Can't play MP3s

Just to be sure this is perfectly clear (or perhaps further compound the
issue):

It *is* certainly possible to record data on a magnetic tape in a digitized
format if one wishes to (for pure data applications - that would be a natural).
Where you only recognize the presence or absence of the magnetism (or reversed
magnetic domain polarities). But this is NOT what happens in audio cassette
and open reel tapes, or in records.

dadiOH wrote:

"Bill" wrote in message
news:43fXa.32462$

Doug wrote:

the same thing happens, everything is still 1/0 except this time magnetic,
representing analog information.

No it's not. The magnetism on the tape is analog in nature - continously
varying in strength (amplitude) - and NOT in discrete ones and zeros.

Yep, that's what I found out after your last post. For which I thank
you...I learned something.

dadiOH

dadiOH wrote:

"Bill" wrote in message
news:NYjXa.131079$

Just to be sure this is perfectly clear (or perhaps further compound the
issue):

It *is* certainly possible to record data on a magnetic tape in a digitized
format if one wishes to (for pure data applications - that would be a

natural).

Where you only recognize the presence or absence of the magnetism (or

reversed

magnetic domain polarities). But this is NOT what happens in audio

cassette

and open reel tapes, or in records.

Got it...

Analog tape = magnetism proportional to the signal, digital = merely yay or
nay.

Pretty close. To be more precise:
Analog tape *recording* (not the tape itself) = the magnetism is proportional
to the signal, in digital tape *recording* = it's merely yay or nay. (Good
way to put it). :-)

With analog, there are all shades of gray - it's continous, unlike digital.

Firstly, who would have thought that music tapes and cd's had signals burned
into them
that were proportional to the soundwell, I even had myself convinced
otherwise.

with regards to your solution, you're saying that if the music cd sounds
EXACTLY the same when
listened to via the front of the cd-rom player headphone jack and through
the soundcard, then
my soundcards L+R signal is grounded. If it isn't the same then I very
likely have the same problem you had?

If the sound is the same through both the jack and soundcard, and despite
the fact that signals on a music cd
(as we now know) are stored in analog format, it still points to the
soundcard as the culprit with regards to my
inability to play any compressed (digitized) sounds. I guess what I'm
trying to confirm is the following:

1)Sound read directly from a music cd is passed to the sound card and from
there to the speakers always in
analog format (never converted to a digital representation) through those
extra wires going from the
cd player to the soundcard. Thus the soundcard merely acts as a gateway not
converting ANYTHING to
a different format.

2)Sound read from anywhere (cd or hd) that is in digitized format (wav, mp3,
mpg...) is passed to the HD and there
converted by a codec/library into a universal "digital" format which the
soundcard will understand. The soundcard
then takes this digital sound format and converts it to an analog format and
outputs this to the speakers.

So, whereas in the first case the soundcard doesn't do any altering to the
signal and merely passes it further down to the
speakers, in the second instance (with compressed media) it still has to do
some alterations using its circuitry. So if
playing cd's poses no issue but playing compressed format data does, all
signs still point back to the sound card (and please,
lets not bring up the scenarios concerning soundcards with digital outputs).
Is this what everyone else is concluding
from this discussion?

Thanx
Doug

PS don't you just hate the proximity of the reply to sender and reply to
group is OE...
"SP250" wrote in message
news:

"Doug" wrote in message
news:ceeXa.602913$
>
> "dadiOH" wrote in message
> news:
> > "Doug" wrote in message
> > news:bgh4ql$k4g$
> > > dadiOH wrote:
> > > > "Doug" wrote in message
> > > > news:I9TWa.590194$
> >
> > > > As you said, it is the sound card's job to turn digital data into
> analog
> > > > sound. And vice versa.
> > > >
> > > > When you play a CD, the digital data (wave) is sent to the sound
card
> > and
> > > > comes out as sound.
> > > >
> > > > When you play an MP3, the MP3 data is decoded to wave by the

player

> and
> > sent
> > > > to the sound card. Only difference twixt it and an audio CD is

the

> > > > necessity of decoding the MP3's digital "shorthand" data to

digital

> > wave.
> > > >
> > > > Earlier, you said that one channel seemed much louder than

another.

> > Have
> > > > you looked at a file with a wave editor to see what each channel
looks
> > like?
> > > >
> > > This sort of work I want to avoid at all costs, afterall, I'm know
> > > music/sound/mp3 expert. And as I said before, the files play just
fine
> > > on two of my other machines.
> >
> > It really isn't much work or difficult to interpret. A wave editor

will

> > show you both channels and it is easy to see if the amplitude on one

is

> > higher than the other. I mentioned it because vocals are often on one
> > channel with the rest on the other. Which seems to sort of tie in

with

> your
> > problem of one being louder.
> > ___________________
> >
> > >> Also, aren't songs stored on cd in analog
> > > format already, and not wav format? I mean, when you rip a cd to

make

a
> > > backup, doesn't it actually have to convert from the format on the

cd

to
> > > the wab format?
> >
> > What's on a CD (or a tape or a hard drive) is digital...a numeric
> > representation of the analog sound. When you rip a CD the data

thereon

> for
> > each track is copied and the resultant file is given a header so that

it

> is
> > recognized as a wave file.
> >
> > dadiOH
> >
>
> So as you said:
> "What's on a CD (or a tape or a hard drive) is digital...a numeric
> representation of the analog sound".
>
> And as such its in analog format of course encoded "digitally".
Heck,
> all that computer can understand is
> 1 and 0, so the sounds are basically sort of fourier analysis stored on
the
> cd.
>
> Doug
>
>

