CROSSFADE - SHOULD IT / DID IT EVER WORK?
I was messing around with this option (under QUEUE SETTINGS) and placing various values in the "REMAINING START" box. However the dropdown box next to it only has three options with "Jingle" in their name (I have NORMAL CROSSFADE FOR JINGLES selected).
(http://wombat.biz/wompics/etouch/etouch_bug_crossfade.jpg)
I was assuming that this option would crossfade songs present on the queue as is available in most apps these days. Doesn't seem to work for audio; didn't really expect it to work for video.
I also removed my "newsong.txt" file from the TTS folder temporarily, in case this was affecting it but didn't seem to make any difference.
Does this / did this ever work or am I attempting to use this in an incorrect fashion?
It used to work but it doesn't seem to in the new build.
I believe that cross fade was working on the version that I have, which is 9.024. I do not have my jukeboxes running at the moment to try things for you.
I would suggest to remove he limit queue and lime same artist in queue. Give that a try, as the program is not that smart, if it has too less a tracks, some functions have been known to mess up.
Barry often does not find the same bugs as we have found in the past, as usually he is on a full jukebox, where as when I was bug testing for version 9, I would find loads of bugs as I was mainly testing it on a small build before going larger.
I would also increase the number where you have 3 in the yellow box. When I use cross fade in Kodi, mine is set to at least 15 seconds, 3 seconds is far too short and really it is not cross fading, the silence at the end can be 3 seconds.
Regards
Mark
Like mark said try a larger value in the box. It should work for videos as well and cross fade them. I have it set on mine and it works fine.
Nope... still not working for me. For now, I've unchecked ALL boxes on the QUEUE SETTINGS page to be on the safe side.
Heeding your words, I set the crossfade "Remianing (sic) Start" value to 20.
Database (duplicated on both real and test PCs) is about 15,000 audio (all mp3), 7,000 video (mix of avi/mp4) and 2,500 karaoke (mp3/cdg) so I reckon we're okay for amount of files.
I use the crossfade on the same songs with SONOS app successfully and that only sounds like a coupla seconds overlay between the two which is what I desire.
But with E-Touch crossfade but I'm still not hearing it (even with a value of 20) - still sounds like one song finishes completely before the next starts.
The dropdown box is set to "Normal Crossfade.." as in my picture in the first post.
Haven't tried video yet, but don't expect to attempt to until audio is working.
As I said, I removed the TTS files in case they were interfering with the process when it announces the details at start of song.
Since you say yours is working, would there be any other options on any other page that might play into this (or some option within the media player itself)? Given kevinlpowercom's post, I assume you (Barry) always use the latest iteration of your own software on your main jukebox.
Set mine to 15 seconds and still no crossfade. Even reverted back to 10.1.7 but still no crossfade.
Thanks for that kevinlpowercom, to confirm I'm not going insane (I'm on E-Touch 10.1.6).
Did a little extra playing around....
I reckon this (Crossfading) is now an option you need to "turn on" (it appears deactivated by default) in WMP12 itself (not sure if it existed in earlier versions - never bothered to look for it - think it did but now maybe it's not as obvious as to where it is.)
Can you confirm what version of WMP exists on your system Barry (and your E-Touch version)? Obviously I'm hoping it's at least a WMP12 variant to compare "apples with apples". My laptop (test) version seems to be 12.0.17134.471 for reference.
Outside of E-Touch, and with WMP12 playing a MP3 song/playlist, you may already be on the NOW PLAYING screen. If not, then on the full window, click the VIEW menu tab at the top of the screen and then choose the NOW PLAYING option.
Now right-click anywhere on the NOW PLAYING screen and choose ENHANCEMENTS > CROSSFADING AND AUTO VOLUME LEVELING.
When you click the link to turn on Crossfading, you also get a slider bar that varies between 0 and 10 seconds of crossfade so I set mine to 10 just to hopefully easily identify if it was happening. Outside of E-Touch with just a standard playlist this seems to work although it's not as obvious sometimes as it is with my SONOS setup.
