I do need to play CD's on the fly

[riftvalley]

I run a well known ballroom dance club and we use OtsAV running on two Win8.1 machines.  Brilliant stuff I love OtsAV! except........

That, in addition to our weekly dance we run several major balls each year at which guest dance demonstrators appear.  These are always of very professional status i.e national and international champions.  They all bring their own music which very often has been specially commissioned for their demonstration.

With the latest version of OtsAV I cannot run their music if it is on CD, I cannot ask for the music in advance to load in the machines as it is subject to copyright and very expensive (and unique to them) also of course this would be a total organizational pain to add to all the other tasks I have to manage.

I cannot use Ots Studio for two reasons:

1. Copyright reasons,
2. Because when studio finishes I get this fact broadcast out of my speakers!!!  I don't think there is way to silence Studio apart from turn the volume off.  Would be another pain to have to lock out one machine whilst it sets up the ots files (particularly as this would occur whilst all the other functions of the event are in progress).

I have considered using Ots Turntables, but that is another pain in the bum that I want to avoid - we keep things simple!

I just want my occasional CD's to play in OtsAV!  We are grown up boys and can manage any slight threat that might occur with external sources, particularly as these are from top flight professionals.

I have a friend to whom I have recommended OtsAV but this issue will probably persuade him to purchase a competitor system.

Give me my CD capability back!

Any advice please?  Don't force me to use Windows Media Player!

Martin

[Jumpin' Jeff]

Martin, You can import using studio, but studio uses your default assigned audio device for it's output, therefore, if you have a secondary device, assign Ots to use that as it's primary device output. This will solve your broadcast issues, and also prevent windows sounds from being broadcast as well. As for copyright issues, you should probably delete the album when finished using it. Outside of that, I would recommend using Turntables for direct CD playback as you acknowledged.

[DJ-Dwayne]

YES! YES! YES!
Me to wants the CDDA sub system back.
Ots says in there 1.90 release notes that nobody used it.

Well both Martin and I used it & there there's bound to be tons more.

Give us a real reason OTSCORP for removing it that would make us satisfied like technical issues/clashes with new added features.
Otherwise plz give it back.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

My understanding for it's removal was it freed up resources, keeping Ots Lean and mean.

[DJ-Dwayne]

That's fair, but how about an option to enable it or disable it via command line or something.

Don't get me wrong here folks, I'm a full on OTS media multi-track Album user, but some of the things that have happened to me in the past....

1/ The Bride comes up and hands you a CD insisting you play a certain track on it there and then.

2/ You (The DJ) go browsing in the local music store across the road (or there abouts) from where you have just set up for a gig and you find a song on a CD that you'd love to play on that night.  No time to rip it, so you play it live.


Of coarse you would visually inspect the CD and have a quick listen to it.
"If" I had a major problem with my external hard drive in the middle of a gig which also holds my media library, I would play cd's through the CDDA sub system whilst I get by backup drive up and running.  Least I can keep the audio going through the Ots pipeline.
More powerful computers these days should keep OTS AV with the CDDA subsystem in it running just fine.

[DJ-Dwayne]

2. Because when studio finishes I get this fact broadcast out of my speakers!!!  I don't think there is way to silence Studio apart from turn the volume off.  Would be another pain to have to lock out one machine whilst it sets up the ots files (particularly as this would occur whilst all the other functions of the event are in progress).

You can stop that announcement from happening in studio.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

The solution since it's demise, has always been to use OtsTurntables for playing CDs. It co-exists with Ots just fine. I don't recall if it has the same Output config capabilities to choose an alternate audio output device however. That would be a huge downfall of that solution if it didn't exist.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

I see it does! I hadn't played with it in so long, I'd forgotten.
http://docs.otslabs.com/OtsTurntables/help/soundcard_configuration/how_to_set_up_your_soundcard_main_channel.htm

[DJ-Dwayne]

Right, before we go any further,  the loss of the CDDA subsystem isn't a major loss for me and I could quite easily do gigs without it.
99.9% of the time I'd use ots media for all my play outs.
I have a 1.85 only licence which CDDA & the ots media systems co-exists, but why would I want to use that when there is so much better features in 1.9?
Back in the days when I first bought OTSJUKE, I had bought it for it's mixing capabilities of CD's, I only ever played CD's via 4 drives.  I dare say I didn't even know what an MP3 was let alone an OTS file.


To cut a long story short, it's a function we had and has now been taken away from us.  Why??? (that's all I ask).

hard drive crashes
restart OTSAV and play CD's(with a new default blank media library)
load up backup hard drive to windows, load the original media library back into OTS AV whilst CD's are playing
Re-link if necessary.
Bob's ya uncle


As for OtsTurntables I don't see why I should pay for something I used to have.

I could use CD scratch, but that brings in another problem.  I use Asio drivers in OTSAV rendering all other audio applications useless whilst OTSAV is running if they are  using the same sound card. (I havn't yet tested to see if that's a generic problem or just a isolated case).

Losing the CDDA system isn't the end of the world,  but I wish the OTS guys could give us a bit more of an insight on this.

[Jumpin' Jeff]

Here's what Adam had to say about it...
http://www.otsusers.com/forum/index.php?topic=13400.msg135162#msg135162

[riftvalley]

When I read all the above it seems to me that there are very strong reasons why some people need to play CD's on the fly and some very weak excuses why we are better off being prohibited from doing this.

Every argument that says only a few people use it can immediately be discounted as no one knows the answer to this and it is ridiculous and pompous to use an argument when you don't know the answer.

So some people need it and they have been stitched up.

What a come down having to use media player which is unlikely to match the smooth compressed and regulated output of OtsAv!  I very rarely use both of the rear seats in my car, but I can imagine the fuss if manufacturers decided that only one seat in the back was good enough since both don't get used very often.  A ridiculous argument.

As for buying Ots turntables, this is a laugh as logically if there is a likelihood of having problems with CD's in OtsAV then surely this problem will exist with Ots Turntables, are OTS selling a sub-standard product (I believe not!)?  Secondly why should I pay for a function I thought I already had plus the inconvenience of having to load an additional program.

What started all this for me was acute embarrassment when I was asked to play some Argentinean Tango tracks for someone considering buying OtsAV and struggling for twenty minutes searching for this lost function I didn't have.

In summary, no sensible reasons for removing it and good compelling reasons to keep it.

And finally; I thought that the customer was always right! - I wouldn't have upgraded if I had known in advance that this function was being removed!

Martin