1) Timing of play full sequence vs play visable is out of sync

[Guest guest]

1) Sequencer messes up timing of channels after I have colored them in and tested

What happens: I'm in the musical sequence editor doing a 16 channel sequence for Ghostbusters, and have just completed the first 10 seconds of filling in all my channels, and tested them with the animation window. They work perfectly, synched up to the music, and tested.

Now I scroll ahead a few seconds to work on the next 10 seconds of the song, and suddenly, the channels that I shaded in and tested perfectly are now off synched from the song by about 1 second. I slide the sequence back to the beginning again, and play and the music is aligned properly again. Here's the weird thing. If I slide the window so that I'm looking at the timeline and IF I'm viewing any time after the 4.8 second mark, the off synch problem will occur. (i.e., viewing from 5 seconds onward). If I slide the time frame over a teeny bit so that any time before the 4.8 second mark is visible in the view, then the timing works perfectly. Anyone seen this strange problem?

2) Problem number 2 which I have seen a couple of times before is the animation window will stop updating when you play the sequence. Sometimes it shows your light layout and does nothing, other times the animation window goes black, and does nothing. The only way to recover is to close LOR and re-enter.

Anyone else seen these strange anomalies?

[Guest guest]

Looks like I sort of solved Problem #1. I theorized that LOR was having a problem extracting timing info from the MP3 song. So I imported the MP3 file into Audacity, then looked and noticed 3 seconds of blank space at the start of the song, which is a waste, so I deleted it, and saved the MP3 file. It's possible that something in the file was slightly corrupt enough to cause the sequencer, which uses the Windows Media Player engine to play back songs, to choke on it.

Then I imported the modified MP3 file back into LOR sequencer, and the problem went away! I seem to recall one other time that Audacity helped like this, when the sequencer added about 15 seconds of empty space to the front of a song that I used in the taper wizard.

Anyway, what about problem #2, any ideas?

[Guest guest]

The song was probably originally recorded with a variable bit rate which would give you the problems you mention. When you saved it from Audacity it saved as a set bit rate and problem solved.

Problem 2. It could be that you have another program running in the background that is affecting LOR. Try closing some of the background programs and see if it helps.

[Guest guest]

jeffostroff wrote:

2) Problem number 2 which I have seen a couple of times before is the animation window will stop updating when you play the sequence. Sometimes it shows your light layout and does nothing, other times the animation window goes black, and does nothing. The only way to recover is to close LOR and re-enter.

Anyone else seen these strange anomalies?

It's a bug. At least, I have this same problem. I have not come up with any reason why it happens. I can leave the program open for days before I get the problem. Other times, it will happen after 10 minutes. As you said, the only fix I found was to close and reopen the program. It happens few times a month and I never lose any work, so I always just ignored it. (Are you on the demo still? I had the problem on the demo but since I installed the full version, I have never had the problem. But, I've only been on the full version for about 15 days.)

Maybe Dan has heard about this one before?

[Guest guest]

Using Audacity to re-encode MP3 files has fixed any issues that people have had with timing ( at least as I can recall ).

As far as the animation window hanging.... Was not aware of that but as mentioned an easy fix is to stop/start the sequence editor. We will try and reproduce it.

[Guest guest]

Dan:



Yes, that has fixed it for me the half dozen times that it has ocurred. I just close the program, and come back in everything is fine again with the animation window.



I have always had the full version, I never even loaded the demo version, as soon as I ordered the kits online 2 months ago, I got the software with them.

[Guest guest]

Is there any way of knowing if you are running the demo version or the real version?

Mine says 1.5.0 Copyright 2003.

I really forgot if I ever loaded the version off of CD when it was delivered!

I know I loaded the updated Control Panel application because I can create the MP3 Controller show.

[Guest guest]

Yes, there is a way to tell if you're running the demo version.

In the Sequence Editor, go to the PLAY menu.

See if you can check off the "Control Lights" option.

If you cna't, you got the demo version. IF you can check it off, then you got the fully functional version.

[Guest guest]

Thanks... looks like I have the full version installed.

[Guest guest]

Ok, I have proof! It happened to me today on the full version. Here's how it happened:

1. I'm playing around with one of Marty's starter sequences. LOR is working great!
2. In the middle of playing a sequence, the animation "freezes." That is, LOR stops putting output to the window. It stops like you took at screen shot of the animation window at that second, but the sound continues. (LOR is still playing, so I stopped it using the stop button at this point.) The LOR regular window freezes too. That is, if you use the scrollbars to scroll, the scroll bars DO move, but the LOR grid does NOT move. After about 30 seconds, the scrollbars started working. I closed the animation window and reopened it, and the animation window is a blank screen. Then, I took the video below:

http://lorsequences.com/pc/lormessup.wmv


CPU and memory were fine when I checked it.