DC-MP3 Director Card Not Sync To Some Sequences

[Guest wbottomley]

Has anyone checked their director card? Mine seems to be not synchronizing to some songs well.

In the sequence editor, it's on the money when it plays (lights connected).

Dan or John... what's your thoughts?

If you wish, I'll zip up those files and email them.



Misc info:

firmware 3.0

baud rate: 57600

Lock step is checked

Music is ripped at cbr 128kbs



EDIT: add more details

[LightORamaJohn]

There can be problems with the way the MP3 was ripped. The recommended MP3 is 128Kbps Constant Bit Rate (CBR).

If you've done this, sometimes we find that the MP3 will be skewed by a small amount of time at the begining, throwing the entire sequence off. This has to do with how Windows Media Player starts the MP3 as opposed to the LOR Director. This can be fixed by reading the MP3 into Audacity and having Audacity re-encode the MP3. You may have to use the Sequence Editor to add/subtract some time at the beginning of the sequence after this process.

There are instructions on the LOR support page explaining where to get Audacity and where to get the LAME MP3 encoder that Audacity uses. See "How to prepare MP3 files for the Sequence Editor."

[Guest wbottomley]

LightORamaJohn wrote:

There can be problems with the way the MP3 was ripped. The recommended MP3 is 128Kbps Constant Bit Rate (CBR).

If you've done this, sometimes we find that the MP3 will be skewed by a small amount of time at the begining, throwing the entire sequence off. This has to do with how Windows Media Player starts the MP3 as opposed to the LOR Director. This can be fixed by reading the MP3 into Audacity and having Audacity re-encode the MP3. You may have to use the Sequence Editor to add/subtract some time at the beginning of the sequence after this process.

There are instructions on the LOR support page explaining where to get Audacity and where to get the LAME MP3 encoder that Audacity uses. See "How to prepare MP3 files for the Sequence Editor."

John...can't remember how it was ripped. I'll use Aduacity to rip it again. What's weird, the light commands are behind not the music. I'm not getting an error light either.

[jeffostroff]

I'm having a similar issue with my MP3 card too, I had posted it here:

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum74/15021.html

In a nutshell, one of my songs is off by 1 second. I always save it as 128 KBS CBR in Audacity, do all my MP3's that way. But this one is off by one second.

[Guest wbottomley]

jeffostroff wrote:

I'm having a similar issue with my MP3 card too, I had posted it here:

http://lightorama.mywowbb.com/forum74/15021.html

In a nutshell, one of my songs is off by 1 second. I always save it as 128 KBS CBR in Audacity, do all my MP3's that way. But this one is off by one second.

Dan is taking a look at my sequences and config files the card uses. I'll post more info when I find out.

[jeffostroff]

I still have not heard back from Dan or nayone at Lightorama about this problem, have you heard back from them concerning your file?

[Guest wbottomley]

jeffostroff wrote:

I still have not heard back from Dan or nayone at Lightorama about this problem, have you heard back from them concerning your file?

They sent my old card back along with a new one. Both are doing the same thing. I'm sending the new one back. In the meantime, I'll be using my pc until this thing gets sorted out.

Are you using your interactive triggers? If not, try putting the selector switch on 0. I think this will keep in time. From what I'm speculating, the interactive function is causing it to get out of time. I have about three songs/announcements that's doing that.

Just speculation, I believe it has to be the firmware. I didn't have this problem last year with version 2 firmware loaded.

I wonder if anyone else is having this problem besides us?

[jeffostroff]

I'm not using any triggers, I just let the card start automatically when the power goes on from the timers. Even so, by time the show repeats, it's no longer running from a trigger so there shoul dbe no delay at that point either. I will also experiment with the problem song being any position other than the first one of the show,

[Guest wbottomley]

Jeff... I noticed I'm having some channels to stick in the "On" position too. What's causing this has me scratching my head.

[jeffostroff]

Work backwards. If the lights are on, it's because the triacs are telling them to be on. So some possibilites are:

1) Intermittent problem on the hardware controller causing triacs to put out voltage when they should be off.

2) LOR Hardware program could be incorrectly coding up the song onto your SD card based on your LMS file.

3) Check your LOR sequence, and make sur ethat at that time in your sequence that the lights are supposed to be off, make sure there is no leftover smudges, ramp ups, etc, that might trigger a light string to turn on.

[Guest wbottomley]

jeffostroff wrote:

Work backwards. If the lights are on, it's because the triacs are telling them to be on. So some possibilites are:

1) Intermittent problem on the hardware controller causing triacs to put out voltage when they should be off.

