Spacebar stopping problem

[Brad Stucky]

Is anyone else having trouble with the spacebar stopping the sequence editor at the proper place? With last years software, I noticed an infrequent glitch while stopping and starting the sequence editor. About 1 in 100-200 times or so, the spacebar would cause the select point to hop back to the starting point instead of stopping and remaining at the correct place. A 2 month-ago change in the video card has had no effect on this behaviour. With the recent update plus the addition of 2 color ribbons (another 300 channels) this little glitch has gotten quite a bit worse. It seems to be much more prominent when the screen is scrolled down to the lower tracks. It happens more than 50% of the time in this case. I have the play range set to full sequence. I am using 4 tracks with 250+ channels on the first track and 1 track each for the color ribbons and another small 16 channel track. Yeah, I should probably split up that 1st track into more but I don't think this should be an issue here if a color ribbon is 150 channels. My animation screen resolution is set to 352 x 934 with all channels programmed to the screen. (Yes, it was tedious to do, but well worth the effort in appearance)

My hardware is an Nvidia GTS250 on 2 monitors, AMD Phemon 9550 Quad-core with 6 gig memory.

And by the way, Thanks Dan and crew! The updates to the software are fantastic! Multiple clipboards, chase tool and other stuff, oh my!!

[shfr26]

I too am having the same problem. About 75% of the time the song will revert back to a different starting point when I use the spacebar to start and stop. I only have 48 channels and one track. It is not always the start of the song, it may just go back to where the screen was when I started and sometimes just a few seconds back.

Edit: I just did some "testing" and it appears that if you play less than about 5-6 seconds it reverts back to where I had stated it before. If I let it play over 5-6 seconds it seems to work properly. Maybe this will help Dan and crew figure out the glitch.

[bob]

I'm not sure that I'm understanding. Here's the way that the spacebar is supposed to work:

If you have selected a freeform play range, the space bar should start play at the beginning of the freeform play range.

If you have not selected a freeform play range, the space bar should start play at the start of the currently selected area of the active track.

Is it possible that you're looking at a track which is not the active track? And that the active track and the track you're looking at have different timings? If so, then when you hit the space bar, play will start based upon the current selection in a track that you're not looking at, and so it may seem to you that it's starting at the wrong time.

I have attached a sequence to demonstrate this. It has two tracks, each with one channel. The first track has 0.10 second timings; the second has 2 second timings.

Start play, and stop it at about 3.00 seconds. Now the selected area of the first track should be 3.00 to 3.10, and the selected area of the second track should be 2.00 to 4.00.

If you now hit the space bar, play will start either at 3.00 seconds or 2.00 seconds, depending upon which track is the active track.

Attached files

TwoShortTracks.las

[shfr26]

In the previous version, If I opened a sequence and used the mouse to highlight any cell, then hit the spacebar it would start it, hit the spacebar again, it would stop, hit it again, it would start from where it had stop before, not start at the beginning of the sequence or anytime before where the spacebar was hit to stop it.



Edit: in your attachment if you hit the bar it stops, hit it again it starts where it had stopped. Mine does not do that, it will revert back to some other starting point if not played longer than about 5 seconds. Hope that makes sense.

[jim6918]

In a very similar vein, I wish there was a fix for the probem where the spacebar is not active when the visualizer is up and on top of the sequence editor. I like to sequence and edit using the visuaizer more than the editor itself so i usually minimize the viualizer to about 75% of the monitor size so I can still see the sequence editor underneath. Of course, this makes the viualizer the "active" window and unless you click on the sequence editor none of the controls will work. Sure you can stop the sequence using the visualizer controls, but at my age and slow reaction times, I am usually a few seconds past the point where I want to stop. Being able to stop and start using the space bar would be a big help. I thought about going to a two monitor system, but you would still need to have one window or the other "active."

[Shubb]

Not to sidetrack this thread, but having 2 monitors is incredibly advantageous. You can have 1 monitor for the sequence editor, the second strictly for the visualizer.

I keep mine full size and even though it is not active, it will stay visable and you can use the space bar to start/stop while being able to see both windows.

Scott

[shfr26]

Just downloaded 2.8.8, The spacebar problem is not fixed, I did not think it was in the new release, but just wanted to make sure.

[LightORamaDan]

shfr26 wrote:

Just downloaded 2.8.8, The spacebar problem is not fixed, I did not think it was in the new release, but just wanted to make sure.

Cannot reproduce this issue, can you send your sequence to support@lightorama.com (and the audio file).

Thanks
Dan

[shfr26]

I just sent Bob a video and will send the file soon

[LightORamaDan]

shfr26 wrote:

I just sent Bob a video and will send the file soon

Thank you... send the vile to Bob then!

Dan

[shfr26]

LightORamaDan wrote:

shfr26 wrote:

I just sent Bob a video and will send the file soon

Thank you... send the vile to Bob then!

Dan

Will send the file to support also thanks. Do you want to finish sequencing it while you have it ?

[TJ Hvasta]

What I was noticing but didnt register until I read thru this thread, is that even back to 2.7.6, if I was using space bar, or Play From Point (click on a box), the audio would not be synced to the light clicked/stopped point.. I would have to start from the beginning to get it to sync correctly. I have not tried it with 2.8.6 yet (on the road), I'll try in next couple days and let you know if 2.8.8 (or .6) does it

TJ

[LightORamaDan]

TJ Hvasta wrote:

What I was noticing but didnt register until I read thru this thread, is that even back to 2.7.6, if I was using space bar, or Play From Point (click on a box), the audio would not be synced to the light clicked/stopped point.. I would have to start from the beginning to get it to sync correctly. I have not tried it with 2.8.6 yet (on the road), I'll try in next couple days and let you know if 2.8.8 (or .6) does it

TJ

This is an entirely different issue and generally has to do with the MP3 file being used. It can be re-encoded at a constant bit rate (CBR) using audacity or converted to a wav file and that should take care of the issue.

