What is casual and fun? What is entertainment?

    I saw a comment posted on one of my post and I really happy that someone read it and give it some thought.

Although the comment is a bit dated, I thought that maybe this is a good chance to express some of my personal opinions on this matter with regard to my blog name; Casual & Fun Entertainment. Maybe you are already wondering how does this matter relate to my blog name. Before I went more on it, I will give a fair warning first. This is going to be fairly long.

    First of all, what is entertainment? Entertainment are suppose to be something enjoyable; something that temporarily relieve you from your stress. For example, watching dramas or playing games are fun for me and consider entertainment. If I am doing them during my free time leisurely, it's called casual.

    However, if I keep going on for more and more without knowing an end. For example, maybe I will buy any merchandise that I came across related to them or even went to the length to chase about all related actors/actress/producers personal information, this is called enthusiastic. If this enthusiasm, even went on to the length of affecting my personal real life, those around me and even worse those actors/actress/producers, this is called hardcore. However, if you are making a living with that enthusiasm, you are known as professional instead of hardcore.

    Hence in my opinion, for the vast majority of people, we are just consumers that wanted to enjoy our entertainment casually because we are neither professional in the entertainment industry nor hardcore that wanted to burden those around us. Therefore, we read review or asked for opinions before we decided on what to do with our free time. We just wanted to enjoy ourselves while feeling our hard earned money well spent.

    Therefore, I am very happy that someone read my post and give it some thought and even comment it. Hence for those that have the same doubt, if you already read up those before this, you should already identified yourself, are you a casual, hardcore or professional in the matter that you have doubt? If you consider yourself hardcore or professional, then you should already know the answer yourself with tons of theories and hundred of experimental proven results.

    If you consider yourself a casual consumer, there is always the same golden rule: you must always try it out yourself before buying. This is because everyone condition and personal preferences differ. For example, the usb cable affecting sound quality myth. You just have to try it out at your own sound system to justify it. Even though some people will give you answer such that tuning it with your equalizer is a better option or so much more. There is always a lot of choices while some maybe just a gimmick until someone debunk it. And sometimes a new technology breakthrough is just want we need.

    Therefore, reading more reviews or listening to more opinions before getting something really help broaden up our selection. However, trust yourself whenever you are deciding whether you wanted to get it or not.

    Besides that, in order to not have buyer remorse, my personal opinions is that always asked these 3 questions whenever you feel like buying something:
                                       1) Do you really enjoy it
                                       2) Do you feel financially restraint after buying it
                                       3) Do you have time for it after buying it
Never ever buy something on impulse because you saw it being discounted heavily or cheap. 

    Here is an example of my personal experience when getting my sound system. I am in the between of getting either a Hi-Fi system or Home Theater system. For Hi-Fi system, it would be a 2.0 system with focus on warm vocal as that is my personal preferences. For Home Theater system, it would be a 7.1 system with focus on clear speeches and blowing bass. There is also option to mix some speakers and do a hybrid system by using av processors and such. But by doing so, it skim the budget between the 2.0 pair of speaker and the sub-woofers. And also due to my personal preferences of really warm vocal, the power amplifier for the Hi-Fi does not bode well for Home Theater. Therefore, for the first and second question, I only found enjoyment in the dedicated Hi-Fi system or Home Theater system and do not enjoy the hybrid system with the same allocated budget. Therefore, the deciding factor was the third question. I found that I have more time listening and enjoying to my music collection during my leisure time doing some other stuffs while I at my home. And I can always just hop in a nearby cinema for a good movie. And due to the Home Theater system technology being upgraded too frequently, it cost more to maintain in the long run compare to a good Hi-Fi system.

Persona 5 Notes, Tips & Exploits For Newcomer

    After I wrote about how satisfying Persona 5 was as a game, now here are some personal notes, tips and exploits that I gathered around the internet. As when I posted my previous post, the Persona 5 fans and community are already well established with a lot of personal findings and information. Therefore, with these information, newcomers doesn't need to play Persona 5 as intuitive as the premier or earlier players. Hence, this post will focus solely on stuffs to do in the first play-through with minimal exposure to spoilers.

    First of all, with these information, newcomers are actually possible to max out all social stats and confidants in the first play-through. However, this will results in a very tight timetable and you may have to get into relationship with the girl you wanted pretty late in the game. So, it's up to you whether how you wanted to play this game. You can also just make a save file at some point and reload it back after you finish enjoying the sub story of a confidant.

