiophile version, and is a no holds barred assault on producing the best sound possible, it costs US$1999.

Other companies have network music players models under US$100. As with all technology, they will become more feature rich and powerful, and prices will drop with more competition as manufactures vie for market share.

Plug a network music players into your broadband Internet connection, and directly connect it to your computer speakers or home stereo. Being able to play back the music through a good home stereo system makes a tremendous difference to the musical enjoyment.

You can also program the network music players to stream music directly from your favourite Internet radio station, or sites like,

http://www.pandora.com/,

or

http://www.rhapsody.com/

If you join Pandora or Rhapsody you can customize your network music playback so it will stream your style, and taste in music through your home or business stereo system.

No more waiting for the song you like to play on the radio. Not only that, they can send it wirelessly, into different rooms! With these network music players, you can also copy your CD or LP music collection onto your personal computer, and send them directly through your network music player, into you stereo system.

No more changing CDs!

Plus there is now technology that can be used to create better sounding music from your original CDs, or SACDs. Yes you heard me correctly.  Incorporate this with a network music player  and you will get unprecedented sound quality!

© Peter Daley 2010

by Peter Daley

The trouble with playing back music from your computer, is it is not very good quality, unless you have a high quality sound card installed.

Most computer sound is being processed by a cheap on-board sound chip. Even if you do have a good quality sound card installed, the card is inside a computer whose circuits are generating lots of electro magnetic noise. This noise affects the sound, causing listening fatigue, a less than enjoyable musical experience.

A way around this is to use an external sound processor. You could use the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, (http://www.soundblaster.com)at around $500. The Audigy 2 can just about do anything you would like to do with sound processing using your computer, reprocess, record, change, rip, and playback in surround sound.

A simpler, more cost effective device that would suit the needs of a person who just wants to improve their MP3 music playback, CD, DVD movies, or games sound, is to use the SilverStone Ensemble EB01 DAC at around $150. As described by Silverstone on their web site.

(http://www.silverstonetek.com)

“The SilverStone Ensemble EB01 is a convenient device that can instantly translate your PC’s digital signals into lifelike analog sound, suitable for personal high end stereo setups. EB01’s advanced internal circuitry will ensure that any sound effect or music from your CD, DVD, MP3 files, or games will be reproduced in quality, as the artist and content creator originally envisioned.”

The SilverStone and Creative Devices are Digital to Analog Converters (DACs), and there are lots of other brands of DACs available, Slimdevices, Headroom, Music Fidelity are a few.
Because digital sound and video are recorded as digital data, before we can view or here it, it has to be converted back to an analog signal. This is what the DAC does, converts the data back into viewable images or listenable sound.

The SilverStone, and Creative Devices we are talking about are sound processing DACs. Now the advantage of using an external DAC device to process the computer sound, is all those data digits can be transmitted externally away from the computer to the external box, and then turned into the music we want to listen to.

Because the digits are being transmitted, and not the sound signal, the sound quality is being protected from the distortion cause by the electro-magnetic storm going on inside the confines of your computer box.

Once the digital data gets to the external DAC, it is converted into the analog sound or music, which then can be plugged into a good  quality Hi-Fi system or good computer speakers. This will make a big difference to the sound quality you may be used to hearing from your computer.

It makes listening to CDs, MP3, music, DVD movies, and games a much better experience. The one disadvantage of the SilverStone DAC is at present it is a stereo device. Mind you, you can spend $10,000 or more on a DAC, but I think the SilverStone EB01 DAC can give a very pleasant improvement to your computer sound, for around AU$150. It is also one of the cheapest DACs  around if you want to try out the idea.

I have also found that if you plug a USB DAC into a good powered USB hub it can improve its performance. This is because the USB hub can supply more clean current than most computer powered USB ports. Firewire DACs are considered to be better than USB DACs, but are a lot more expensive.

© Peter Daley 2010

by Peter Daley
It is very easy to set up an exciting home entertainment centre on your personal computer, plus you can do it for little cost, or for free. Why purchase all those extra boxes, eg DVD player / recorder, Video Recorder, Desktop High Definition TV box, Radio, CD player, and HiFi system, plus have all those messy
cables lying around, when you can do everything neatly in one box, your computer?

Yes, you can go and purchase a dedicated home entertainment centre computer if you want, but why would you, when all you need is a modern computer
system, no more than two years old, with a reasonable video card and 80 GiG or larger hard drive, with a minimum of 512 megs of RAM, and install one
of the excellent free home entertainment software packages, that will turn your computer into a sophisticated home entertainment centre.

For Windows based systems you install the free home entertainment software program, Media Portal, http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

For Linux use Myth TV, http://www.mythtv.org/

Both these programs will turn your home computer into an advanced home entertainment media centre. They will organize and play all your media files, music, radio, and allow you to watch your stored video, and DVDs, even display the local weather report. They also turn your computer into a recorder for your TV and Digital video.

To use the Radio, TV or scheduled TV recording features, you will need to install a High Definition or Analog TV/Radio tuner card into your home
computer, or use an external USB TV High Definition or Analog tuner plug-in device. These cost from $100 upwards. Dual tuner cards will allow you to watch one station, and record another at the same time.

