Key features that have proven to be useful in PlayCenter will be retained & enhanced. In addition, Creative MediaSource will include many new features designed to harness the phenomenal sonic power and quality of the Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 soundcard.

The table below shows the key features and differences between Creative PlayCenter 3.0 and Creative MediaSource:

1. Creative MediaSource Go! Short-cut bar
   This short-cut bar resides on your desktop and provides one-click access to your frequently used Creative MediaSource applications or tasks. It can be customized by dragging and dropping shortcuts into the shortcut bar, and re-arranging their order if desired..

2. Creative MediaSource Go! Launcher
   A single window containing everything you need to learn about and configure your Creative products, as well as shortcuts to launch the various bundled applications. It consists of 4 sections:
   • Programs - Contains key applications
   • Product Settings - Contains utilities to configure your Creative product
   • Product Support - Contains manuals, tutorials to learn more about your Creative product
   • Companion Products - Shows the complementary products from Creative to complete the entire digital entertainment experience.

3. Creative MediaSource Player
   The Player is the basic component of Creative MediaSource. It supports a wide range of digital formats: MP3, WAV, WMA, Audio CD, VCD, MIDI, NVF, Multi-channel wave, MLP audio format AVI, MPEG and VCD. The Player interface is designed with minimal clutter and desktop "footprint", for easy selection and playback of music. The recording feature is also integrated for convenience. Essential controls such as volume, EAX, time scaling are accessible to tweak your music easily.

4. Creative MediaSource Organizer
   In addition to all the player's features, the Organizer is equipped with powerful organizing features, designed to handle more extensive, music library management tasks.
   In the organizer, you can rip audio CDs, import tracks, edit track info/ID3 tags, create playlists and more. A powerful keyword search engine and intuitive Genre/Artist/Album filter locates the music you want in seconds, with just a few key words.
   The organizer uses extended panels so that you can see tracks/info in both source and destination simultaneously. This design has proven to very user-friendly and efficient especially when transferring music to other devices such as the Nomad Jukebox, Burning CDs, or even just creating playlists.
   You can switch between the player and organizer view by clicking the mode switch button located at the bottom left corner of both the player and organizer.

5. Creative MediaSource DVD Audio Player
   The DVD Audio Player is specially designed to playback the latest high resolution, multi-channel audio CD format - the DVD audio Disc. You can access the DVD Audio player in the Creative MediaSource Go! Launcher's programs tab.

6. Creative MediaSource Audio Stream Recorder (ASR) 2
   The Creative MediaSource ASR 2 enables you to playback and record streaming audio content from the Internet. You can specify the URL of the streaming content or select it from the ASR content directory.

Creative MediaSource will still continue to install and function properly even if you do not register. However you are strongly encouraged to fill up your particulars and be a registered user because:

• Our tech support would be able to serve your better and faster should you need help
• Registered users will be given priority for upgrade options, promotions
• You can be informed of the latest software releases.

Your particulars will not be shared or sold to any organization. Only Creative and their affiliate companies are able to access the particulars for tech support and notification purposes.

Creative MediaSource uses a totally new database and will not affect PlayCenter's database in anyway.

If PlayCenter is installed in your system, Creative MediaSource provides a tool to import the song information from your PlayCenter's database to the new Creative MediaSource database.

Just go to the drop down menu at the top, select "Tools" and select to "Import from PlayCenter" option.

There are 2 formats commonly used to record 24bit 96 kHz wave files, namely the "wave_format_extensible" and the "waveformatex". Creative MediaSource records 24bit 96kHz wave files in the "wave_format_extensible"". You can only playback the recorded 24bit 96kHz wave files with players that support this format, like the Creative MediaSource Player or the latest Microsoft Windows Media Player.

Some other third party applications record 24bit 96kHz wave files in the "waveformatex" format. 24bit 96kHz wave files recorded with these third party applications cannot be played with Creative MediaSource and vice versa.

Please refer to the application vendor's website or technical support for the 24bit 96kHz wave format supported.

