Torben,
It’s not a multi-channel card - Just a 4x output “pro” card. I was trying the Front option as opposed to “default” just to see what would happen, and it wasn’t happy at all 
Also, on audio files that start instantly (ie: no silent gap), the audio does double-take at times - Mainly on the CartWall. I’ll record this and post it here shortly so you can see/hear what I mean.
Any soundcard with more than one stereo output is a “multi-channel card”. It may be labeled “7.1 home audio card” or “4 stereo channel pro card” or whatever - essentially (and internally), it’s all the same.
I see… I’ll have another go with the buffer settings, I did manage to make the sound stutter rather badly, so it does make some difference.
My point being that if you do select “1/2 Front” on the Delta410 and load a Player, it brings up an EXE error msgbox and the only way out is to shutdown mairlist.exe via the Task Manager.
It would be interesting to know what that error message says.
It’s this one, and there’s no escaping from it - Every time you click OK, it comes back…
Which version exactly? Then I can trace back the error address.
It’s 2.1.16
Bad luck - the address points somewhere into the Edit Event dialog. Must be coincidence.
mAirList 2.1.17 will display an additional dialog box in the event of an error, which contains the call stack (a list of addresses from which I can figure which function called which other function when the error occured). Let’s reconsider this issue when v2.1.17 is out.
By the way, you say that the the card has four stereo outputs, but only offers “default” and “1/2” as speaker settings - does this imply that it shows as four distinct devices in the config (and in Control Panel)?
Torben
PS: You can copy those error messages into the clipboard with Ctrl-C, no need to make a screen shot.
Torben,
Thanks for the tip, I’ll use that next time…
Yes, the M-Audio card shows up as something like (from memory): M-Audio Delta410 1/2
M-Audio Delta410 3/4
M-Audio Delta410 5/6
M-Audio Delta410 7/8
…as devices, so each stereo pair is treated as a physical device as far as Windows/apps are concerned. The audio “throw-up” used to occur with DPS, but this was found to be poor DirectShow/Sound support on M-Audio’s part - and driver change sorted this… and, as far as I can remember - It only happened in mAirList during recent releases…
I still have them, so could trawl backwards and try out each EXE for you
Oh, four distict devices … this is pretty unusual for a modern card. Most only show up as a single device, and you have to address the channel pairs by the speaker settings.
Well, in this case, forget about what I said about “1/2” instead of “default”. Although I’d really like to find out what’s wrong there. But just wait for v2.1.17 and the call stack dialog. Should be easier than digging through the archive of old mAirList versions.
Regarding the clicks, try the BASS_SAMPLE_SOFTWARE flag in the upcoming v2.1.17.
Torben
Hmm… I’ve had a play with the latest release… and it appears that tweaking the Buffer Settings seems to improve it (the audio performance), it’s also a bit more responsive to button presses.
Re: Default and 1/2 Front outputs and that error message - It doesn’t appear on this release, the Player just shows “Error” as if the audio didn’t exist. I also found that I’d had “Force Multichannel Output” un-ticked, so I tried that and the same thing - No error messages, but an Error’d Player when loading it.
As for the speaker settings - This is a “pro” multi-channel card, not a “multi-speaker” card - Other such cards (like Echo Gina) also appear in Control Panel in the same way… There is no front/rear on these
Forget about the “pro” stuff - it’s only a matter of how the driver is designed, in the “old way” or the “new way”.
Back in the old days before WDM was established (prior to Windows 98 SE), drivers could only handle stereo sound. If you had a card with more than one stereo pair, you needed a driver that showed up as multiple devices. Since WDM, drivers can be multi-channel (or “multi-speaker”, call it what you will), and manufacturers can choose whether to offer one multi-channel device or multiple stereo devices. Both approaches have advantages - with multiple devices, you can use any software which is not able to address specific channel pairs, like Winamp, or the very early versions of mAirList, before I started to use BASS.DLL. The single-device approach allows you to handle multi-channel audio files more easily and without syncing problems.
And I’m not only talking about watching DVDs at home - if I remember correctly, the multi-channel MP3 standard has just been passed, and other file formats (including Ogg Vorbis and AC3) can handle it as well. Once the record companies start to produce more and more music CDs (or rather Super Audio CDs) in 5.1, it’s only a matter of time until we have plenty of digital, surround-enabled radio stations on the internet or on digital terrestrial or satellite radio.
Regarding the error message: There was a bug in v2.1.16 which caused an Access Violation each time a player would go into Error state. This is why you got a message box instead of a plain “ERROR” display in the player. Now we only have to find out what is causing the error in the first place - the error code should be reported on the Details tab in the Properties dialog.
Torben
There’s nothing in the Details tab regarding any “error” - Just the ID3 info and sample-rate etc. I had a look in the Config, I can’t see any option to log such an error, other than played/stopped text-file/database logging…
This is on v.17
Once the record companies start to produce more and more music CDs (or rather Super Audio CDs) in 5.1, it's only a matter of time until we have plenty of digital, surround-enabled radio stations on the internet or on digital terrestrial or satellite radio.AAAARGHHH! What a truly stupid, pointless idea. 5.1 as a concept is totally ridiculous, and it's bad enough that the home video market ever persuaded the public that it's somehow a 'good thing.' If radio/CDs go that way as well, then I'm quitting all audio-based work forever.
The idea of quadrophonic sound briefly lived and thankfully died in the 1970s (anyone else old enough to remember SQ and CD4 vinyl records?). It never really worked properly and the only way to ‘enjoy’ it was to sit rooted in one spot. 5.1 is exactly the same scam to con the public into buying overpriced rubbish equipment; unfortunately the con seems to have worked this time around. >SIGH<
(Yes, I have heard 5.1 demonstrated properly and I thought it was a rubbish gimmick; no I don’t own a DVD player apart from the one in the PC, which is connected to proper STEREO speakers!)
BFN
CAD
I still have a jingle of mine that says:
We broadcast in stereo, because you have 2 ears… If anything changes, please let us know…