Multi-Media Concept, Design, & Programming by Clay Walker
Video Segments Produced, Directed, Photographed & Edited by Clay Walker
The first 50,000 "Hot" CD's were done in the "pre-gap"
method. All future discs have been done in the"multisession" method.
Please see below for an explanation as to why this change was made.
The way to tell if the disc is multi-session or not:
The "Hot" album has a sticker on the outside of its packaging
that reads "twelve brand new songs...plus FREE CD-ROM..." The
"pre-gap" discs were shippped with an orange sticker. The "multi-session"
discs have a yellow sticker.
If you are uncertain as to what color sticker you had there is a way
of physically telling:
If you flip your "Hot" ECD silver side up & measure from the
inner circle out - line up the "0"/beginning of your ruler on
the edge of the clear plastic & measure outward - you will see a silver
ring it the data area. That is the division between the audio & interactive
content. If the ring occurs at about 1 3/8 inches you have a pre-gap disc.
If the ring occurs at about 1 1/2 you have a multi-session disc.
Minimum System Requirements
For the Zipper ECD:
MACINTOSH
System 7.5.3 software or better
2X CD Player
8 MB RAM (16 MB preferred)
color monitor
Quicktime for Macintosh
--------------
IBM
486 processor or faster
Windows 3.1 or Window '95
2X CD Player
8 MB RAM (16 MB preferred)
color monitor
Quicktime for Windows
For the most recent version of Quicktime click here.
If your computer is having problems reading the interactive portion of
the "Hot" CD please read the following:
Enhanced audio CDs were dealt a great blow in 1996 by Microsoft when it
was learned that ECDs formatted in the "pre-gap" method would
no longer be readable by the Windows platform. (I'm not hear to shoot any
arrows at Microsoft. I've listened to developers complaining about all of
the conspiracies for more than a year now & I'm not going to continue
it. Microsoft says that they forwarned everyone, so be it.)
The Zipper disc was released in June of 1996. I authored part of it on Windows
so I didn't think there were any incompatibility problems with W95. In July,
it was learned that pre-gap ECD's would play only the "August"
version of Windows '95. Due to changes that Microsoft had made to one little
extension, known as the SCSI1HLP.VXD driver, pre-gap discs were now unreadable
on all future versions of W95. That meant that probably 90% of all existing
ECD's on the market would not play on Windows 95.
There has been a long crazy feud over formats that has been going on between
developers, Microsoft and Apple for sometime. In August of last year, Billboard
magazine wrote a huge piece on Enhanced audio CDs & the trouble they
are having due to the feuds & the constantly changing technology. It's
just the nature of the computer business & unfortunately the consumers
usually have to pay for it in the long run.
Now-a-days, the format that both Windows & Macintosh supports is known
as "multi-session" - a format which, coincidentally, Microsoft
invented. This is where the industry is going in terms of compatibility
for both platforms but unfortunatly, not all systems are compatible with
'multi-session' discs, even when they apparently should be.
I'm not an advocate for any particular method. I just want the disc to be
the most compatible with the most amount of computers out there.
So, as quickly as it could be done, the Zipper disc was changed from the
"pre-gap" format to the "multi-session" format. I actually
had to take out just a couple of things to shorten the multi-media program
because the "multi-session" format takes up more space.
How do you know which is which before buying the disc? The 'pre-gap' discs
have an orange sticker on the front of the clear plastic reading "bonus
CD-ROM" & the "multi-session' ones have yellow sticker.
Believe it or not, there are actually 3 different versions of the interactive
presentation on "Hot." The main place you can see the difference
is in the "B & W photo" gallery. There are slightly different
pictures in each one. The video for "Danny Diamond" was shortened
on the "multi-session" disc & I shortened something else that
I can't think of right now. Other than that, the content is the same &
they all work the same so I wouldn't go rushing out trying to get all three
trying to have something different.
If you already have the disc, the way you can really tell is if you go to
your "readme" file & go to the very, very end it will read
either - I think this is right - 'nothing' is version 1.0 pre-gap, 2.0 is
pre-gap & 3.0 is the multi-session disc.
