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MP3 Decoder Review - HyCD
Play and Record
HyCD
by HyCD
-- Review
courtesy of David Robinson
| Decoder
Source: |
HyCD http://www.HyCD.com
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| Version: |
v3.1.0503
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| Settings: |
custom, stereo,
16-bit, no TDS
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| Similar
products: |
None. mp3 encoding
licensed from FhG..
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| Verdict: |
Good |
| VBR: |
All |
| Full
file: |
Sometimes |
| Major
Flaws: |
None |
| Minor
Flaws: |
slight
problems above 15kHz |
| Output
level: |
fractionally
too low on both channels |
| 1-bit
relative accuracy: |
not
measurable due to level difference |
| 1-bit
absolute accuracy: |
Poor |
"HyCD is a full featured CD-R production
package that also happens to convert mp3 files to waves. It alters the
volume of the signal very slightly (0.08dB!), and this hinders its low
level performance. It also makes occasional mistakes above 16kHz. The
worst feature (IMHO) is its ability to lock up your entire system upon
entering windows!!! To the novice, this makes your PC unusable. To the
experienced user, this should cause you to do a rapid uninstall, if you
can get your PC to run at all! (Hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE just as the start-up
screen runs to kill "play+record", and you will enter Windows
without problems). The authors know about this bug (presumably it
doesn't affect everyone!) and give the following information at the very
end of the FAQ on their
website:
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Trouble
Shooting
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[Unrelated FAQ
entries cut]
- I just downloaded your 10 day
free trial software. The installation put HyCD in my
startup. When I bootup it freezes my computer. I
started the system in safe mode and removed the program from
startup. But now when I click on HyCD, it just freezes
my computer. I have to crash to reboot.
edit the file
in Windows directory called system.ini
delete [vcache] section(minfilecache, maxfilecache) in the
system.ini file.
save it and reboot the system.
Use the latest version instead of the older version.
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Most functions of HyCD are accessed by
right-clicking on files within Windows Explorer. It can decode mp3 files
on-the-fly, i.e. as they are written to an audio CD. However, we tested
the decoding quality of the HyCD sampler utility, which can decode an
mp3 file to a wave file, without writing to a CD. We presume the same
decoding results would be obtained when writing directly to a CD, but
this feature was not tested."
--
Review courtesy of David Robinson
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