S.O.S. on Windows 7 Media Player 12

No Answer! Well then, I guess that you can't rip everything from your CD Collection to your Hard Drive after all. Well, that doesn't quite match the promotional
punditry that I have been reading for PC Music Serving! It
is so convenient, your Music at your fingertips, you won't
have to mess with piles of CD Jewel Boxes again, you can listen to your Music in any room in your House, and it is
s-o-o-o-o-o convenient! You will never go back to your CD
Player again! Uhh, don't throw away that CD Player just yet! Your wonderful PC Music Server might not play PROTECTED FILES from your CD Collection! That is the Truth of it, STOP glossing over it! The only thing that will play
these CDs IS your CD Player! Heaven help you if your PC Music Server mistakes several of your CDs as PROTECTED FILES when they aren't! Several Songs can be cross-referenced from various Albums, Songs that aren't PROTECTED
FILES can be mistaken as such! You are screwed without a CD
Player! No-one here can even suggest a solution to this problem. Maybe they are just hoping that everyone will overlook this, once they are suckered in to the so-called
convenience! I R-E-A-L-L-Y can't handle all of this Convenience! Everyone else's Convenience at my expense! And you guys SOLD this LEMON to the unsuspecting PUBLIC! You claim that you don't work for Microsoft or the Recording Industry, well you sure as hell are their best advocates! If I were you I would demand a paycheck, you have certainly earned it!

Thanks for selling the rest of us out! I am sure that there
is a Special, "Convenient" place in Hell for People like this. Don't spend the 30 pieces of Silver in one place!

WOW! So much negative vibes over a hobby. Calm down and don't jump just yet. Go back over your post the past few months and reread some of the good advise you received from many experienced Agon members, and sort out your concerns.

For one, I don't have a CD player in my system, only a Win 7 music server and I have no issues with it. For me, dbpoweramp does the ripping of CD's using their "accurate" setting. I have over 40,000 FLAC tracks and they all play just fine. I use J River Media Center as server software output through a Lynx sound card, AES cable into a Bryston DAC. I play digital files from 16/44.1 to 24/192 with superb results.

So if something isn't quite right for you, then change it. This is a hobby and not worth having a stroke over.

Paul

I bailed on Gates/ Windows after XPpro. Went over to the dark side and MAC. Vista was / is a giant step backwards. Kind of like what they did with WindowsME after '98.

You seem pretty angry, so all I can add is that if you don't like Windows Media and all the crap, junk it out.
If you are trying to make a larger political point about privacy, usage and prying a-holes with computers, you won't get any argument out of me. Learn how to turn ports off, run a WIRED router and practice safe computing practices. If you are REALLY serious about privacy / security, you may want to build a firewall computer and run something like 'smoothwall'.

Now, my needs are simple and met by ITunes. For ITunes 10. and above, you need a 'free' account to access artwork.

I take a CD, and install in confuser. It automatically, per my settings, makes a ALAC copy to my big music folder. I copy that to my HOUSE playlist and make another MP3 copy for my 'pod.

The last link in the chain is sending the ALAC files to my Airport Express and than by either analogue or optical, to my stereo. My 'pod has a 'remote' app which allows me access to every tune on my confuser without leaving my seat.

Neither one of you have ever had a Protected File in all of the Songs that you have Ripped from your CDs? That is strange, because a Microsoft Troubleshooting Forum is loaded with dozens of Windows 7 Users who run into Media Usage Rights Errors with numerous Songs they try to Rip off of their CDs. Most of them are using Windows Media Player 12. I happen to know for a fact that a 24/96 Version of Diana Krall, "The Look Of Love", has Protected
Files for every Song on the Disk-except for the first Song.
Protected Files/Songs, you can't Rip them, and there is no place to purchase the Media Usage Rights to do so. What is really weird is that you can purchase/Download every last one of these exact same Songs 99 Cents a piece off of ITunes. Purchasing; However, without knowing what the Digital Rights Management and Media Usage Rights are. The same as it was with the DVD-Audio. I don't like surprises, and I certainly don't like buying something without being told what it is. This certainly applies to the PC Music Server Format in Spades. These type of things are commonly
referred to as a Trap Doors, and they have a tendency to pull out the floor from underneath you! So while everyone is whewing over all of the wonderful things with PC Music Server, how about telling the Truth warning others about all of the Trap Doors of this Format, instead of just letting them get blindsided! I only get angry when Blind
Advocate Pundits with-hold critical info. to sweeten the pot of PC Music Server Advocacy! They put forward everything that is great, to the exclusion of any pitfalls
or downside of PC Music Servers. Yeah, I get angry when I have been set-up like a Mark, it's only Human, don't you?