Audio CDs

[jaygeetiny]

I can play .mp3 and .wav files using oss and xmms but can't play tracks on my usual new-distro test audio cd.

dmesg shows my cdrom drive as hdc.

Having read the discussion at http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=228.0 I've tried the following:

sudo mount /mnt/hdc
mount: No medium found

After inserting the cd:

mount /mnt/hdc
mount: block device /dev/hdc is write-protected, mounting read-only
mount: you must specify the filesystem type

FWIW in DSL I could only get the same device to work by installing xmms_cdread.dsl but there doesn't seem to be an equivalent .tce.

[mikshaw]

Don't mount audio CDs to play them.  They get read directly, same as a DVD movie.
I have no idea if the software needed to play CDs is even available for TC yet, but I would try "xmms /dev/hdc"

[Jason W]

To play audio CD's with XMMS and /dev/hdc is your preferred cd drive, do this:

$ sudo ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/cdrom
$ sudo on -s /mnt/hdc /mnt/cdrom


Then play the cd with Play Directory -> /mnt/cdrom.  Or choose an individual song in that directory.

Also, this thread would belong in a TCE extensions category.

[jaygeetiny]

Hi Jason

Thanks for the reply.

Having turned on OSS and followed your instructions XMMS started playing track 1 of the cd but without sound.  Vol at max.

A ripped version of the same test cd on another USB stick containing my backed-up music files plays perfectly in XMMS.

[jaygeetiny]

Since my last post I've done further research on this topic and the upshot is as follows.

My system has integrated on-board sound i.e. it doesn't have a separate sound card. My experience with DSL was that it was necessary to instal the xmms-cdread plugin to get xmms to play audio cds in drives that don't have an audio cable connecting them to the soundcard. This situation seems to obtain with TC 1.0/1.1 unless another user with integrated on-board sound knows otherwise.

As the currently available xmms.tce/tcel extensions don't contain the cdread plugin I'm unable to use xmms to play cds. This no big deal as it's easy enough to mount an extra USB stick containing ripped music files which xmms plays excellently.

However if this presumed xmms limitation is confirmed it would save other newbies time/effort if the situation was acknowleged and documented. 

[Jason W]

No audio cable is an important factor as I was unable to reproduce XMMS playing a CD with no sound on my setup.  I will look into making an XMMS-cdread extension to accomodate sound using the IDE interface.  I was unaware until reading up on it now that playing CD's with no audio cable was possible.

[Jason W]

Xmms-cdread is not needed to play CD's with no audio cable attached.  So that is two things I have learned in this post: You do not need an audio cable and you also don't need xmms-cdread to listen to CD's.  How to play a cd with XMMS is documented above, and the below steps will enable sound through the digital IDE interface.

Go to Options -> Preferences and you will be at the Audio I/O plugins tab.  Click on CD Audio Player 1.2.11 and then click on the Configure button below it and you will be at the Device tab.  In the Play Mode section you will be given the choice of Analog ( the default ) and Digital Audio Extraction.  Choose Digital Audio Extraction and you will then be able to listen to CD's without an audio cable attached.  This same tab also gives you the option of which CD device and mount points you want to assign to save having to symlink to /dev/cdrom.

XMMS info is getting harder to find, but here is a fairly comprehensive page that is still out there:

http://www.xmms.org/docs/readme.php

[jaygeetiny]

Hi Jason

Thanks for sorting out how to play sound through the digital IDE interface on XMMS. Everything works fine now.

The XMMS info link looks most useful; I plan to use it to install the skins I've downloaded from http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/damnsmall/mydsl/multimedia/xmms_skins.tar.gz.

[jpeters]

XMMS info is getting harder to find

maybe because it works so well

[Jason W]

It is still a good audio player and it is a shame that the mainstream distros are dropping it.  I still prefer XMMS to any of the other alternatives and it will always have a place on my hard drive (or ramdisk).  I have nothing against the newer apps like Audacious, but XMMS still does what it always has done efficiently - playing audio files and CDs while consuming little in terms of system resources.

[jaygeetiny]

XMMS info is getting harder to find, but here is a fairly comprehensive page that is still out there:

http://www.xmms.org/docs/readme.php

A couple of useful tips culled from the quoted info page:

para 3.1 : clicking on the D means I can now easily read the default skin - which helps

para 7.1 : To make Opera 9.62 use XMMS on http://www.shoutcast.com - my pedantic version:

Launch Opera and go Tools/Preferences/Advanced/Downloads/Add.

On the displayed File type pane:

a. set Mime type to: audio/x-scpls
b. select Open with other application and enter: xmms %s
c. hit OK button

 

[OldAdamUser2]

Thanks, jaygeetiny, this was just the info I needed to get Opera to play shoutcast internet radio on my Eee 900.