    If you prefer more detailed step by step walk-through, you may try the link below: (written by some gamers for trophy collection with the best possible shortest way; however it's not too newcomer friendly)
https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/persona-5-a/309005-persona-5-trophy-guide-roadmap.html

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dM4MZ_CKiu_EtcSL588-I2avd040YnGfARKEk3ViBck/edit#gid=0

Social Stats (Cumulative Points Required)

	Rank 2	Rank 3	Rank 4	Rank 5
Knowledge	20	47	72	105
Guts	6	16	31	64
Proficiency	8	21	38	55
Kindness	9	28	56	82
Charm	4	32	56	79

Source: http://www.ggez.space/parameters/

Below I will only list out ways that I found efficient in increasing social stats:

-Borrow and read all the books available at the library
-Buy all the books that will increase social stats in the Shibuya book store (Information books & books in the book city, Jinbocho should be avoided)
-Don't mind the DVD rental deadline, you will never be fined
-Buy the special drink at Shibuya Underground Walkway on Sunday

Knowledge
Quiz or Test in school (Knowledge +1)
Quiz on TV during Thursday (Knowledge +1)
Diner in Shibuya, (Knowledge +2) During rainy day (Knowledge+3); Prefer Hot Coffee (Guts+1)
Or, you may choose Steak (Kind+1) or Totem Pole (Proficiency+1)

Charm
Bathhouse at Yogenjaya during Monday & Thursday (Charm+3)
Maid cafe in Shinjuku (Charm+2, may trigger Kind+1/Guts+1)
Watch DVD:
-Bubbly Hills, 90210 (Charm+2)
-Not-so-hot Betty (Charm+3)

Guts
Watch DVD:
-The X Folders (Guts+2)
-The Running Dead (Guts+3)
Big Bang Burger Challenge (Should only aim for success)
-Comet Burger: Failed (Guts+1); Success (Guts,Knowledge,Charm,Proficiency+1)
-Gravity Burger: Failed (Guts+2); Success (Guts,Knowledge,Charm,Proficiency+2)
-Cosmos Burger: Failed (Guts+3); Success (Guts,Knowledge,Charm,Proficiency+3)
After successfully beat all 3 level, you can still keep taking the challenge:
-Cosmos Burger: (Guts+3)

Proficiency
Craft Infiltration Tools (Proficiency+2)
Watch DVD:
-Jail Break (Proficiency+3)

Kindness
Watch DVD:
-ICU (Kind+3)
Fertilizer for the plant in the bedroom:
-Fertilizer from Shibuya Undermall (Kind+2)
-Organic fertilizer from Shinjuku (Kind+3)

Part Time
IMO, you should only do part time when needed to progress story such as Sun confidant or Mementos request. Therefore, you may done each part time job twice before the story came up.

Confidant
    You should always carry the corresponding persona with the confidant before initiate a hangout. Therefore, you should always go to the velvet room and summon a corresponding persona first.

    If you ever get invited out for outgoing activities, I highly recommend you to respond "Yes". It will boost the confidant relationship and one of the social stat; or boost two different confidant relationship at the same time.

    However, if the confidant asked for coffee after the activity, you are free to decline if you have more important things to be done. As it will only give you a "coffee" and boost one confidant relationship. Raising social stat is consider more important things.

    For all the girls confidant, you can at least gave them each one gift and at most two. You could also went to Chihaya before initiate hangout for Affinity Reading that has extra boost for confidant relationship.

For more details on the confidant dialog choices, you can refer to:
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2017/04/04/persona-5-confidant-guide/252919/

Confidant Rank Up Based On Story
You can safely exclude the following 5 types of persona in your list as they rank up based on story:
FOOL, MAGICIAN, JUSTICE, JUDGEMENT, STRENGTH

Strength Confidant Fusing Guide:
http://www.rpgsite.net/feature/5486-persona-5-guide-persona-fusing-solutions-for-the-strength-cooperation-twin-wardens