Dan

[Brad Stucky]

bob wrote:

I'm not sure that I'm understanding. Here's the way that the spacebar is supposed to work:

If you have selected a freeform play range, the space bar should start play at the beginning of the freeform play range.

If you have not selected a freeform play range, the space bar should start play at the start of the currently selected area of the active track.

Is it possible that you're looking at a track which is not the active track? And that the active track and the track you're looking at have different timings? If so, then when you hit the space bar, play will start based upon the current selection in a track that you're not looking at, and so it may seem to you that it's starting at the wrong time.

I have attached a sequence to demonstrate this. It has two tracks, each with one channel. The first track has 0.10 second timings; the second has 2 second timings.

Start play, and stop it at about 3.00 seconds. Now the selected area of the first track should be 3.00 to 3.10, and the selected area of the second track should be 2.00 to 4.00.

If you now hit the space bar, play will start either at 3.00 seconds or 2.00 seconds, depending upon which track is the active track.

I'm at work so I can't check out the sequence, but I think I understand what you're explaining, Bob. I've had that happen and realised I had scrolled down but hadn't clicked to make the visible track active. Correct me if I'm wrong, but to select which track is active, you simply click the mouse (place the cursor) on the track that is presently visible. This is what I have been doing since the tracks feature was added to the software. Most of the time, the spacebar will start the song at the selected (mouseclicked) point or the last spacebar stopping point and the spacebar will then stop the sequence with the cursor at the point in the sequence where the cursor is then located. Under these same conditions, it will of it's own free mind decide to pop back to where the cursor had last started when I tapped the space bar (or placed it with the mouseclick.) I doesn't hop back more than one spacebar cycle. It acts like it didn't realize it was playing. (Whew! This is difficult to explain) This all happens with the same track showing. (no scrolling up or down during this time) Hopefully, the video from "shfr26" will be helpful. For me, it never deviates from either the correct (expected) stopping point or the last starting point (or the previous spacebar). I haven't noticed that it picks a random spot in between. You literally cannot edit the track when it keeps popping back to the previous point. I've tried clicking on the screen when the sequence is playing to see if that will help, but it will still pop back. This does not appear to be related to what sequence I have loaded, however, it has gotten worse since I've added channels and tracks to them. (color ribbons) When I scroll down and work on the other tracks, it occurs much more often. The top track is much more cooperative, although it, too, will sometimes pop back. During the past year, while editing, this would only rarely happen, but when it did, I would wonder why the heck it did that. I thought I was familiar enough with the software to know what to expect when hitting the spacebar, so I think this is an old problem. Perhaps it so rarely happened in the past, that several other individuals just passed it off and went on their way editing. That's what I did at least. I will investigate more this evening to see if there is any factor that affects the situation, like number of tracks, channels, etc. I'm using Windows 7. I will install and check this out on another computer with WinXP to see if it might be related to computer hardware or OS.

[shfr26]

After I sent the video and the file, it is happening less often. Sure glad a got a video of it in action. I really do love the new software, and am sure it will cut down on sequencing time, but the spacebar thing is annoying. LOR keep up the great customer support even for dummies like me.

[bob]

The sample sequence that was sent to me has only one track, so my explanation is not the cause.

We're trying to figure out other possible causes.

[Brad Stucky]

After more investigation, it appears the problem is compounded by the number of channels visable on the editor page. I have 2 monitors and my editor page monitor is turned portrait. The monitor resolution is 1980 x 1200 and I have the channels shrunken vertically to the max in order to show as many channels as possible. I can have a sequence open showing 2 complete color ribbons if the RGB channels are minimized. When trying to use the spacebar with these 2 tracks showing, it pops back almost every time. If I minimize the editor screen and shrink it down so that fewer channels show, the problem starts to go away. Last year I was using this same monitor and my channel count was over 200. The problem started to show last year but then not all 200 channels could be displayed on the screen at once. With 2 color ribbons on the screen at the same time (with RGB channels minimized) there is potentially 300 channels that are needing to be accessed to show on the screen. Even though only 100 are showing, all 300 would need to be accessed to show the blended color on the RGB channel. Does this make sense? I hope this is useful to someone.

[Brad Stucky]

Brad Stucky wrote:

After more investigation, it appears the problem is compounded by the number of channels visable on the editor page. I have 2 monitors and my editor page monitor is turned portrait. The monitor resolution is 1980 x 1200 and I have the channels shrunken vertically to the max in order to show as many channels as possible. I can have a sequence open showing 2 complete color ribbons if the RGB channels are minimized. When trying to use the spacebar with these 2 tracks showing, it pops back almost every time. If I minimize the editor screen and shrink it down so that fewer channels show, the problem starts to go away. Last year I was using this same monitor and my channel count was over 200. The problem started to show last year but then not all 200 channels could be displayed on the screen at once. With 2 color ribbons on the screen at the same time (with RGB channels minimized) there is potentially 300 channels that are needing to be accessed to show on the screen. Even though only 100 are showing, all 300 would need to be accessed to show the blended color on the RGB channel. Does this make sense? I hope this is useful to someone.

Fantastic!! Version 2.8.10 fixes this little glitch. Many thanks to Team LightORama!! I'm really really enjoying the new commands and features!