time sync

[duane.mosley]

I have a couple of songs that are still behind by a second or two. they play spot on in vixen but are behind just a bit in the conductor. all songs have been converted to ogg file type, I have the new v69 firmware. 3 of my six songs play spot on with the conductor, but 3 don't. the audio does match playing in vixen though.

[duane.mosley]

i double checked tonight, i have songs that play great in vixen but run behind in ogg form on the conductor. i used audacity to convert all my audio. once again, 3 songs play rock solid on the conductor, 3 songs don't. i also have convertor lite and it gives an audio quality option. 320kpbs 256, 192, or 128. does it matter which one we use? i used audacity and it doesn't give you an option for audio quality. weird how 3 run great and 3 don't, but all 6 run rock solid in vixen scheduler.

[RJ]

I used 192k for my music. Too high might cause issues. When you say off do you mean it falls behind or is it off the same all the way through?

RJ

[duane.mosley]

I used 192k for my music. Too high might cause issues. When you say off do you mean it falls behind or is it off the same all the way through?

RJ

it stays out of time all the way threw the song. which is weird because of how you have it set up to update itself. one of the songs is 8-10 seconds off. i will convert them all to 192 and see what that does for it.


duane

[zwiller]

That is a new one for me.  During beta I was fixated on a flawless sync.  To say we spent a lot of time on it is an understatement.  I think it's possible we all have multiple copies of the same song on our machines and it's easy enough to pick the wrong mp3 file.  Maybe that's it?   In my experiences not all mp3s are the same and different sources for mp3s have different song lengths and almost always different song start times.  For the record, the sync issues we worked through and fixed could be measured in milliseconds but not seconds... 

[RJ]

I used 192k for my music. Too high might cause issues. When you say off do you mean it falls behind or is it off the same all the way through?

RJ

it stays out of time all the way threw the song. which is weird because of how you have it set up to update itself. one of the songs is 8-10 seconds off. i will convert them all to 192 and see what that does for it.


duane

Ok 8 sec is a lot! Does it start 8 sec off? Or does it get off by 8 sec?

Did you mod the song any let cut a few seconds off the front of the song?

Ogg has the timing in the file. So the conductor reads how many milliseconds it is in the song to sync the lights. It checks this each 50ms so it should not get out like that. But if the music file is showing timing different than what is correct the lights will be out that amount. If it was to jump 2 sec forward in the middle of the song the lights will jump ahead the same 2 secs. So we are looking for something strange in the org file.

RJ

[duane.mosley]

i agree that 8 seconds is a lot. all the audio i used to convert to ogg came from the same audio folder in vixen. i went threw last night and converted everything to 192kbps. when i went to use converter lite to convert to 192kbps, two of the songs it wouldn't convert, said something about the bit rate being off. i will load the new audio files onto the conductor today when i get home from work and see what happens.

[duane.mosley]

i converted all my audio files to 192kbps and that helped out a lot. i also think i got a hold of an unedited version of one of my songs. i shave a second off the beginning and it helped out but i am still behind.  i will have to do some more editing and i should be good. 


thanks


duane

[lonewolf41]

I'm going to comment here.  If I need a new thread, I will start one.  I originally posted this in the conductor beta section, but it might get more looks here.  Sorry for the repost/duplicate. 

First of all the good, the conductor plays the show on time every night.  AWESOME!!  <res.

Now the reason for this post.  I notice that during the first few (maybe 20) seconds of my sequences that the lights come on before the music.  I will time it and narrow it down, but it is probably in the neighborhood of 150ms or so.  It does, however, get back into time.  It gets a little better until maybe 20 seconds in when it is synched up again.  I am wondering if I have missed a vital setting or step along the way.  My conductor was fixed and used by RJ for testing purposes, so I don't think that is the issue.  I am (of course) using OGG files for my audio.  I don't remember setting a bit rate (if that is even a possibility) so do I need to look at a different bit rate as that affected my playback last year...albeit the issue got worse as the song went along, not better.  Any other thoughts?  I am going to redo the beginning of my sequences to move the lights back for the first few seconds to at least make it look better.  I'll know more tomorrow after I play with it more and get the exact amount it is off.

Now this is after some quick testing tonight:

I played the sequence I thought looked the worst manually by creating a show of just that sequence (with the sound file of course) and it plays fine; however, when that same sequence plays as part of my show, it is fast.  I have a 38 second welcome message and then the sequence in question starts right after that.  It is fast (lights come on before the music) right away.  Again, if I manually play the sequence by selecting the show I have set up of just it, it is right in sync.  But the same sequence played as a part of my normal show of 5 songs and the welcome is off a little.  It seems the "scheduler" is speeding up the lights somehow maybe?  Also, I checked my sound file and it is 160 kb/s.

Thoughts?

-Keith

[lonewolf41]

Videos showing what I am seeing.  I think you can see how it is really off at the beginning, but gets better the longer it goes.

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Thanks,
-Keith

[zwiller]

Keith, you are very much describing how the conductor was working with previous firmware.  Are you using the most current?  v69.  You will need the the new control panel too. 

[TexasStingray]

Are you using the most current?  v69.  You will need the the new control panel too.

What is the control panel?

[keitha43]

The software that you to create shows, schedules, passwords, ect. The control panel would need to be V3. Both the firmware and control panel are available here-
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[lonewolf41]

Keith, you are very much describing how the conductor was working with previous firmware.  Are you using the most current?  v69.  You will need the the new control panel too.

I must say that I am not 100% sure what version I have on my conductor.  I sent my conductor to RJ back in February to help him work the issues we were seeing since mine was one of the ones having trouble.  He used it for development of the new firmware.  I can only assume it is the latest.  In fact, he used it at the academy for the display there.  I will go ahead and reflash just to be sure.  I am using the correct version of the control panel. 

Thanks,
-Keith

[lonewolf41]

So I flashed the conductor with the V69 just to be sure.  Now, I cannot get it to connect.  When I start the control panel and enter the password, it says waiting for about 3-4 seconds and then not connected.  I never had this trouble before.  I moved everything off the CF card and reformatted it just to be sure everything was fresh.  Now I don't know if the show will run or not. 

Any ideas?  I seemed to have made things worse.

-Keith