Note that most content on DVD-Audio also contain the same songs recorded through Dolby^® Digital and/or DTS^® formats which are of lower audio quality. To ensure that you are listening to DVD-Audio content at the best possible quality, please playback DVD-Audio content through the DVD Audio Player of Creative MediaSource

Yes, Creative MediaSource supports AVI, mpg1 and Video CDs. To playback avi or mpg files residing in your hard disk, click on "My Computer" and go to the folder where the avi or mpg is stored. Then select the file and press play.

To playback Video CDs, insert the Video CDs, then select "Video CD" in the "Source" window. Click the play button.

EAX ADVANCED HD technology delivers advanced audio functionality and performance, adding sophisticated audio processing capabilities, interactive and high-definition sound to Sound Blaster Audigy.

Specifically, EAX ADVANCED HD delivers the following features to enhance your music listening experience:

• Environment effects for adding the realism of a Concert Hall or auditorium to your music
• Advanced EQ fine-tunes appropriate frequencies in the music according to the music genre with various presets such as rock, jazz
• Karaoke effects adjust the pitch of the music and add reverb to the microphone for a better singing experience. Special Effects such as male-to-female, female-to-male, chipmunk transforms your voice for a new and fun dimension to music entertainment
• Studio effects enhance any electric guitar plugged in with effects such as distortion, wah, delays, harmonizers etc.
• Time-Scaling which speed up or slow down digital music without affecting the pitch or audio clarity. This is great for listener who wants to capture the lyrics of a song or slowing down a narrative.
• Audio Clean Up reduces unwanted background noise ("hiss", "clicks" and "pops") from analog or vinyl recordings.
• CMSS 3D is a proprietary technology that upmix your stereo music track into a multi-channel track so that you can enjoy surround sound on a multi-channel speaker system.

To access and customize these EAX, click the EAX Control Panel button ("?) located just right of the EAX button. The "EAX" button provides a quick toggle button to switch EAX on/off quickly without opening the EAX Control Panel.

For detailed instructions and help on using EAX, please click on the help button (?) located at the top of the EAX control panel

Creative MediaSource supports multiple sound devices in one PC. This drop down box is provided for you to select which sound device you want to set as active. If you have multiple sound cards/devices such as Sound Blaster Audigy 2 and Extigy installed on the same system, you will have an option to select. If you only have one sound device in your PC, there will not be any option to select.

Depending on the sound device you select, the EAX effects may be enabled/disabled accordingly.

Smart Volume Management (SVM) evens out varying playback volume levels within songs on your playlist so you will not experience sudden surges or drops in volume between songs on a playlist

To enable SVM, just click on the SVM button located under the Player transport control.

The SVM and Time-scaling controls are placed on the Player interface so that you can enable or adjust them, with a single click, when you are playing back an audio file.

Therefore, when any one of the EAX effects is enabled, the EAX button will also be lighted up. Conversely, if you disable the EAX button, all EAX effects (including SVM and Time-scaling) will be switched off.

The "Now Playing" window was designed to conveniently display the songs that are being queued for playback and the track that is being played now. You can skip to any song in "Now Playing" by double clicking on the selected track. To clear one or all the tracks in the "Now Playing" window, click on the "Delete" or "Delete All" button accordingly.

You can also save the songs currently in "Now Playing" into a new or existing playlist by clicking the "Save" button. However, only songs from the PC Music Library or My Computer will be saved. If the "Now Playing" window contains songs from a CD-ROM, it will not be saved.

In the Organizer view, you can also hide/unhide the "Now Playing" Window by clicking the icon on the left of the Player console.

Playlists allow you to compile your favorite audio tracks from different albums or artistes into one song list. Songs in a playlist can be added, deleted or rearranged anytime.
You only have to open this playlist to hear your favorite tracks. You can also transfer the playlists to your NOMAD JukeBox. In order to manage playlists on your NOMAD, it has to be connected to your computer.