Game System

Difficulty

Safety:       Damage Received 50%, Damage Dealt 200%, Experience 300% Money 500%

Easy:         Damage Received 50%, Damage Dealt 100%, Experience 100% Money 100%

Normal:     Damage Received 100%, Damage Dealt 100%, Experience 100% Money 100%

Hard:         Damage Received 160%, Damage Dealt 80%, Experience 100% Money 100%

Merciless: Damage Received 160%, Damage Dealt 80%, Experience 40% Money 40%
                   (All Critical and Technical damage received and dealt 300%)

It's not recommended for you to choose Safety, because you won't be able to change the difficulty on the fly and you will never experience Game Over.
Source: http://www.pushsquare.com/news/2017/04/guide_persona_5_difficulty_settings_-_what_does_the_difficulty_level_change

Personally, I recommend choosing Normal at first and later on change it to Hard. You may choose Merciless for boss battle. Merciless for normal mobs and mini bosses put too much stress on the SP and items usage.

Press L1 or L2
Always press your L1 or L2 occasionally to scan around you for missed treasure. It will also tell you what to do next if you ever wonder what is the next step.

Mementos Guide:
Be sure to always read all your IM from Mishima. Some of the requests may required you to work as part-timer to gather information first. You should clear Mementos at least once every month as it's a good source of income plus some of the confidant rank required the clearance of quest in Mementos. If you wanted to max all social stat and confidant in the first play-through, when to clear the Mementos actually are quite important.

Check the link below for more information:
http://www.ign.com/wikis/persona-5/Mementos_and_Requests

Money Fortune
You should always went and see Chihaya for Money Fortune Reading (5000 yen) before enter a palace or Mementos. The bonus money from all out attack even included mini bosses.

All Ending Guide:
http://gameranx.com/features/id/102925/article/persona-5-how-to-get-all-endings/

Battle System
Persona
Persona is basically the soul of this game. Fusing a balanced persona with suitable skill is the main battle power of this game. For early to mid game, you would probably want to have personas that cover all types of elements and 1 hybrid healer+attacker for boss battle. For mid to late game, you would probably narrow down the number of persona to 1-2  that covered all types of elements by fusing special persona. Then, 1 full healer+buffer/debuffer and 1 attacker with Swift Attack mixed with some magic attack for boss battle. You may check the following links for more info:

https://chinhodado.github.io/persona5_calculator/index.html#/list
https://aqiu384.github.io/p5-tool/personas

Special Persona (Treasure Demon)
There are 8 types of special persona with different weakness. If you are unable to knock them down within 3 turns they will flee the battle. My personal opinion is that chances of their appearance in the Mementos has something to do with the Luck stat. Below are their weakness list:

	Weakness
Regent	Psychic, Nuclear
Queen's Necklace	Gunfire
Stone of Scone	Curse
Koh-I-Noor	-
Orlov	-
Emperor's Talisman	-
Hope Diamond	-
Crystal Skull	-

*For those without weakness, you have to knock them down with Lucky Punch or Miracle Punch using either Morgana/Joker.

Ambush
You should always try to ambush your enemy instead of attacking head on or even worse getting ambush by your enemy. If you are playing on Hard or Merciless difficulty, the enemy in mid to late game has very high chances in inflicting ailments and high damages to you. Even a normal head on attack will results in half of the party members dead or you wasting tons of SP.

    In mid to late game, normal mobs and mini bosses are even greater threat than bosses. Sometimes, it's a good idea to flee the battle instead of getting killed by normal mobs and have to revert back to the last safe room.

All Out Attack
After you knock down all opponents, you are able to perform All Out Attack. This attack damage is being affected only by Melee Weapon and Strength stat.

Ranged Weapon
Ranged weapon is being ignored by most people as it has very limited ammo plus the expensive price on the upgrade. Therefore most of the time, it only serve as to hit the weakness of the enemy or using the special skill Down Shot.

    However, ranged weapon serve as a very good way to deal high damage to the boss even though the ranged weapon barely being upgraded compare to the frequently upgraded melee weapon and persona with all doesn't trigger any weakness or strength. It's especially useful if you are playing Hard or Merciless on your first play-through.

    One shot kill damage is not being affected by ranged weapon. One shot kill damage is affected by Strength stat or passive skill that boost gun damage.

Insta-Heal
If you do play on Hard or Merciless, you should keep this skill in Haru and Joker. It enable them to recover from all ailments in just 1 turn including incurable ailments such as those from the Final Boss. Personal preference wise, I do recommend to keep this skill no matter what difficulty you playing.

