Why has stereo Mix been disabled on thinkpads & when do we get a formal response

[eecon]

Great .... Glad to hear there may be another external alternative to the X-Fi !

[KLaK2]

I am glad to have found this discussion. I already started to doubt, cause it appeared impossible to me that you cannot record audio sourcing from the sound card. It is unbelieveable that you pay quiet an amount of money for a device that doesnt support this small though important detail.  I think this matter is still unknown cause apparantly the manufacturers dont tell to not support this issue, so for that reason they dont care. This in fact needs more publicity!

[drtigerlilly]

I've tried getting publicity on the issue, wrote engadget, gizmodo, cnet, and wired. I've posted on notebook review, notebook forums, tabletpcreview, the only place that put up anything was gottabemobile that allowed me to write an article, i even posted an article to on digg.

I've done polls on thinkpads.com as  well as the forums i mentioned previously, and the response has been pretty much, that people don't care, its not a feature that most users care about.

I don't know what else to do, but i do agree that people need to be aware before they shell out on these machines, and there is nowhere in the specifications where this is outlined clearly that the feature is missing.

Message Edited by drtigerlilly on 07-31-2008 07:10 AM

[Yakumo]

I wouldn't say people don't care, it did get slashdotted http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/11/0128203 which is why I found this thread, and people cared enough that the other manufacturers mentioned in this thread made it work in their next driver release.

Message Edited by Yakumo on 07-31-2008 04:55 PM

[KLaK2]

So what is the actual state of affairs?

I thought Mark_Lenovo is about to see about what "they" are able to do...

It seems as it is often the case that the responsible person are waiting for this issue to end in talk.

[drtigerlilly]

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KLaK2 wrote:

So what is the actual state of affairs?

I thought Mark_Lenovo is about to see about what "they" are able to do...

It seems as it is often the case that the responsible person are waiting for this issue to end in talk.

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The ad1984 that Lenovo uses in the '61 models has been disabled at the hardware level. That has been the official word, both from Lenovo & from Analog Devices, which i also contacted directly. If you need the feature, you need an external soundcard.

[rm42]

I have been very please with my T61 and have writen a few reviews and articles about it, as well as numerous forum posts and emails encouraging others to buy it.  Just a couple of days ago a reader of one of my reviews sent me an email asking me some questions about the T61 and the responses I gave him made him go ahead and make the purchase.  However, all that is now in the past.

A friend of mine wanted me to convert a file for her from one format to another, m4a to ogg.  On my desktop machine I can easily do that by playing the file with VLC and recording the output in Audacity, which then allows me to export it as an ogg.  What a surprise to learn that I can not do that with my beloved T61 because it has been intentionally crippled!

At least that is what I am lead to believe from the following discusion threads:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=52527

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=61803&highlight=poll

Until this issue is resolved, if at all possible, I will discourage one and all from purchasing lenovo laptops.  I have updated all my reviews to reflect this.

 

Message Edited by rm42 on 07-31-2008 03:16 PM

[rm42]

Just over an hour since I started to let the word out on this one and I can already confirm one less sell going to Lenovo.  It was going to be a T62. ;P

[eecon]

drtigerlilly is correct about the disabled feature at the hardware level ..... I still believe (in my opinion) that Lenovo's management in China wanted to show respect to those in the USA that have lobbied for the interests owners of copyrighted material.    ThinkPads are primarily sold as business machines as the polls clearly show (over at the ThinkPad forum referenced earlier in this thread).

As for Mark's status, he's probably waiting for Lenovo engineers to return to work following the August Olympics .... I've heard rumors that a lot of factories and offices have been temporarily shutdown in China for the Olympics right now.

My T61 (with an external Creative X-Fi card in the express54 slot) is still performing like a thoroughbred race-horse in all respects using WinXP SP2.

NOTE:  It appears that a new version of the X-Fi Notebook Express54 Slot card is in the pipeline at Creative which may also improve on some of the bugs others reported when using my older version under Vista.  It should be available soon.

[PhilRanger]

It is simply NOT true that it is "hardware" disabled.  Recording the mix out can ALWAYS be done with software.  Windows creates an "output" stream to the audio card, and it is just a matter of copying this stream in the "input" stream.  Even third party soft such as Virtual Cable can do it, and they don't access the hardware AT ALL.  So please stop saying it's the hardware, this is really just to get us off track.  Yes, it is ALSO possible to do it in hardware, but proper driver software writing does the trick.  Now, if you want is to rip audio streams off the internet as opposed to some legitimate needs, download "Orbit", at http://www.orbitdownloader.com/ . The real problem is that REAL LEGIT users still need a solution.  Pirates will always find their way anyway...

Phil