To create a playlist in PC MUSIC LIBRARY:

1. In the Main window, click the "PC MUSIC LIBRARY" button.
2. In the top toolbar, click "New Playlist"
3. Type the name of your new playlist.
4. To view and choose your songs, click the "PREVIOUS" button in the toolbar to return to the PC MUSIC LIBRARY view, then a select a category e.g. All Tracks or By Album.
5. Select the tracks you want to add to the playlist.
6. To add the selected tracks, you can either click the "ADD TO" button on the toolbar or right-click the selected tracks and select "Add to Playlist."
7. In the "Add to Playlist" dialog box, select the Playlist to add the tracks.

ID3 tags are additional fields that the MP3 file format uses to store information about the music file such as artist, genre, album, year, comments etc.

Newer implementation such as ID3v2 tags stores additional fields such as website, lyrics, equalizer presets, pictures etc.

The fields are actually stored together (i.e. embedded) with the MP3 files.

Although the above categories share the same names as some of the ID3 tags in a MP3 file, they are not the same. In the PC Music Library, the Genre, Artist and Album information of each track are stored in a media database, which is proprietary to Creative MediaSource. This field information is not embedded in the MP3 files.

With track information such as genre, artist and album, music management and searching is more efficient and flexible.

However, Creative MediaSource can read the ID3 tags already available in your MP3 files to tag the PC Music Library categories during importing.

Conversely, any changes you make in Creative MediaSource's library categories will be replicated in the MP3 file's ID3 tags.

In the "MY COMPUTER" view, your music files are displayed the same way as they are physically stored in your hard disk i.e. by folders. It is very similar to what you would see in your MS Windows Explorer, but with fewer fields.

If your music is stored in different folders for different artistes or albums, you may find it more cumbersome as you cannot view all the songs in different folders at the same time. Also, you may have to transverse up and down different folders just to select songs from different albums.

In the "PC Music Library", the Genre, Artist and Album tag information of your songs are stored in a media database. This design provides efficient and flexible means to view and manage your music library. For example, you will be able to view all songs belonging to a certain genre or artist. This is not possible in the "MY COMPUTER" view if you store music in folders according to albums or artists.

For more flexibility and efficiency song searching and playlist creation, you are recommended to import your existing songs into the PC Music Library. This one-time effort would repay itself many times over in the long run by saving time in going through different folders to look for songs.

If you own a NOMAD JukeBox, the organization categories in the PC Music Library is the same as the NOMAD JukeBox's, making music management and transfer a more consistent and easy affair.

Creative MediaSource provides an "Import Tracks" wizard to make adding of existing music tracks into the PC Music Library easy.

The "Import Tracks" looks for any music files on your PC and imports them into the Creative MediaSource music library so that you can view and manage these music tracks in the PC music library view.

The "Import Tracks" wizard accomplishes music import in 2 simple steps. Firstly, it scans for all media files available in your computer. You can set which drive and folders to scan. There is also an option to filter out certain media types or media files that are below a certain size, which are likely to be sound clips used by the Windows operating system for alerts, rather than music files.

Secondly, the "Import Tracks" provides a few methods to tag these media files. If your existing songs are already properly tagged, the "Import Tracks" wizard can be set to read and use the ID3 tags (in the MP3 format). However, if your music have not been tagged but are organized by genre, artist or album folders in your hard disk,, the "Import Tracks" Wizard can use the folder names to tag the genre, artist or album fields. This eliminates the tedious process of manually keying in the song tag information.

Please note that if you import from an external source such as an MP3 CD, removable drive or network drives, the songs will only appear in the music library database as a track entry. The actual mp3 file itself will still reside in the external source and will not be copied to your default media folder on your PC. Once the external source is removed, you will not be able to play the song even though you can see the track title in PC Music Library.

If you want to keep the song permanently in your music library, you are recommended to first copy the physical files from the external source to your PC (preferably in your default media folder) and then use the "Import Tracks" wizard to import these tracks into your music library. Or if you copy the audio files into folders that are monitored by the Media Sniffer, the audio files will appear in the PC Music Library automatically.