Equipment
There are two types equipment that has special functions in this game. Firstly, is the type of equipment that can transmutate. Which mean they are being used as medium to get better equipment when using the electric chair function in the Velvet Room. Secondly, dirty equipment that can be wash in the Laundromat in Yogenjaya for a random equipment.

Dark Net Tanaka
Make sure to buy the Broken Computer from the Secondhand shop at Yogenjaya on September 2. Then, buy Computer Repair Kit in Akihabara tool shop. Then, repair it during night time in your room. Dark net sell dirty armor which only cost 1000 yen for a chance of getting equipment that are better than those sold in Airsoft.

Futaba Sakura Equipment
It's the same as the special persona, my personal opinion is that Luck stat affect the chances of Futaba using her ability. Therefore, Futaba equipment should focus purely on raising her Luck stat.

Exploits
Following are some of the exploits that I am able to find. I called them exploits because some may feel like they heavily affect the game balance and fun. Since this is a single player game, some exploits won't hurt as long as you are still able to enjoy the game. So, used it as you see fit.

Level Exploit:
Enter Mementos during November 13, 14, 15 or December 8, 9. Go to any level except for the main entrance or safe room. Leave your controller on the floor for approximately 1 minute ++ and wait for Morgana to warn you about something fishy. Enter battle with the Reaper and look out whether Reaper is affected by Despair. If Reaper wasn't affected by Despair, flee immediately and change floor; and repeat the process again.
Source: https://videogamesuncovered.com/features/persona-5-how-to-cheat-the-reaper/

Money Exploit:
Get a Persona with high Luck and get it to learn Confuse. One of the way is fusing a LV 15 Onmoraki with Rakshasa/Ame-no-Uzume/Zouchouten. Then, use confuse on Mementos boss and wait for the confused boss to throw out money. I am not very sure which Mementos boss are vulnerable to confuse as I didn't try this out. According to my friend, there are quite a number of Mementos boss vulnerable to this exploit.

Persona Exploit:
Yoshitsune' Hassou Tobi is pretty strong in this game. Someone posted a way to fuse a pretty invicible Yoshitsune with tons of repel or drain. Check it out if you are interested. Although I didn't try it out myself but it should be pretty much invisible as he said:
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2017/04/14/how-to-fuse-an-invincible-killing-machine-in-persona-5.aspx

Persona 5, A Satisfying Game With Well Written Story

    First of all, I have to admit that I am not one of the followers or fans of the Persona series. The Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 that I played on my PS2 doesn't leave much of a strong impression. Instead, GrimGrimoire developed by Vanillaware that has a story line with much similarity to the later hit anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica was a more satisfying PS2 game.

    However, that wasn't the case with Persona 5. With games like Final Fantasy XV, Dragon Quest Builders, Nioh, Nier Automata that caught my attention at first, but ending up Persona 5 earn my recommendations. I highly recommended it to those that wanted to casually enjoy a game with a nice story at its core accompanied by a well balanced and fun game-play. However, there are some exceptions though. First of all, if you don't have time to leisurely enjoy the story and cut scenes, this game is not for you. 100 hours or more for a standard play-through is pretty normal and half of the times are spent on the story and cut scenes. Secondly, although the game is in anime style, but due to the dark theme and heavy exposure to the unjust of society, kids or less mature people are not encourage to play this game. It may have bad influence or steer them in the wrong direction.

Pros:
-Engaging story
-Balanced and intuitive game-play
-Well dubbed English voice cast
-Addictive soundtrack
-High replay-ability

Cons:
-Dated game mechanism

!!From this part onward, there might have some spoilers.

Dated Dating Sim Mechanism

    As I said before, you will most likely spend half of your time in this game going through the game story and the cut scenes. This is due to its dated dating sim mechanism that go by a fixed time slot calendar system. It's rigid and really made me feel the lack of freedom to control in the game. IMO, even dating sim games have more flexibility.

    Personally, I would like to see them implement something similar to Sakura Wars LIPS system though. Although it may add too much complexity to the already huge storyboard of those sub characters, but I always enjoy Sakura Wars LIPS system that have a time limit and will even change the selection after a certain time.