Still doesn't seem to make ANY difference within E-Touch though - not that I've noticed yet anyway. I'll keep playing my queued songs seeing if I can identify it happening there (I even tried raising the E-Touch Crossfade setting to a mad setting of 30.) Not sure how the E-Touch setting might conflict/interact with the WMP12 setting otherwise anyway - hopefully it's somehow not temporarily setting it "off" again.
(*NB* I might be back to look at the Volume Leveling option later since I already use a program (MP3GAIN) that analyses and writes that information into the MP3 tags for players to use - and that seems to work fine. I wonder how/if it would work for videos?)
You need AAC gain to do music videos
You need to download aac gain, rename it to mp3 gain and then overwrite your old mp3 gain file, either that or just rename your mp3 gain file to something else.
Regards
Mark
Set the jukebox to use a second screen and see if it works then....
I am thinking it is because you have it set to single screen.
Barry, you are correct. I switched from dual screen to single screen. The crossfade works with dual screen checked, but the jukebox stops playing after a couple of songs if you are only using a single screen. You can not get it to play again, though it is in random play or if you select something and it goes to the que.
Quote from: kevinlpowercom on January 18, 2019, 11:20:24 PM
Barry, you are correct. I switched from dual screen to single screen. The crossfade works with dual screen checked, but the jukebox stops playing after a couple of songs if you are only using a single screen. You can not get it to play again, though it is in random play or if you select something and it goes to the que.
Is it stopping playing because it is stuck looking for a song due to your random play settings? Try it with random play just set to audio only and see if it is ok then.
Running with single screen, the random play works fine but the crossfade does not work. If (still using a single screen) I put in a crossfade time and I check use second screen, the crossfade will work for two songs and just stop playing after the second song. No song can be played again and nothing was changed in the random play settings.
Just out of interest have you got the online mode turned on? Try turning that off, I have a feeling, that potentially it might be messing it up.
I am not 100% sure of this, but it would be something that I would try.
Regards
Mark
Yes, I did have the online checked, I unchecked it but no difference. In single screen, the random play works fine but the crossfade doesn't work and with second screen checked, the crossfade works for two songs and then Etouch just stops.
I would say that something is wrong with the random play, the reason being is that it has to select a song which might be stored correctly or the program might not have enough time to select a song fast enough.
Try it without randomising tracks, that is like the online function really, as it is using more computer calculation than it actually has.
It is only a dumb visual basic script, and it has the brain of a five year old.
Regards
Mark
I shut random off and put some songs in the que but it did the same thing.
Probably a bug then, as that would be the only things that I could think of to do in relation to cross fade. My jukebox PC is in bits and I do not have it installed on my office PC otherwise I would have tried version 9 as that used to work for me, if I remember correctly.
Regards
Mark
So it looks like it is only working for dual screen set up and using that it isn't working for you at all. Does play now work after it has stopped process the queue.
Well... bugger me! Who'da thunk to look there? (well, you obviously Barry!)
Yes, I too confirm that on a dual-screen setup (like my live photo kiosk jukebox + TV) that crossfade does indeed work, without messing around in WMP outside of E-Touch.
And works for both audio and video although not a huge fan of the 2nd-monitor desktop fade in/out that appears to happen over my full WMP visualisations that otherwise plays during the audio.
My test laptop used to be connected to a spare second screen at work but they got rid of all of the extra hardware lying around a few months ago so single screen it is for me there.
In light of this knowledge, and kevinlpowercom's posts, I turned on the USE SECOND MONITOR checkbox on the APPEARANCE SETTINGS page on my laptop, even though a second screen isn't connected.
Sure 'nuff, the crossfading on the audio tracks works (although you initially get two songs playing on top of each other if you had one already playing - just an annoyance to clear or let it play out.)
So far I haven't experienced any other problems like kevin, although I'm playing a lengthy queue (20+ songs processed out of 85 so far) and haven't gone near the random settings yet with crossfade.
Reinstated my TTS files and the commencement announcement doesn't seem to have any ill-effect on the crossfade function so that's good.
Haven't yet retested video cross-fading in this scenario, although that seems a little pointless since I'll never see them with this setup - guess I can't have my proverbial cake yada yada yada...