There are still going to exist incompatibilities on both Mac's & PC's.
The "multi-session" discs should play on most, if not all, PC's.
However, there are so many system configuration possibilities that it would
be crazy to say that it works on every machine. Everyone whether they have
a MAC or PC are probably caught half-way between actually being fully upgraded
to the most recent OS that their computer should have.
I own a Mac but I am not anti-IBM. I do a lot of work on that platform.
I can say though, that to the best of my knowledge, there has been only
1 unsolvable Mac problem in trying to get the machine to play the disc &
that was on an ancient Macintosh. If you have a Mac & are having trouble
reading the "multi-session" disc be sure that you have at least
7.5.3 installed.
If you are having trouble getting the disc to work, most of all the information
I can provide you with is located on this page.
After reading this page & trying all the suggestions, if you can't get
the disc to work, the only immediate advice is to really tell you is to
try viewing it on another machine. The interactive presentation is on there
and is worth seeing.
The new Zipper ECD will be formatted "multi-session" as well unless
some big changes comes about in the next 6 months.
So, the reason I am writing all of this is to explain what is going on technically
with the Zipper disc & also to encourage you to support Enhanced audio
CD's. I think it is a very important medium & when everything is working
correctly, very entertaining. I want to see it succeed. I don't know why
it shouldn't.
-If you have a Macintosh, quite frankly, you shouldn't be having any
problems.
-If the interactive portion does not show up you may have any incompatibility
with your CD-ROM drivers.
-Make sure you have the most recent version of your CD-ROM Driver and the
Macintosh OS software (7.5.3 or better)
-If the presentation plays sluggish you should turn off all extensions you
are not using.
-If you are using "RAM Doubler," turn it off.
-If the disc doesn't show up at all but you hear your CD drive spinning,
please wait. It may show up. It can sometimes take a minute or two for multi-session
discs to show up.
-If you get an error message that asks you to either "eject or initialize"
the CD - you don't have all the correct extensions turned on to be able
to read a CD. Try turning on "Apple CD-ROM" & "Foreign
File Access." If you still get that error, try turning on all extensions.
-I recently upgraded my OS from 7.5.3 to 7.6.1. After doing this, when you
put the multi-session disc in your machine, you will notice that both the
Mac & IBM files come up. The MAC files are in the folder that opens
up & is titled "Squirrel Nut Zippers." The IBM files are in
the partition/files named "ZIPPERS." The only thing I can say
about that is just ignore the IBM files. They aren't of any use to you on
a MAC.
-For those of you who use your computers to play the CD in the background
while you work. You will notice that if you are playing "Hot"
& you do anything on your computer such as access the SCSI chain while
saving a file or accessing the desktop, the CD stops immediately. This is
something that happens with ECD's on the MAC. The only way around it is
to not play the CD through your computer.
GENERAL USAGE INFO:
After you put the disc in your computer's CD drive, you need to go to the
"my computer" icon or however you have it named. Double click
on that & then look for whichever drive is your CD-ROM drive.
If the drive says "ZIPPERS" then double click on that & you
should see the interactive material & the readme file.
If you get some type of error such as "drive not accessible" or
such, you may have an incompatibility problem.
At that point you may want to try & reboot with the CD in the machine.
Sometimes that helps.
If the disc doesn't show up at all & you hear the disc spin & then
stop - you may have a 'pre-gap' disc. (There in info at the top of this
page about that & there is a patch for that down further on this page.)
If the drive just keeps spinning forever & it doesn't read the disc
you may have a "multi-session" disc & may need to update your
CD-ROM drivers.
If the following happens to you:
"The program starts just fine, the music is playing, the picture
gallery is showing its pictures, BUT when I try to load one of the videos,
nothing happens, i.e. the music just stops for a second then starts again,
but no video. Strangely enough, I can play them with QT without problems
I'm running QT 2.1.1 under W95."
The answer to this problem - There exists a 16 bit and a 32 bit version
of Quicktime. If the above mentioned scenario happens it could be that you
have 32 bit Quicktime and not 16 bit Quicktime. If you run the QTINSTAL.EXE
program from the Zipper disc it will install 16 bit Quicktime and it should
solve this problem.