Repost
(sorry didn't post to all groups)

OK I had a similar problem that took ages to figure out, Music appeared to
play ok but vocals were either nonexistent or muffled, Movies played the
sound track, but vocals again were muffled but occasionally came through
load
and clear, very puzzling! And the solution so simple: the output from a
sound card feeds L+R with a common earth return. The earth return on my
system was defect and so vocals which are usually centre biased (stereo
speaking) were cancelling out and what I was hearing through the speakers
was actually the difference between the L+R channels (i.e L-R.)

Try this experiment: play an audio cd (try something with widely separated
L+R channels like Mamas and the Papas California Dreaming ) and listen to

it

through the headphone socket on the front of the cd player. Now compare

this

to the output of the sound card. If you have good stereo separation then
you'll have to look else-where. If the sound card output is basically L-R
then check the speaker/headphone plug/wiring

P.S Audio output from a cd is analogue, and is fed to the soundcards audio
amplifier via a small 3 or 4 wire cable not the wide flat cable used to
transfer data. Yes there are digital outputs available on cd players and

yes

when you rip an audio cd the raw data is transferred via the data cable.
This scenario is based on the most common connection used between cd

players

and soundcards.

Hope this helps

G.

So there is a utility in linux which keeps track of all the installed
libraries?
Heck, I asked this question once on one of the linux newsgroups, and what
I got were suggestions that I look for installed libraries via ls lib/lib*
command.

So here's a question, is the package manager similar to the Add/Remove
Programs
in windows, where it lists all the installed packages and their locations?

Perhaps this would explain why after installing java, my Mozilla still can't
display
java embedded in web pages?

Doug

"paul s" wrote in message
news:

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 07:38:01 +0000, Doug wrote:

> Well, I'm still fairly new to Linux, so as most, I've started of with
> RedHat.
> I got 9.0 installed, and I mainly use it for programming in Java.

Although,

> I'd
> love to get familiar enough with it to completely switch from xp to rh9.
> (with
> the possibly difficulties existing with installing samba, this will take

a

> while I'm guessing)

I never used samba, so I cant tell you anything about it.

> Just a quick question about libraries in linux though. When installing
> these
> I usually compile them while logged in in my user account and then

simply

> move the *.so
> files into the /usr/lib/ directory with root priviliges...is that all

there

> is to it if
> you lack certain libraries? (it's late and I'm too lazy to read about

it

> now...although
> I'll probably will have to give the library know-how a read sooner or

later)

I always installed libraries thru the package manager, so the
system knows whats installed and not, rather than just moving .so files
into /usr/lib/. Any libraries I've needed have already been in binary
form, and have been easily available from the various Mandrake contrib FTP
sites.

When I come across an app that I got to compile, I install it with
'checkinstall' rather than just 'make install', the tells the package
manager that another application has been installed, and makes later
removal much easier.

http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/

Paul S
-
- Nimda: An original Microsoft web crawler. -
-

On Mon, 04 Aug 2003 20:59:25 +0000, Doug wrote:

So there is a utility in linux which keeps track of all the installed
libraries?
Heck, I asked this question once on one of the linux newsgroups, and what
I got were suggestions that I look for installed libraries via ls lib/lib*

Yup but the utility is distro specific. On Mandrake it's rpmDrake and
urpmi, RedHat it's urpmi, Debian it's apt-get, Gentoo it's portage,
Lindows it's Click'n'run, Slackware you sort it yourself.

So here's a question, is the package manager similar to the Add/Remove
Programs
in windows, where it lists all the installed packages and their
locations?

If your using a rpm [1] based distro, RedHat, Mandrake or SuSE, there is
a utility to do exactly that. On Mandrake it's rpmDrake which is GUI
based similar to Windows 'Add/Remove programs, I know RedHat, and SuSE
have something similar.

Perhaps this would explain why after installing java, my Mozilla still
can't display
java embedded in web pages?

Get Mozplugger [2], it automatically configures Mozilla to use whatever
plugins are available, Java, Shockwave, RealPlayer, XMMS, Mplayer,
Timidity++. I don't believe in hardwork. :-) Mozplugger also works with
Galeon, Konqueror and Opera.