Refined Turned Based Battle System

    Although action RPG is the main stream now, but the refined turn based battle system is rather balanced and intuitive. Due to its turn based battle system and some of the game limitation aspects, you will find most of the time you are playing the game with intuition. It's the same with the rather logic weakness and strength system. By looking at your enemy skills list, you have to try to deduct its weakness and strength.

    Besides that, the boss battles coherent with the story background very well. It's not just plain fight and kill. They will even throw in some extra helps for some of the bosses if you find yourself struggling against it.

Game Difficulties, Challenging Yet Fun Without The Need To Grind

    Including the DLC, this game offer 5 difficulties level and it can be changes on the fly whenever you are able to access the menu. I found that altering between "Normal" and "Hard" and sometimes "Easy" and "Merciless" depending on your character level, equipment and persona made me able to enjoy the game casually with some challenge without the need to grind.

Well Dubbed English Voice Cast + Addictive Soundtrack

    I was hoping that all of those dialog in the game has a voice cast instead of just half of them got a voice cast. That just show how much I love those voice cast. In the meantime, the soundtrack are so addictive especially those sung by Lyn. For those that would like to collect the physical 3 CD OST as I do, you may try HMV JAPAN. I had been using it for few years and it ship internationally. It has frequent promotions as well as used CD on sales. Just some extra info, if you decide to get books or limited edition CD with a lot of stuffs, it will be quite expensive on the logistic fee due to their sheer weight.

High Replay-ability

    Due to tons of sub characters quest and some added extra features after finishing the game once, this game welcome you to replay the game a second time which so called New Game Plus that you may choose to inherit some progress from your previous save file.

    It's a very welcoming feature as it allow me to enjoy some stuffs that I am unavailable to before. Especially I have the free time to fully decorate my room now. Even more, I have the free time to went on date to various locations with the girl I have a relationship with instead of just dumping her aside.

Media Player Setup For PC (December 2023)

Updated 12 December 2023:

At the top, I will just include a quick update on the latest software I am using and their link. Since with the wide availability of affordable Chinese DAC such as Topping, SMSL, Gustard and etc. The audio is being pass-through to the DAC. Therefore, now I am only using MPC-HC + madVR.

1) Media Player Classic Home Cinema https://github.com/clsid2/mpc-hc/releases

2) madVR https://www.videohelp.com/software/madVR

With many of the K-Pop and C-Pop MV available on YouTube, now we can just stream the MV from YouTube using MPC-HC with our madVR HQ-PQ (high quality picture quality).

3) Youtube Streamer & Codec :

yt-dlp.exe https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases

ffmpeg.exe https://www.gyan.dev/ffmpeg/builds/

OLD Section (June 2015):

Media Player Classic, LAV Filters & madVR have some huge chances since my last post 

http://casualnfunentertainment.blogspot.com/2013/06/media-player-setup-for-pc.html

and here is some highlight of the main chances:

i) LAV Filter has been used as Media Player Classic internal filter ( mean that we do not need to download and install LAV as external filter anymore)

ii) LAV Audio able to decode DTS, DTS-HD, TrueHD using libdcadec ( mean that we do not need to use external ArcSoft decoder anymore)

iii) madVR new "NNEDI3" is producing nice picture quality in my opinion ( mean that we do not need to install AviSynth anymore in my opinion)

Software to download:

1) Media Player Classic Home Cinema http://nightly.mpc-hc.org/

2) madVR http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=146228
3) ffdshow http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/files/SVN%20builds%20by%20clsid/generic%20builds/
* UNCHECK everything in ffdshow during installation process except "Audio Decoder"

4) ReClock http://www.videohelp.com/tools/ReClock-Directshow-Filter

Media Player Classic Home Cinema (MPC-HC)
1) After everything installed, open MPC-HC.
2) Press "o", go to "Playback" > "Output". For "Audio Renderer", choose "ReClock Audio Renderer".
3) For "DirectShow Video", choose "madVR" or choose "Enhanced Video Renderer (custom presenter)" for those having problem with madVR.

4) Then, go to "External Filters", click "Add Filter" and add "ffdshow Audio Decoder".
5) After adding it, make sure to set it to "Prefer".

6) Since, "LAV Filter" is the "Internal Filters" for now, we used the default settings for "Source Filters" and "Transform Filters".

7) Therefore, in order to change "LAV Filter" settings, we need to click the three button available at the bottom.

8) Then, click "Video Decoder".

