Feedback Burning: CDA (RC-3)

[Teknojnky]

First let me say, that I rarely burn cd/dvds, but occasionally I want a fresh cd for the car.

I went to try to burn a few cd audio discs today with MM.

I used right click -> send to cd burn which popped up the burn wizard.

Once the burn wizard was up, I was no longer able to control or navigate the main MM window, nor was it possible modify the playlist (add/remove).

I proceeded through the burn wizard and started the burn, at which point MM started its 'preparing tracks' background process. During this entire process (which took 15-20ish minutes), the whole computer was sluggish and MM itself was very slow and generally un-responsive.

This is *ENTIRELY* due to the 'preparing tracks' process running at *ABOVE NORMAL* priority.

At some time during the preparing phase, I managed to be able change the priority to a much more acceptable *LOWER than normal* priority.

MM finished its preparing, then proceeded on to the burn phase and finished the burn in about 5 minutes.

The burn suceeded and appeared to be a working disc, no problems there.

The entire process took about 20-25 minutes to burn 1 cd audio disc.

For the remaining discs I wanted to burn, I fired up nero express (v6) and started a cdaudio project, dragged the tracks from MM into the Nero Express window, it 'analyzed' them which took about 60 seconds for the entire playlist. I selected the options I wanted, an burned the cd painlessly in about 5-6 minutes.


Summary, burning in MM appeared to be functional, however its extremely hampered by both the 'preparing tracks' process, and it's needless *above normal* process priority.

The burn itself appeared to function properly, but I was unable to modify the burn list aside from changing track order.

The 2 primary suggestions I have are:

- Make the 'preparing tracks' process follow the background priority set in the MM options. Running this process at above normal priority makes the entire operating system and other running apps run extremely slow and *its not even necessary to run at that priority to create wave files*.

- Make the burn wizard NON-MODAL so it's possible to navigate the main MM interface and allow drag/drop changes to the burn playlist while the burn wizard is up.

I understand that large burning improvements are coming in future versions, but I can't see having to wait until those future improvements are implemented to make MM a much more robust burner, when the 2 suggestions above will improve matters by huge amount.

In the mean time, I will have continue to use nero to burn. Fortunately for me I have this option, but I can understand that other users may not.

[rusty]

Teknojnky,

Re. priority: I agree with you and it's on the to do list.
Re. modal operation: it's a bit more complex since when it comes to MP3 CDs, for each selection of tracks, the user should have a way of setting a mask. That said, we'll try to think about how to improve this in future releases.

-Rusty

[Teknojnky]

Thanks for listening and replying!