[1] RPM - RedHat Package Management

[2] http://freshmeat.net/releases/124582/

As you can see my Mozilla is configured to deal with all types of online
content:

-
MozPlugger 1.1.1

File name: mozplugger.so
MozPlugger version 1.1.1, written by Fredrik Hübinette
and Louis Bavoil . For
documentation on how to configure mozplugger, check the man page.
(type man mozplugger)

MIME Type Description Suffixes Enabled video/mpeg MPEG animation mpeg,
mpg, mpe Yes video/x-mpeg MPEG animation mpeg, mpg, mpe Yes
video/x-mpeg2 MPEG2 animation mpv2, mp2ve Yes video/msvideo AVI
animation avi Yes video/x-msvideo AVI animation avi Yes video/fli FLI
animation fli, flc Yes video/x-fli FLI animation fli, flc Yes
video/x-ms-asf-plugin Windows Media asf,asx,wma,wax,wmv,wvx Yes
application/x-mplayer2 Windows Media wmv,asf,mov Yes video/quicktime
Quicktime animation mov,qt Yes video/x-quicktime Quicktime animation
mov,qt Yes video/dl DL animation dl Yes video/x-dl DL animation dl
Yes
video/sgi-movie SGI animation movie,movi,mv Yes video/x-sgi-movie SGI
animation movie,movi,mv Yes video/anim IFF animation
iff,anim5,anim3,anim7 Yes video/x-anim IFF animation
iff,anim5,anim3,anim7 Yes audio/mid MIDI audio file midi,mid Yes
audio/x-mid MIDI audio file midi,mid Yes audio/midi MIDI audio file
midi,mid Yes audio/x-midi MIDI audio file midi,mid Yes audio/mod
Soundracker audio Module mod Yes audio/x-mod Soundracker audio Module
mod Yes audio/mp3 MPEG audio mp3 Yes audio/x-mp3 MPEG audio mp3 Yes
audio/mpeg2 MPEG audio mp2 Yes
audio/x-mpeg2 MPEG audio mp2 Yes
audio/mpeg3 MPEG audio mp3 Yes
audio/x-mpeg3 MPEG audio mp3 Yes
audio/mpeg MPEG audio mpa,abs,mpega Yes audio/x-mpeg MPEG audio
mpa,abs,mpega Yes audio/x-ogg OGG audio ogg Yes application/x-ogg OGG
audio ogg Yes audio/x-sidtune Commodore 64 Audio
sid,psid Yes audio/sidtune Commodore 64 Audio sid,psid Yes audio/psid
Commodore 64 Audio psid,sid Yes audio/x-psid Commodore 64 Audio
psid,sid Yes audio/basic Basic audio file au,snd Yes audio/x-basic
Basic audio file au,snd Yes audio/wav Microsoft wave file wav Yes
audio/x-wav Microsoft wave file wav Yes image/sun-raster SUN raster
image rs Yes image/x-sun-raster SUN raster image rs Yes image/x-rgb
RGB Image rgb Yes
image/x-portable-pixmap PPM Image ppm Yes image/x-portable-graymap PGM
Image pgm Yes image/x-portable-bitmap PBM Image pbm Yes
image/x-portable-anymap PBM Image pnm Yes image/tiff TIFF image
tiff,tif Yes image/x-tiff TIFF image tiff,tif Yes audio/mpeg-url MPEG
music resource locator m3u Yes audio/x-mpeg-url MPEG music resource
locator m3u Yes audio/mpegurl MPEG music resource locator m3u Yes
audio/x-mpegurl MPEG music resource locator m3u Yes
audio/x-pn-realaudio Realaudio-plugin resource locator ra,rm,ram Yes
audio/x-realaudio RealAudio file ra,rm,ram Yes
application/vnd.rn-realmedia RealMedia file rm Yes application/smil
RealPlayer smi Yes audio/vnd.rn-realaudio RealAudio file ra,ram Yes
audio/vnd.rn-realvideo RealVideo file rv Yes text/pdf PDF file pdf
Yes
text/x-pdf PDF file pdf Yes
application/x-dvi DVI file dvi Yes application/x-postscript PostScript
file ps Yes application/postscript PostScript file ps Yes
application/rtf Rich Text Format rtf Yes application/x-msword Microsoft
Word Document doc, dot Yes application/msword Microsoft Word Document
doc, dot Yes application/vnd.ms-excel Microsoft Excel Document
xls, xlb Yes application/vnd.stardivision.calc StarCalc Document
sdc,sxc,sds,stc Yes application/vnd.stardivision.draw StarDraw Document
sda,sxd,std Yes application/vnd.stardivision.impress StarImpress
Document sdd,sxi,sti Yes application/vnd.stardivision.math StarMath
Document sdf Yes application/vnd.stardivision.writer StarWriter
Document sdw,sgl,sxw,sxg,stw Yes

Paul S
-
- Jimmie crack corn and I don't care...what kind of lousy attitude -
- is THAT to have, huh? -- Dennis Miller -
-