9) For "Hardware Decoder to use":

     Choose "Intel QuickSync" for Intel HD integrated graphic
     Choose "DXVA2" for ATI Radeon graphic card
     Or just leave it at "None"
* Make sure the settings that you choose have an "Available" shown beside it.
** For PC that have i3 processor or better but have lower Graphic Card (normally laptop), choose "None" when you experience lagging in playing HD files.

     Choose "NVIDIA CUVID" for Nvidia Geforce graphic card
     CHECK "Enable Adaptive HW Deinterlacing" & "High-Quality Processing".

10) Click "Apply" to save all the settings.

madVR
1) Open a video file with MPC-HC.
2) Right click and choose "Filters" > "madVR".

3) Choose "Edit Settings".

4) Under "devices", choose the device type. Should be "Digital Monitor/TV" unless you are using CRT.

5) Under "processing" > "deinterlacing", you can either UNCHECK everything.

6) Under "rendering" > "general settings", you can either UNCHECK everything or CHECK "enable automatic fullscreen exclusive mode" that ignored all the interruption from your PC when you are in fullscreen mode or CHECK "enable windowed overlay (Windows 7 and newer)". 

8) Then for "trade quality for performance", UNCHECK everything.

9) Now to set the "scaling algorithms" for madVR. First download GPU-Z from http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/GPU-Z/ and run it.
10) Then test the following settings from top to bottom and see at which setting that your GPU load is not too high (less than 80%):

   chroma upscaling                  image upscaling                    image downscaling
        NNEDI3, AR                           Jinc,  AR                         Catmull-Rom, AR, LL
          Jinc,  AR                                Jinc, AR                          Catmull-Rom, AR, LL
     Bicubic, 75, AR                 Lanczos, 3 taps, AR                    Catmull-Rom, AR
         Bicubic, 75                        Lanczos, 3 taps                           Catmull-Rom
            Bilinear                                  Bilinear                                      Bilinear

*AR = activate anti-ringing filter
*LL = scale in linear light

11) Click "OK" to save all settings.

ffdshow
1) Press "Start" > "All Programs" > "ffdshow" > "Audio decoder configuration".

2) Under "Codecs", choose "all supported" for "Uncompressed".

3) Under "DirectShow control", choose "only one - check all previous filters" for "Multiple ffdshow instances".

4) Under "Profiles/Preset settings" > "Decoder options", CHECK "Enable jitter correction".

5) For "Processing", CHECK everything.

6) Then go to "Mixer", for 2.0 speaker user, just CHECK "Mixer" and select "2/0/0 - stereo" for "Output speaker configuration".

For 2.1 speaker user, CHECK "Mixer" and "LFE" and select "2/0/0 - stereo" for "Output speaker configuration".

7) For "Output", CHECK "16-bit integer", "24-bit integer", "32-bit integer" & "32-bit floating point".

8) Click "OK" to save all settings.

ReClock

1) Open ReClock. At the "Audio settings" tab, UNTICK everything.

    A) Set PCM to "WASAPI Exclusive".

    B) Pre-buffer Duration, leave it as "500". 

         OPTIONAL: You can test around and see which setting suit your personal taste ranging 25 to 1000.

    C) For Format set it to "24 bit int padded to 32" while for Sampling rate, it can be leave as "Same as input (default)" for normal users or UD100. 

         OPTIONAL: If your DAC is capable of better setting then set Sampling rate to your DAC max setting such as 96kHz, 192kHz or 384kHz.

    D) Set Quality to "Best Sinc Interpolation".

2) Go to "Video settings" tab

UNTICK "Use built-in estimator (recommended)" on both side as these settings may chuck up the videos after few seconds of opening.

3) Go to "Advanced settings" tab and UNTICK everything except (B) "Force ReClock to be loaded instead of default renderers (recommended)".
  
    OPTIONAL: TICK (A)"Give high CPU priority to player", this setting will let your player have higher priority over other software and ensure less lagging and chuck up.

4) Click "OK" and ReClock is ready to use. So everytime you open a supported media player such as Media Player Classic, Zoom Player, PowerDVD and etc, a box will pop up and ask whether to load ReClock or not. You can either choose to always load or never load. These setting can be change in (C).

Verdict
It's actually quite happy to see new breakthrough and collaboration to further improve PC Media Player quality as nowadays I am using my PC as a media center more and more frequent.