Creative MediaSource incorporates a music library search engine where you can find a song with just a few keywords. If a match (even a partial word) is found among a track's title, genre, artist or album fields, it will appear in the main track window. Typing in more keywords would narrow down the number of tracks that meets the criteria.

This feature enables you to locate the songs you want quickly without any effort to remember where the track is stored or its exact track name.

If you frequently search for music by track title, the search engine can be set to look for a match in the track title field only. This way, the number of matches will be smaller. For example, if you are searching for a track titled "all that jazz" within the track title only by typing "all that jazz" in the "Find" box, songs belonging to the "jazz" genre will not appear.

While the "Find" feature looks for songs that contain the keywords, the filter feature helps by "filtering" out the genre, artist, albums you do not want to view. For example, if you click "Rock" in the Genre filter window, only the "Rock" artists and albums will be displayed in the main track view. To narrow the display further, you can select a particular artist, say "Bon Jovi". You will then see all the albums and tracks by "Bon Jovi". Selecting an album will display only the tracks from the selected album
This multi-stage filter enables you to look for the "type" of music you want quickly, especially if you have a huge music library. If you do not require these filter, it can be disable with a single click of the "filter view" button located at the top right hand corner of the content window. Located just right to this "filter view" button, is a down-arrow button that allows you to configure which filter you require.

You can activate/deactivate this feature by clicking on the tri-filter icon located to the right of the "Find" box.

This feature is only available in the PC Music Library view and only works correctly if your songs contain correct & valid tag information.

For your convenience, Creative MediaSource creates a default folder in your hard disk to store music files during CD ripping and recording

You can specify another location for the Media Folder by clicking the "SETTINGS" button and going to the "PC Music Library" Tab page.

In fact, Creative MediaSource is designed with a Media Sniffer feature that allows you to store songs in multiple folders and still be able to see it automatically in the PC Music Library view.

Creative MediaSource provides a database backup and restore tool. You can access this tool by clicking Tools > Settings in the top drop-down menu bar. Then click on the "PC Music Library" tab of the settings page. There will be a "Backup Now" and "Restore" button. Note that the "Restore" button will be grayed off if backup has not been done before.

You can choose to back up the database immediately or schedule Creative MediaSource to perform a backup at regular intervals.

Creative MediaSource Organizer keeps track of which sources and folders you have visited recently. The "BACK" arrow brings you back to previous folder or source.

This feature operates in the same manner as the "BACK" and "FORWARD" button in the Microsoft Windows Explorer and is indispensable when managing/copying files between 2 different folders.

To create and name a new PC Music Library, go to the drop down menu at the top, select "Tools" and click "Settings". In the "Settings" dialogue box, click the "PC Music Library" tab and click the "New" button.

A "Media Folder Settings" dialogue box will pop up asking you to fill in the name of the new PC music Library and the Default media folder (a folder in the PC you designated for storing all your music). Once you've clicked OK, you will be brought back to the settings dialogue box. Click the drop down box and select the music library you have just created as the active PC Music library. Click OK to apply your new settings and close the Settings dialogue box. The source window will now display the new music library that you've created.

1. Insert an audio CD into your CD-ROM drive. Creative MediaSource will be launched automatically.
   (If other media players are launched automatically, you will have to close them)
2. If Creative MediaSource is launched in the Player view, switch to the Organizer view by clicking the mode button at the bottom left corner of the player.
3. Select "AUDIO CD" in the source window
4. The audio CD tracks will be displayed in the Main window
5. To rip all the tracks , right click and choose the "Select All" option. Alternatively, you can key "Ctrl A" you want to rip by clicking the checkboxes beside each track. If you want to rip only certain tracks, hold the "Ctrl" key & click the tracks you want to rip.
6. Click the "Rip Now" task button.
7. The Audio CDs will be ripped to your PC Music Library by default. If you prefer to rip directly to your NOMADJukeBox, change the destination to "NOMAD JukeBox" button in the Transfer window.
8. A window will pop up showing the ripping status of each song.

