Audio File Functionality - Opinions Please

vanakaru

Thank you for this nice and clear explanation.

As I see it we have all the tools available already. If I can use preload small audio samples and play these without a problem as done before and have .mov for longer files I will be satisfied with this the most.

Option 2 would be fine too with warning dialog. And we have this discussion to point our confused users to.

Maybe there should be an Actor that is actual Movie Player(Sound Movie Player) but with different name(like Mp3 Player or Long Audio Player) without ”video” output and listed under Audio section. And when importing Mp3 a dialog that will say where this file needs to be placed(Video files).

Fred

Yes thanks for the explanation. I had a suggestion a little outside of your scope. Could it be possible to have a load to ram tag in the media bin. This way we could select which files (sound or even video) we load into ram. Whichever of the files that are selected to load into ram will be loaded to ram as soon as the session is open. If you import a new file and say load to ram it will pause and load to ram when you select the load to ram box and it will keep the loading out of the performance runtime. This could obviously get complicated with a lot of file and not enough ram but appropriate warnings could be given. If the files should only be loaded close to the time that they are used maybe the load to ram tag in the media bin could have a load to ram for *****scene only, where you let the system know what you want in ram for each scene.

It would be quite some work but here you could also have an option to load an mp3 to ram and at the session start up (or if you select this check box) you could convert the file back to uncompressed and from then on treat it like a real audio file even though it started as an mp3.

Just some thoughts

Fred

jjkanin

Thanks for the explanation.

The important thing for a user like me is that all the audio files end up in the same bin, to be easily choosen with the bin picker.

Then I can chose the player that suits me best, One that preload into RAM or one that does not. When using a bin-picker I think i don't need to load the file into RAM. I prefer to use the sound player rather than the sound movie player only because of the progress bar at the bottom of the player.

That's a beginners opinion

/Jan

lpearse

Options, options...

Would there be a way to combine these choices? Having the option to preload entirely into RAM would be great, but especially when working with older machines with less RAM it would be good to be able to stream from disk, wouldn't it?

I like Fred's suggestion about making it an option in the Media Bin. Could there be an audio only bin, even if it is playing back some files like a movie? Just for clarity.

CraigAlfredson

I think the whole thing could be resolved simply by allowing the sound media player to play aif's and wav's (or having a carbon copy of the actor to maintain separate bins). Perhaps a change in nomenclature would help novices choose the right actor, for example rename the Sound Player to Sound Looper or something and change the Sound Movie Player to Sound Media Player.

Incidentally, I almost always just use regular old Movie Players to play my audio (as mp3's or audio only movies) since it shows me the progress bar and I can use the frequency bands to affect other parameters.

DusX

I like the idea of keeping the current functionality, and perhaps following the above naming recommendations to make things more clear.
If another bin type was added to differentiate native audio from compressed audio that might also be usefull?

CitizenJoe

Hi Mark,

I like Fred's suggestion, too. But...

Would it be an idea to keep what you have (perhaps updating the code as you wish) and create a completely new actor, "Audio File Player" or "CD Player" or something, that offers the functionality of a CD player? It might have Play, Pause, Stop, forward, reverse controls. I'd want to keep all the other things that are there now, loop enable, play start, play length, etc., but not the chunk stuff. It would be really, really lovely if it had a timer built into it, as well! Just like a CD Player. This would be really simple, operationally, for people who simply want to plplayn audio track.

I'd also love to seen an Audio Mixer Actor in which we could adjust all the things that one does in a mixer, such as EQ... Or maybe, to keep it simple an "EQ Actor"? Actually, an EQ Actor makes sense. I don't have a clue what that means from a programming point of view, though!

I realize this doesn't directly answer your question, but it does address the things I really miss in the audio section of Isadora.

Cheers,

Hugh

Michel

I like the idea of CitizenJoe, leave as it is and add a new actor that acts like a cd player.
@citizenjoe the audio core version has an EQ.

Best,
Michel

Skulpture

I agree with @Michel on @citizenjoe comments. A CD like actor would fit the bill for me.

I think it would be more intuitive for new users/student also.

CitizenJoe

@Michel, I laughed when I read your comment about The Core version having an EQ Actor. Of course, I'm on Win7!

Cheers,

Hugh

CraigAlfredson

I would also love to see the frequency band outputs that exist on the movie player actor on the sound player and the AU sound player.

While we are on the subject, it would be great to have an audio output on the movie player, so I could run the audio on movies through core audio effects.