Picking the right drive

[FreshFlame]

Dave, the mastermind behind kjams,

I've been reading as much as I can to try and avoid wasting your time.

I just bought a Macbook Pro with a Matshita drive (boo hoo) so now I'm looking for an external drive. I saw your list and followed one of the links to Amazon. However, I was unable to verify that this drive supports CD+G.

If I buy this product, am I all set to rip and burn as you mention in your "compatible drives" wiki page?:
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-External- ... B002C1BBU8

And here's a newer model of the same drive. Is this one for sure approved? I'd of course rather get a newer model if I know it will work.
http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-External- ... b_title_ce

Also, I'm still in tryout mode, trying to confirm compatibility but I have every intention of following through with kjams. Once in, people seem stoked on your product.

Thanks for all your effort in helping us sing like rock stars.

-FreshFlame

[dave]

I would not steer you wrong. If i say "works for sure", you can consider that as "verified", even if the manufacturer doesn't advertise it.

and if i don't say it, then it's not verified.

in fact, most manufacturers don't eve say "Mac" on the box anywhere. but they all work with mac too.

so yes to the first one, and actually i'm pretty sure it works on the 2nd one but i'd like to get a confirmation on that.

[FreshFlame]

You the man, Dave! Thanks for living up to your reputation and replying so darn fast.

Me and my singing friends thank you.

If I go for the more recent drive, I'll update this thread. Depends how risky I'm feeling.

[dave]

Sounds great, please let us know!

[FreshFlame]

If I go for the more recent drive, I'll update this thread. Depends how risky I'm feeling.

It works! I got the updated version of the samsung external DVD Writer. The updated model number is SE-S084 TSO1.

It's slimmer and apparently faster for a few bucks more. Got it on Amazon. Loaded up the firmware, which you get through a website that comes on the disk they give you with the unit. No hangups whatsoever. Great to see my songs load into Kjams.

Add one more CDG drive to the "definitely works" list.

[dave]

done and done! Great news!

[FreshFlame]

Not out of the woods yet.

I just bought the Pro version. So excited.

I have about 45 CDGs to rip but it's slow-going.

Here's what happens:

I rip one CDG and KJams finds the right disk in the database (90% of the time, which is great). I then select "rip CDG" from the file menu. Kjams rips the whole CDG. It's awesome. But then the problems arise.

I can't eject the disk using the controls from Kjams or my OS. 2 icons appear on my desktop: "Untitled" and "Audio CD" which I cannot remove. If I drag them to eject/trash, they still won't go away.

Then my system crashes. I try to force quit but that won't work. Then I try to shut down but even that won't work. I have to press the power button and do the hard shut-down, not reboot, that doesn't work.

Once I shut down and boot back up, I have to pull out the USB plug from my new DVD/CDG burner, put it back in, then hit eject on the unit.

From here I can put in a new CD and rip it, though sometimes I have to unplug and plug in the USB from the burner a few times to get Kjams to "see" the new disk.

I've now run this cycle 10 times. The songs rip and play fine but I'm reluctant to keep hard booting my computer (35 more time) in a day or so.

I'm not slinging blame...I realize I bought this burner at my own risk. Just want everyone to know what's happening so we can all come up with the best solution. And Dave, if you have any ideas, I'm all ears.

[dave]

this is an Apple problem which they have not fixed in years. if the disc has 2 volumes (2 icons show on the desktop) the only way out is to restart, and sometimes it just crashes your mac.

so here's the procedure:

step 1:
stick your disk in
rip your disc
if it has 1 volume, eject, go to step 1

if it has 2 volumes, restart
if restarting crashes or hangs, hard restart (power key for ten seconds)
either way:hold down the mouse button before the "chome" ends! keep holding it down!

[FreshFlame]

Thanks for validating, Dave.

Fortunately I found out exactly what the problem was: again, an Apple thing, not a Kjams thing. This time iTunes was the culprit.

Upon putting a disk into my new Samsung external drive (connected by the USBs), iTunes was automatically launching and getting hung up. I'd manually open Kjams and be able to rip maybe one disk but then the machine would be hosed, which meant needing to reboot. Also, because of this iTunes jam up, I couldn't eject anything from the external drive.

So...

I went into my Mac preferences and then selected CDs and DVDs. Here I have the option to say which programs I want to start up when I insert a disk. I changed it from iTunes to Kjams, rebooted, and that solved all of my problems.

I've since burned 45 discs and have 600+ songs in my library. The eject feature worked and I never had to reboot again.

Success!

Thanks for all the support, Dave. now I'm just waiting on my wireless keyboard and mouse (from Ebay and then I can set up my entire kit so I can get to singing! Ha!

[dave]

FYI: the very first instruction on ripping (under "details") tells you that you must turn off the iTunes auto launch:
http://karaoke.kjams.com/wiki/Ripping

Also, when you say "burned" do you mean "ripped" ?
http://karaoke.kjams.com/wiki/Glossary

[FreshFlame]

Yeah, I always get those confused.

See, I made more trouble for myself by not reading. Thanks for the link.

-Cliff

[dave]

no worries