(Tip: If you are using Linux, make sure you check out which TV tuners will work with Myth TV before purchasing a device.)

I personally prefer the USB tuners, because you can move them from one computer to another, with ease. If you have multiple computers in the house,
you can turn any one of them into a High Definition TV player/recorder, by simply installing the USB device’s software on each machine, and then plug
in the USB tuner into the computer you wish to use as a TV set at that time.

(Tip: make sure you purchase a TV Tuner card, or USB TV, with good signal sensitivity.)

In most areas  you will need to plug the TV/Radio tuner device into an external roof mount aerial, to get good reception. An important point that will greatly improve the enjoyment and usability of your home entertainment centre, is to have all your entertainment media, music and videos, organized
in a logical sensible fashion, in your computer filing system, before you install the media centre software.

(Tip: Make sure you do regular backups of all your multimedia files!)

During the installation process, these programs will search your hard drive and index all your stored media files as you have organized them on your computer. So it doesn’t matter how good the media centre software is, it’s ease of use will be determined by how logically you have organized
your media files on your computer.

© Peter Daley 2010

by Peter Daley

You can greatly improve the playback sound quality of your CD collection by purchasing a CD Nova Physics Group Memory Player, at a cost of
US$15,000, or you can do it for virtually nothing by following the instructions in this article! There are two questions you are probably asking at this point.

A. I thought the sounds of CDs couldn’t be improved, so what are you going to do, the impossible?

B. What is a Memory Player?

To answer question one, yes, the playback quality of your CD collection can be greatly improved.

How? We first need to give you some background on how a CD payer works. When the CD laser reads the digital information recorded on the music CD, it is reading microscopic pits on the CD while it is spinning at high speed. It makes mistakes! So rather than create silence, or a click or a pop sound, like vinyl LP records do, it makes an educated guess as to what the sound should be, and plays this back. Well that’s great, but it can make the wrong guess. This then creates sound distortions.

The Nova Physics Group Memory Player is a device created to solve this problem. Here is an extensive article on the device,

http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue24/cjdiaries.htm

1. It has a special high quality CD transport to read the music CD on a very stable platform.Thus less read errors are created in the first place.

2. The Memory Player has specialized softwarethat re-reads the CD disk error location up to 90 times until it eliminates the data readerrors.

3. It stores the error corrected CD data in memory, and then plays back the error corrected music it recorded from the CD disk though a high quality Digital to Analog Converter (DAC), and amplifier.

Clever isn’t it! Well you can do all this, and get close to the memory player sound quality, by doing the things listed below, for very little cost.

You do need a computer with a CD/DVD player to do this. The better quality the CD/DVD player the better.

1. You download and Install this free software “Exact Audio Copy” (EAC) from here http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/ and install it on your computer. This does the error correction for you. By the way, this software can also be used for damaged CD datarecovery.

2. You set this software up to copy your music CD collection in WAV format, in secure mode, in high quality sound. Once you have the error corrected CD recorded on your computer, you don’t need to do this again. It can take 20 minutes or more to error correct just one music CD.

3. You can now play back the super recorded CD version at will, off the computer hard drive. If you want even better sound, you copy the music files onto a plugged in high quality USB flash drive, and then play it back from there. Corsair Flash Voyager Flash Drives are well built and to a much better quality than your average USB flash drive. This eliminates drive jitter and other errors that may be created from playing back the music file from the spinning computer hard drive.

4. Play back the recorded CDs through a good sound card or Digital to Analog Converter (DAC), or network player, and then into your home stereo system, to get the absolute best playback sound quality.

Once you have heard the difference in sound quality between playing a CD normally, and playing back the error corrected version, there is no going back.

© Peter Daley 2010

by Peter Daley

With the advent of fast Internet connections and large hard drives, there is no reason for people in their right minds to be purchasing or using lossy audio files, that have mediocre sound when played on a half descent stereo system! There are lots of audio file formats that can be used to copy your music CDs onto your computer or music portable. WMA, Flac, Ogg, Mp3, WAV, or AAC, etc. are a few. Some of these files are lossless, (WAV & Flac). That means they do not degrade the sound file quality from the original, and some are lossy, (MP3, Ogg, WMA, AAC). They do degrade the sound quality.

The lossy types process the sound file and compress it leaving large parts of the original sound out of the file. This makes the file size much smaller but at the expense of sound quality. The main reason for the extensive use of lossy audio file types over the Internet, is that it is easier and quicker to transfer and store a small audio file than a large file. A compressed MP3 audio file downloads much faster, and will take up much less storage room, than a WAV file. Most people accepted this because they had slow Internet connections and limited space on their hard drives.

The dynamics have now changed, with large numbers of people now having high speed Internet connections, and oodles of room on their enormous
hard drives. There is really no reason to keep using, or purchasing lossy audio files (MP3, Ogg, WMA, AAC) to store and play your music, anymore.

(Tip: Flac is a free compressed file type that processes the audio file without loss in sound quality. So for those who still wish to save some room, but don’t want to loose sound quality, FLAC is the way to go.)