Barry - ever possibly contemplate separate crossfade settings for audio vs video? I'll masticate it over for a while but audio crossfade on / video off might be my desired endgame on my live jukebox (and I guess judicious use of the PAUSE SONG AFTER X SECONDS (KARAOKE) on the same settings page. Haven't checked yet if crossfade affects this but obviously wouldn't want it to apply here.)
It does not even give me a button to Play Now with second screen checked, single screen and the button appears.
Hmmm... that doesn't happen for me... On my single-screen test laptop (with "use second monitor" ticked), I have the PLAY IT NOW, PLAY IT NEXT and ADD TO QUEUE all enabled (only have ADD TO QUEUE on real machine) and all show.
Is there any chance you could get screens shots of at least your BUTTON SETTINGS page and APPEARANCE SETTINGS page (and anything else you deem relevant) and paste them here to see if I can replicate your error / see the differences between our setups?
I'm using the TouchGeniPattern skin.
Kevin are you running everything as admin?
Yes, everything in admin, on root of C:\ using Windows 10.
Kevin what skin are you using.
Blue Neon 1920X1080, but I tried Black And Yellow Letters 16X9 and Touch Geni and they did the same thing.
kevin (but all really)... I don't want to take this post in a different direction but is there any easy way these days for one person to show another person their PC screen without having to install extra software? Hold up an iPad running Skype?
I'd like to help you and I'm trying like buggery to pseudo-randomly alter options and use different skins (I have some of what you appear to) and always run E-Touch as admin, not install into Program Files yada yada yada, but I cannot replicate your position given I now otherwise "work" once Barry pointed out the "use second monitor". No solace for you at the moment I know, but the various PLAY buttons always show for me.
Given the discussion would like to think that if I could "see" your screen without you grabbing screenshots/videos and loading them somewhere (I see an attachment button below on the post screen) that this is more a "setup"/UAC error than a "bug".
I've had a look at your post history and it seems you've suffered a few "second screen" issues in the past. Also, does your machine still have a betabrite etc. attached to it? (just another thing to check.... I don't but me messing around with those options don't seem alter anything we're talking about)...
As a matter of interest, if you can't provide a screenshot, what IS shown on the track selection screen from the following:-
- Background fan art or default artwork
- The folder art
- The track title and track artist
- Any video/karaoke available buttons if applicable
- Any of the play now, play next (make mine first), add to queue, add to playlist buttons (assume no)
- the 'x' button to close the screen
Stupid question but the track isn't already in the queue which would negate most of these buttons showing here (except add to playlist I think) if you don't, like me, allow duplicates in the queue... can you see any text in their place (or could that be a colour we can't see or transparency settings somehow coming into play)?
Of course, I'm on 10.1.6 (I think you said you were on 10.1.7+)... might try downloading a later version tonight just in case.
Ok, I think I've got it. Second monitor has to be checked, but it wound not work for me in manual. I had to change to monitor 1 and then it worked.
Quote from: kevinlpowercom on January 24, 2019, 05:47:08 AM
Ok, I think I've got it. Second monitor has to be checked, but it wound not work for me in manual. I had to change to monitor 1 and then it worked.
If you have 2 screens then in manual you have to put the resolution in of the main screen so it can position the second one. Also the second one has to be located to the right of the 1st in windows even if that isn't physically the case.
I"m using single screen.
Quote from: kevinlpowercom on January 24, 2019, 12:46:36 PM
I"m using single screen.
Odd, in that case it shouldn't have mattered what you picked as you are not bothered about where it is displaying it should still have then used the crossfade correctly.
Crossfade would not work in singel screen. I had to check use second screen and then change monitor to one instead of manual in order for it to work with one screen.
That's strange... I tried messing around with those options (Manual/1/2 but always had resolution specified) yesterday and it made no difference for me in trying to exhibit the symptoms you said you were getting.
i am sure something odd is going on with Kevin's install. Kev, have you installed the latest VB6 service pack? I am not sure if this is needed or not but it might be worth trying.