How to Play a Musical CD or DVD

To play musical media from a media drive attached to a system running the Solaris release, you'll need to access public domain software, such as xmcd, that is available from the following locations:

• http://www.ibiblio.org/tkan/xmcd

  This site includes frequent updates to the xmcd software, which includes the version of xmcd that plays on newer Sun hardware, such as the Sun Blade^TM systems.

• http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/freeware/pkgs_download.html

Keep the following in mind when using the xmcd software with CDDA (CD Digital Audio) support to play musical media:

• Use xmcd, version 3.1 (or later) on Sun Blade systems because this version has CDDA support, which must be enabled in order to listen to CDs on these systems.

• Enable CDDA by launching xmcd, clicking on the options button (it has a hammer and screwdriver on the button), and then by clicking on "CDDA playback".

• When CDDA is enabled, audio is directed to the audio device, so headphones and external speakers should be connected to the audio device and not to the media drive itself.

• CDDA can be enabled on other machines too. Enabling CDDA is required for playing media on the Sun Blade systems.

Consider the following issues as well:

• If you are using xmcd with standard playback on a system that does not have an internal connection from the CD-ROM to the audio device, you must insert headphones into the CD-ROM drive's headphone port.

• If you are using xmcd with standard playback on a system that does have an internal connection from the CD-ROM to the audio device, you can do either of the following:

  1. Insert headphones into the headphone port of the CD-ROM drive.

  2. Insert headphones into the headphone port on the audio device.

  If you choose #2, you must do the following:

  • Select the internal CD as the input device.

  • Make sure that Monitor Volume is non-zero.

  You can do both of these from sdtaudiocontrol's record panel.

Once you install the xmcd software, you can play a musical CD simply by inserting it into the CD-ROM drive and starting the xmcd control panel.

1. Install the xmcd software.

2. Insert the media into the media drive.

3. Invoke the xmcd command.

   % ./xmcd &