2) LOR Hardware program could be incorrectly coding up the song onto your SD card based on your LMS file.

3) Check your LOR sequence, and make sur ethat at that time in your sequence that the lights are supposed to be off, make sure there is no leftover smudges, ramp ups, etc, that might trigger a light string to turn on.

Exactly. But the PC has NO problems at all on anything. That's using the sequence editor and show player.

I still believe it resides in the firmware. Because some channels are left on until the end of the sequence then turn off. On round two of playing that sequence, it doesn't leave any channels on but it's about 1/2 to 3/4 second off.

This is turning out to be a weird year.

[LightORamaDan]

Mountainwxman wrote:

On round two of playing that sequence, it doesn't leave any channels on but it's about 1/2 to 3/4 second off.

William... You say here that it was off by 1/2 to 3/4 second on round two. Was it also off by 1/2 to 3/4 second on round one? We are still trying to understand this. We are having a problem reproducing it so it makes it difficult to understand.

We have not received an abnormal number of DC-MP3 issues. Almost all issues (not William's problem) are due to the MP3 file requiring a re-encoding in Audacity. It seems even files that are ripped in audacity must be re-encoded.... i.e. Open the MP3 file then export it as an MP3 file.

[Guest wbottomley]

LightORamaDan wrote:

Mountainwxman wrote:

On round two of playing that sequence, it doesn't leave any channels on but it's about 1/2 to 3/4 second off.

William... You say here that it was off by 1/2 to 3/4 second on round two. Was it also off by 1/2 to 3/4 second on round one? We are still trying to understand this. We are having a problem reproducing it so it makes it difficult to understand.

We have not received an abnormal number of DC-MP3 issues. Almost all issues (not William's problem) are due to the MP3 file requiring a re-encoding in Audacity. It seems even files that are ripped in audacity must be re-encoded.... i.e. Open the MP3 file then export it as an MP3 file.

I'll re-encode those sequences again that are causing problems.

[LightORamaDan]

Mountainwxman wrote:

LightORamaDan wrote:

Mountainwxman wrote:

On round two of playing that sequence, it doesn't leave any channels on but it's about 1/2 to 3/4 second off.

William... You say here that it was off by 1/2 to 3/4 second on round two. Was it also off by 1/2 to 3/4 second on round one? We are still trying to understand this. We are having a problem reproducing it so it makes it difficult to understand.

We have not received an abnormal number of DC-MP3 issues. Almost all issues (not William's problem) are due to the MP3 file requiring a re-encoding in Audacity. It seems even files that are ripped in audacity must be re-encoded.... i.e. Open the MP3 file then export it as an MP3 file.

I'll re-encode those sequences again that are causing problems.

William as I said above I do not think that is your problem.

[Guest wbottomley]

LightORamaDan wrote:

William as I said above I do not think that is your problem.

I'm doing it anyway just so it can be ruled out.

[Guest wbottomley]

Dan & Jeff, I re-encoded the mp3 files that were causing the problems with Audacity.

Now... on the final step, make sure "Lock Step" is NOT checked. Keeping unchecked seems to have solved my problems for now.

*****Stress level went down 1000%***** :D:D:D

[LightORamaDan]

Mountainwxman wrote:

Dan & Jeff, I re-encoded the mp3 files that were causing the problems with Audacity.

Now... on the final step, make sure "Lock Step" is NOT checked. Keeping unchecked seems to have solved my problems for now.

*****Stress level went down 1000%***** :D:D:D

William.... Nice to see the smiley faces.


Dan

[Guest wbottomley]

I would have never thought to "not check" that feature.

Pressure is on and LIVE TV coverage begins at 6pm with the neighbor's granddaughter turning on the lights.

And Dan... you're the only one that knows how were turning on. Let's say it's a pioneered and cool thing.


Everyone will get to see the video this weekend.

[jeffostroff]

Most puzzling. From the hardware manual:

[align=left]Lock Step – This option causes the DC-MP3[/align]
[align=left]to send all controller commands ahead of[/align]
[align=left]time for the next time slice and then give a[/align]
[align=left]global “everybody do their commands”[/align]
[align=left]command. This has the effect of eliminating[/align]
[align=left]the communication line delays when you[/align]
[align=left]have a large number of controller/channels.[/align]
[align=left]This is a recommended setting. This option is[/align]
[align=left]not supported by CTB08 and MC-P cards and[/align]
[align=left]requires firmware version 3.0 or above for 16[/align]
channel controller cards

[Guest wbottomley]

You're right Jeff... but in my case, it was hindering me.