Rip CD with Exact Audio Copy

Source is also quite important for good audio quality. So in order to rip our CD collection properly with quality assured, software like Exact Audio Copy (EAC) come in handy. The best part is this software is totally free. So, I will show the steps to setup this software to rip CD with quality assured.

Installation & Setup
 1) First, download EAC from http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/
 2) Install the software. When you are prompt to choose what to install, CHECK all except "GD3 Metadata Plugin".

 3) After finish install, open EAC.
 4) Choose "Cancel" for the setup wizard.

 5) Press "F12" to go into Metadata options.
 6) Go to "freedb" tab, key in any email address (does not need to be valid) & CHECK "On a connection error, retry query using a different server from the server list".
 7) Click "Get active freedb server list" to ensure that you can connect to the database.

 8) Click "OK" to save all settings.
* For more detailed information on the EAC options, you can go http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=EAC_Options
 9) Press "F9" to go into EAC options.
10) At the "Extraction" tab, CHECK "Fill up missing offset samples with silence" & "Synchronize between tracks".
11) UNCHECK "Delete leading and trailing silent blocks".
12) Choose "High" for Error recovery quality.

* CHECK "Skip track extraction on read or sync errors" & "Skip track extraction after duration longer than 4 times realtime" if you don't want to have imperfect rip. But if want to rip those track no matter what and can tolerate imperfect rip, then UNCHECK them.
13) Go to "General" tab, CHECK "On unknowns CDs," and choose "automatically access online metadata database".

14) Go to "Tools" tab, CHECK "Automatically write status report after extraction" & "Append checksum to status report".
15) UNCHECK "Activate beginner mode, disable all advanced features".

16) Go to "Normalize" tab and make sure UNCHECK everything.

17) Go to "Directories" tab, choose a default location. Preferable at C: as windows have a maximum limit for file name length.

18) Go to "Audio Plugins" tab and make sure "CUETools DB Plugin" is CHECK.

19) Click "OK" to save all settings.
20) Insert an audio CD into your CD-ROM, if the following window did not pop up, try insert another 1 until it pop up.
21) Click "Configure". You may need to repeat this steps for another 2 more times.

21) Press "F10" to go into "Drive options".
22) At "Extraction Method" tab, click "Detect Read Features".

23) After the analyze finish, click "Apply".

24) Then, UNCHECK "Drive is capable of retrieving C2 error information".

25) Go to "Drive" tab, click "Autodetect read command now".

* To check whether your drive is able to overread, go to "Offset/Speed" tab, UNCHECK "Use AccurateRip with this drive". Then, click "Detect read samples offset correction".

If the result is "None" for the overread, then every last tracks of the CD that you rip may hav 2-3 seconds missing. But normally these 2-3 seconds are silent.

CHECK back "Use AccurateRip with this drive".

26) Go to "Gap Detection" tab, selection "Detection method A" & "Secure".

27) Click "OK" to save all settings.
28) Press "F4" to Detect Gaps.

* If EAC freeze or taking very long to detect gap, press "F10" and go to "Gap Detection" tab, change to "Detection method B".

* Repeat this step and change to "Detection method C" if the problem still exist.
29) Press "F11" to go into "Compression options".
30) CHECK "Use external program for compression".
31) Choose "User Defined Encoder" for Parameter passing scheme.
32) Type ".flac" for Use file extension.
33) Browse and select "flac.exe" in the EAC installation folder.
34) Copy and paste the following command into Additional command-line options:

-T "artist=%artist%" -T "title=%title%" -T "album=%albumtitle%" -T "date=%year%" -T "tracknumber=%tracknr%" -T "genre=%genre%" -5 %source%

* 5 is the level of compression for the Flac. 8 is the highest level but will take very long time.
35) CHECK "Delete WAV after compression", "Use CRC Check" & "Check for external programs return code".

36) Click "OK" to save all settings.
37) Press "Shift+F2" to Save Profile.

Rip CD
1) Make sure CHECK "Append Gaps To Previous Track".

2) Press "F4" to Detect Gaps.

3) Click "Action" > "Create CUE Sheet" > "Multiple WAV Files With Gaps ... (Noncompliant)".

4) Press "F6" to rip to WAV.
     Or press "Shift+F6" to rip to FLAC.