------------------- will you ever be able to read a pre-gap ECD on W95?
If you have a "pre-gap" disc and cannot get it to show up I have
a few suggestions for you:
The easiest is to try viewing the CD on another machine. The interactive
presentation is on there and is worth seeing.
There does exist a patch now that will swap out your new SCSI1HLP.VXD driver
with the old one. If you are certain you have a 'pre-gap' Hot ECD &
you want to try this patch click here.
---------------------- tips people have emailed me
I also wanted to pass along a tech note. In case someone with a Mitsumi
CD
player has a problem and writes you about it, send 'em to the Mitsumi site
(www.mitsumi.com) and have them pick up the driver that lets the CD drive
read enhanced CDs. My drive didn't even acknowledge the "Hot"
enhanced CD
in the drive until I installed the new driver from their site.
-----------
Does the following happen to you?:
I've read all the info on your web site, and I still can't get my ECD
to run on my computer. Can you give me any help? I have a PC with 32 MB
RAM and a Toshiba 8X CD-ROM player. I have Windows 95; and I have Quicktime
loaded. The SNZ CD I have is the multi-session format. When I put in the
CD, the drive light blinks a few times and then stays on, and nothing happens.
If I click on the CD-ROM drive (E:), I get an error saying that the drive
is not accesable / drive is not ready.
Possible solution:
Some of my customers have had this exact problem! It turns out
they had Mitsumi CD-ROM drives. I went the their WWW page and
saw the following at http://www.mitsumi.com/drivers.htm
All Mitsumi
IDE CD-ROM IDEAUD10.EXE Windows 95 CD filter driver
for CD audio to help stop
audio discs including
CDExtra/CDPlus. Run
setup.exe from Windows 95.
Their firmware version of the drive doesn't normally support
multisession (as noted on the Sony page about Mitsumi drivers),
but adding this "filter driver" makes it work just fine! YEAH!
I hope it's that easy :)
Regards,
Ken Hersey
Hersey Digital Recording, LLC
-----------
i think i know the problem. with my multisession disc, i can (sometimes)
put it in the cd rom drive on my winNT machine and get similar (ie NO)
results.
however, there is a simple solution:
1. eject the "unmountable" ecd.
2. insert a regular cd-rom, let it mount.
3. eject this cd-rom
4. re-insert the ecd
Dan Prothero
FOG CITY RECORDS
http://www.fogworld.com
-----------
I figured the problem out just a few minutes ago. If you have a the
windows CD player running and insert the disc, it will not recognize the
CD as an audio disc. You must close the CD player application and
re-open it while the disc is still in the drive. This seems to happen
with other ECD's I have as well. Another strange Microsoft quirk to add
to the list.
-----------
..."Hot" has a lot of ink on the disc--could be a high speed problem.
It doesn't keep the disc from spinning fast enough, but it does increase
the "warp" of the disc, which is the microscopic deviation from
planar. A
disc with too much warp will not spin correctly at higher speeds, and
therefore will prevent it from being read. This is more of a common problem
with 12x readers...
George White
Associate Director, Multimedia
Atlantic Records
http://www.atlantic-records.com
--------------- Toshiba Drives ------------------
There seems to be a real problem these days with Toshiba Drives reading
"mult-session" formattted discs on W95. I am trying to find out
if any updated drivers are available. I have spent hours going through their
website looking for such a thing and have found nothing. They do not have
e-mail tech support so I have written them a 'snail mail' letter about the
problem & I am awaiting an answer.
If you are still having trouble, try following this link. Just because you
bought or configured a system yourself doesn't mean it's complaint with
Microsoft's OS standards:
Windows 95 Hardware Compatibility List
"The Windows 95 Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) contains products
that have been tested and have passed compatibility testing with Windows
95. Please note that we have not tested every computer and/or device in
all possible configurations; and that some computers may be sold with peripherals
that are not yet supported by Windows 95, or that require a device driver
supplied by the manufacturer..."
http://www.microsoft.com/isapi/hwtest/Hsearch.idc
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