Solve software update problems

The reason I don’t have an HDCP-compliant connection is because my HD projector predates DVI and HDMI. It can display HD images, but only from an analogue source. Like other early adopters, I bought an HD projector and don’t see why I need to ‘upgrade’ it to support a content-protection technology. I don’t pirate films.

I know Hollywood wants me to retire a perfectly good display. Had I never been able to watch any digital HD content on it, I may have complied. But the thing is, prior to this patch my system let me enjoy the full glory of HD material from Blu-ray and HD DVD, whereas now it occupied a small window in the middle of the screen.

Luckily the fix was pretty simple: I uninstalled PowerDVD and reinstalled my original 7.3 version. HD movies now filled the screen again, and the mysterious ‘winding’ problem with recordings was resolved.

I have now become ‘patch-averse’, but, of course, not all of them are out to get you. The majority perform useful ­ or essential ­ updates. The question therefore, as asked by reader Alan Fry, is how to assess which should be applied and which avoided?

Following my previous comments that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, Alan wrote to suggest “paranoid home theatre PC users or those with a PC deemed mission critical” should turn off automatic updates and become disciplined to manually apply patches a week or so after their release, having first checked out whether early adopters are reporting any issues.

In theory, this could work if you had the time to check out the effect of each new patch, and remembered to do it regularly. This is beyond many of us, but, as far as I can see, it’s one of the few solutions to patch problems that don’t involve sticking your head in the sand and avoiding them altogether. That said, this is what I’m going to do now. My media PC, only used for playback, is going to be disconnected from the internet and run patch-free for a while.

This isn’t a general recommendation by any means, but as time goes on it looks like being the best approach to maximise uptime for this particular system. As always, if you have an unconventional approach to patching, do let us know.

Audiophile sound
High-quality audio from PCs has been a popular topic in recent Hardware columns and I’d like to follow up an item described in April’s edition. Then we published several reader letters extolling the virtues of the ageing, but great-sounding M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card which is available for around £50 ­ at the time of writing, www.scan.co.uk had them in stock.

With a default installation, the AP2496 (as it’s often known) can certainly deliver a boost in quality over basic audio cards and chipsets, but last month reader Steve Monks wrote to explain how a Kernel Streaming plug-in for Winamp could improve the quality further. The original plug-in, however, proved unstable at times. So, as a programmer, Steve got permission from the original author to take a look at the code and post a revised edition. Following further requests, he rewrote the plug-in which you can find at www.stevemonks.com/ksplugin.

I tried the plug-in with my own AP2496 last month and found it greatly improved the quality of the digital output and recommended it for anyone for wants to use their PC as a decent front end for hi-fi audio. What makes it so good for hi-fi audio, though, can result in some operational caveats with other applications that may rule it out for your system.

M-Audio’s Delta cards cunningly bypass the mucking about of Windows’ kernel mixer and therefore aren’t affected by the standard Windows Volume control. Instead, to control the volume of the card’s analogue outputs, you’ll need to go into the dedicated M-Audio Delta Control panel and adjust it there instead. This may not sound like a big deal, but it can prove inconvenient for some applications.

Windows Media Center Edition 2005, for instance, uses the Windows volume control system, so if you install the AP2496 you won’t be able to adjust the volume using the standard remote control or infra-red keyboard’s buttons ­ the volume will be fixed, and MCE somewhat unhelpfully displays ‘Mute’ where the slider used to appear. We did, however, find the remote volume control worked fine in Media Player Classic, which many enthusiasts use to play MKV files, among others. Anyone considering the AP2496 should also know there are more appropriate choices for gaming, and that 64-bit Vista drivers are currently in beta form only.

Ultimately, you can use an AP2496 successfully in a system running MCE, but for greatest convenience and quality you’ll need to set the Control Panel volume to its maximum and adjust the overall volume from an external pre-amplifier/receiver/audio processor using its controls.

Finally, thanks to Ion Mitchell, who after reading about the modifications performed by US-based Bolder Cable to my Logitech Squeezebox, suggested a UK company that offered audiophile modifications. The SB+ from UK-based At-tunes is not so much a modified Squeezebox as a completely rebuilt unit. The company keeps the front end of the Squeezebox 3, which communicates with the network and PC, along with providing the display and user interface, but disconnects the clock, digital and analogue circuitry and fits its own boards along with improved voltage regulation and a separate linear power supply.

The rebuilt Squeezebox and power supply are fitted into custom cases. The SB+ is built to order and costs £1,000, which includes a Squeezebox 3 for the modifications.