• Track title
• Album
• Artiste
• Genre

There are many factors that determine the CD ripping speed.

• If your CD-ROM drive does NOT support Digital Audio Extraction, i.e. ripping, the audio can only be read at a 1X speed. That means the time to rip a song will take as long as playing back the entire song.
• If the CDROM drive supports digital audio extraction and is say, a 12X read speed, a song can be extracted at a speed of between 3x to 10x, depending on the system configuration and the make of the CD ROM drive. After the audio is extracted, it needs to be encoded and this rate will vary according to your processor speed and memory available.
• On the average, a 450MHz PC is able to rip and encode 1 CD album in about 10 minutes.

Therefore more products (both software and hardware) can playback MP3 files.
In the "Audio CD/rip" tab under the "SETTINGS", you can choose the following parameters when encoding in MP3:

• Channel (Stereo/Mono): Generally, a mono MP3 file will be smaller (in terms of file size) but will not be good enough for music listening.
• Bitrate (Constant/Variable) : A variable bitrate would result in a smaller file size as the bitrate is increased/decreased according to the song. However, not every MP3 player can support a variable bitrate file. Use a constant bitrate if in doubt.
• Bitrate quality (20Kbps - 320 Kbps): The higher the bitrate, the better the audio quality but the file size will be bigger. Generally, it is difficult to discern or appreciate the difference in quality above 128 Kbps when listening from a PC or a NOMAD portable digital audio player, especially with headphones. 128Kps will be a good compromise between file size and audio quality.

Another feature of WMA is the support of DRM (digital rights management) which restricts the playback of the music file for a certain number of times or on certain PCs.
The settings available for WMA are as follows:

• Format, channel. Generally, a mono file will have a smaller file size but will not be good enough for music listening.
• DRM: Do not check the box unless you you wish to support DRM.
• Bit rate quality (64Kbps - 160 Kbps): The higher the bitrate, the better the audio quality but the file size will be bigger.

You should encode in WAV if

• you have adequate hard disk space
• you want to preserve the original and highest audio quality possible of the music file
• you need to perform audio editing

There are no options for encoding to a WAV file. The format is set at 44.1 Khz, 16 bit stereo.

1. Go to the Organizer view and select "PC Music Library" in the source window
2. Click the "Burn CD" task icon. The transfer window will slide out showing a new burn list.
3. Select the preferred tracks and transfer it to the burn list by either clicking the "right arrow" button or simply dragging the tracks across.
4. Once you are done selecting the tracks, click the "Burn Now" button to commence burning.

The Gracenote CDDB service is FREE and automatic for end users. You will need to register with Gracenote CDDB first to use this service.

To register with Gracenote CDDB, go to the drop-down menu bar at the top and click Tools. Then select Settings and click the "Audio CD/Rip" tab. Click the "Register with CDDB" button.

1. Insert an audio CD into your CD-ROM drive
2. If the CD starts playing, click the "Stop" button. You cannot rip tracks while the CD is playing.
3. Click the "AUDIO CD" button.
4. The "Powered by Gracenote CDDB" logo will appear at the top left corner of your screen while CD information is being retrieved from the Gracenote CDDB servers.
5. If the music information of your CD is found, it will be displayed in the main window.
6. If your CD cannot be found in the Gracenote CDDB database, the track title will be numerical i.e. Track 1- 10 and the genre, album, artiste information will be unknown.

Entries or corrections are submitted for many reasons:

• Some people want to ensure that the information about their favorite artists is accurate.
• Some people submit entries for their own use. Typing it in yourself ensures that the accurate information is available to you later from different applications, or even on different computers.
• Many people consider it a great exchange with other fans
• Many people appreciate the benefit they received from other people, and want to do their bit too
• The various credits and other information on album proves interesting or educational to some listeners

1. Insert an Audio CD and click the "SUBMIT" button on the Toolbar
2. The "Gracenote CDDB Disc Information" window will pop up.
3. After you've finished editing or entering the information, click "OK" to submit your entries to CDDB.

