Play CD Audio
IsoBuster supports Analog Audio Play via the hardware. Right click and Audio Track and select Play Audio.
This will instruct the CD playback device (CD/DVD-ROM drive) to play the audio, analogue.
Pros en cons :
Pro :
- A command is sent to the drive and the drive does all the work. No system resources are used.
- Also works via the front jack of your CD/DVD-ROM drive.
- No Digital Audio Extraction done by the system at high speed.
- Drive can play at 1x, so no spinning noises etc.
Con :
- If you want to hear the sound via the speakers (not if you want to listen through the front audio jack), the audio cable needs to be connected from the back of the drive to the audio card.
If you're wondering, Analogue Audio playback is what is done by Windows 95 and 98. As of Windows ME however, Audio playback is done digitally which means that Windows is actually reading the audio data and is processing and converting the data by itself. As of WinXP the user can choose again in the advanced device properties. For later OS this functionality hasn't been checked anymore.
Reading the Audio data (cfr >= Windows ME) is also known as DAE (Digital Audio Extraction). It is what IsoBuster does when it converts a track to a *.wav file, it is also what other programs do when they rip the audio (e.g. to convert to mp3).
From IsoBuster 5.6 onwards analogue audio playback has been removed. This is old technology that is not used anymore in modern systems and it is not supported anymore by modern hardware.