Using lossy audio file formats is like convincing people to use watered down petrol in their cars, to save on transport and storage costs. The car won’t
run too well, nor will the sound coming out of your music portable or stereo, with a watered down audio file.

I am totally amazed at how the public have been so totally convinced to use or purchase such poor quality music files! Make a smart change, and insist
that you get the best quality for your money. Isn’t that what you insist on when you purchase anything else? If you’re smart you will rip your CD collection in WAV or FLAC format using EAC (Exact Audio Copy http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/) or only purchase lossless version audio files from music sites.

OK, downloading may be quick but sometimes it is better to purchase the CD or SACD (Super Audio CD) version. The CD then becomes a great backup if you need to get the music onto your computer, or portable in the future.

I generally order ten SACD/CDs at a time, so I cut down on postage costs. Here are some web sites most people may not know about, where you can

purchase lossless high quality music files, CDs, SACDs or LPS. I am willing to pay for good sound quality and good music. I realize I need to support talented artists financially somehow, or my source of good sounding music will disappear. This very much applies to classical music, because this type of music is not supported as much as popular music.

Arkiv Music http://www.arkivmusic.com

This site is great for classical music buffs because Music Arkiv has access to large amounts of the out of print LPS and CD music. With the extinction of the local record shops, this site provides a great source of classical music, in lots of different formats.

D Universe http://www.cduniverse.com

Lots of popular music as well as classical and jazz, plus samples provided for playback.

Linn Records http://www.linnrecords.com

Again a great source of classical and jazz, plus you can also still purchase high quality vinyl LP records. (The ultimate lossless format)

Telarc http://www.telarc.com/

Independent classical recording company: also crossover and jazz. This company also places a lot of emphasis on performance and recorded sound
quality.

Chesky Records http://www.chesky.com/

Web Site Extract: Philosophy, to create the illusion of live musicians in a real three-dimensional space. Chesky Records tries to achieve the impression of reality with the most advanced technology available, careful microphone placement, and, most of all, a recording team which pays attention to every
minute detail, making your listening experience tangible, pleasurable, exciting, and realistic.

Super Audio CD http://www.sa-cd.net/reviews/all

This is a terrific site for getting reviews from purchases on the latest Super Audio CDs which have been released.

© Peter Daley 2010

Blue Ray

Blue Ray is the latest disc movie technology that promises a great improvement in picture, and sound quality. Blank Blue Ray disc are available at present for data storage that can store 25 GB per single layered, and 50 GB per dual layered. This format is open-ended, with a possible storage limit of 200 GB. So it could become the next high volume storage media replacing DVD discs.

It main purpose at present is to act as a medium to distribute the latest high definition moves, (High-definition video is 1920×1080 pixel resolution / 60 frames per second / 24 frames per second). If you buy a dedicated stand alone Blue Ray player you just put the disk in and play it. Getting Blue Ray to work on an computer can be whole lot more involved.

It is to do with the fact that you need a fairly fast computer, and have a Blue Ray player installed plus several layers of Content Management & Digital Rights Management (DRM). The computer Blue Ray player looks just like a DVD player, some are multi players that can read older technologies like CD /DVD discs. Some more expensive players can read and burn Blue Ray data storage disks as well as play Blue Ray Movies. Price ranges for Blue Ray Players are $200 to over $500 depending on what the player can do.

If you are looking at getting Blue Ray movies playing on an older computer, most of you should just forget the idea. Because of several layers of Content Management & Digital Rights Management (DRM), getting all the hardware parts to work together can be a nightmare. See all the hardware has to be certified to be Content and DRM certified and even then it may not work together. You also need Content and DRM certified software to play Blue Ray discs.

Blue Ray video movies have encryption to prevent copying and the Content and DRM looks to see if the hardware or movie disc has been tampered with. In other words to see if the Blue Ray content is being pirated.

It can,

1. See if a player’s keys have been changed.

2. Patch an insecure Content and DRM certified system.

3. Stop the viewing of Blue Ray content if any of the hardware, or software is not compliant.

Even if the hardware and software you are using is all legal, and you have installed Content and DRM compliant Blue Ray software, disc player, video card, and Blue Ray compliant monitor it may not work. All the bits may not talk to each other for some strange technical reason! So after many hours of technical support and research you may be faced with more expense, and have no choice but to purchase and try another compliant video card, different software, or monitor to get it all working happily together.

Alternatively you could purchase a computer that is already set up with everything, content and DRM compliant, and ready to play Blue Ray movies out of the box.

In reviews of Bue Ray movies reviewers have been complaining that the sound and video quality has not been up to the Blue Ray standard on lots of movies. This is because some content creators are capitalizing on the Blue Ray hype, and supplying movies with second rate video and sound quality. They then get top dollar for second rate material.

There are some very well made Blue Ray movies. I suggest reading reviews before purchasing any movie. There are no where near the number of movies available in Blue Ray format compared to DVD, which most people are happy with. Now the industry is pushing 3D as the next big thing! It is all about getting you to spend money on new technologies.

© Peter Daley 2010