• Show recording status
  This will toggle the Player's status display to show the track playback information or the recording setting information
  
• Select Recording source
  You can choose to record from What-U-hear, Line-in, Wave/MP3, microphone, CD Digital or Midi Synth
  
• Select Recording format
  You can record in wav, wma or MP3 as well as set the resolution/options for each format
  
• Enable Record Sync
  This feature allows you to play and record a song at the same time with one click of the "REC" button

Just click the "REC" button to start recording. If a song is already playing, the recording will start when you clicked the "REC" button. To stop recording, just click the "Stop" button. If the "Record Sync" is enabled, the currently selected track will be played and recorded when "REC" is clicked.

A "Edit Recording information" dialogue box will then pop up and request your confirmation for the recording filename, destination, and track information. Once the entries are confirmed, click "Save" and you can access the recordings by selecting PC Music Library in the "Sources" window and click on "Recordings"

Use the LED meter to see if the recording level is optimal and adjust the red recording level slider (located to the right of the recording status display area), if necessary.
When you are done recording and want to revert to the Player status display, just click the "X" at the top right corner of the recording status display area.

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 users is provided with the Creative WaveStudio to perform basic editing to their recordings or any audio files. You can access Creative WaveStudio in the Creative MediaSource Go Launcher's programs tab. Detailed instructions and help can be found in Creative WaveStudio's help file.

Note:
Please note that the version of Creative WaveStudio bundled with the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 DOES NOT SUPPORT 24bit 96kHz wave file editing or recording.

• If Creative MediaSource has been properly installed and the detector is enabled, Creative MediaSource will be started when your NOMAD JukeBox 3 is connected to the PC via USB or SB 1394. If the detector is NOT enabled, you will have to fire up Creative MediaSource first and then connect your Nomad Jukebox 3.
• Once it is connected, NOMAD Jukebox 3 will appear as a source in the "Source" window. To view the contents in the NOMAD JukeBox 3, double click "NOMAD Jukebox 3" .
• You can enable/disable the detector by going to the drop down menu at the top and click Tools>Settings. At the Settings page, click on the "Detector" tab and select the "Enable Detector" checkbox.

You can use Creative MediaSource to transfer both music files to and from your NOMAD player.

This section describes the transfer of files from the "PC MUSIC LIBRARY" to the NOMAD player and vice versa. But you can transfer files in the "MY COMPUTER" view in the same way. To transfer audio files in the "PC MUSIC LIBRARY" to your NOMAD player:

1. Click "PC MUSIC LIBRARY" in the Source Window. Locate your songs by selecting the relevant genre, artist, album or playlist. Select the songs you want to transfer to your NOMAD Jukebox 3.
2. Click "NOMAD JUKEBOX 3" button in the transfer window. If the transfer window is not already extended, click the "Transfer" icon located at the bottom left of the Creative MediaSource organizer.
3. When you are ready to transfer, just click the lower "Transfer" button (Arrow pointing from left to right). Alternatively, you can drag and drop the songs over.
4. The "Now transferring" window will then pop up, showing the transfer progress for each song. If you want to stop further transfer, just select the songs and hit "delete". This operation is only applicable to songs that has not been transferred to the NOMAD Jukebox yet.

When you've selected files and transferred it to your NOMAD player, the transfer queue windows pops up to show you the transfer status such as title, status, progress and destination. You do not have to wait for the transfer queue to end before you select more files to transfer.

If you wish/need to stop the transfer, you can select the songs with the mouse and click "Delete " or "Delete All" . However, only those files whose status is not "Completed" can be removed.

To change the player skin :

1. Switch to the Player mode.
2. Go to the drop-down menu at the top and select "View"
3. Then click on the "Change Player Skin" option
4. Select your preferred skin, the player will change to the new skin.