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ejthomas Location: USA Posts: 9	Posted - Sun Jan 19, 2003 4:29 pm  Hi all: I am using CE2000 in stereo mode, and I have created a batch script that will select exactly the first 50 seconds of a song. I select the range by Double-clicking on the top row of Time Display Fields to enter values for selection times. The problem is, when I run the script on any other song, it no longer selects the first 50 seconds, rather it selects some percentage of the length of the song, which is not what I want. I want the script to select the first 50 seconds of *any* song. Does anyone know how to do that? If you are interested in the longer explanation, please read on... When I started looking at the batch file entries, I noticed that any selection seems to be calculated based on a "scaled" property as seen here: Selected: 0 to 2204999 scaled 7341180 SR 44100 So I analyzed this a bit and found there is a direct correlation between what ends up in the script and what I see in my 30 fps scaled view. It translates into the following seconds: Selected: 0:00:00:00 to 0:00:50:00 scaled 0:02:46:14 So, if I want to select 50 seconds on a song that is 3 minutes long, I have to calculate the range based on a multiplier... well, you get the picture. I just doesn't meet my needs. What this appears to mean is that selecting a range is always relative to the "scaled" (total length) number which will be different for every song. I've also tried some other time scale views but it's the same problem. So my question is this: how can I select just the first x seconds of a song consistently for any length song? My ultimate goal is to batch process an entire CD worth of WAV files to cut everything but the first 50 seconds of the song, compress it a bit, normalize it, fade out the last 7 seconds, and finally save it to mp3 format and repeat the process for all the other songs. The shortened mp3s are then published on a website as "samplers" for selling CDs. This is sort of like how some website software will create thumbs of photos automatically. I want to make it easy to make "thumbs" of songs in mp3 format. My script does everything I described perfectly, except the range selected is different for every song, so they range from about 30 to 70 seconds or so, all very random. How can I make it consistently select exactly the same range on all songs? Any help would be greatly appreciated! Erik _________________ Bluegrass rules
jonrose Location: USA Posts: 2901	Posted - Mon Jan 20, 2003 6:45 pm  Younglove deciphered this problem some time ago, and in some detail as I remember... But in a nutshell, what is being saved by the CE Script is not an absolute time value, but a percentage of the file's length. Sorry I don't have time to search for that thread right now - I'm off to a session. You can look around for it if you like - and maybe someone else who remembers a bit more about this problem can help you, also. :) All the best... -Jon _________________
ejthomas Location: USA Posts: 9	Posted - Mon Jan 20, 2003 9:10 pm  jonrose wrote: Younglove deciphered this problem some time ago, and in some detail as I remember... But in a nutshell, what is being saved by the CE Script is not an absolute time value, but a percentage of the file's length. Sorry I don't have time to search for that thread right now - I'm off to a session. You can look around for it if you like - and maybe someone else who remembers a bit more about this problem can help you, also. Yeah, glad to hear that others have confirmed what I discovered on my own. Thanks for the tip about younglove, but I exhaustively searched all of younglove's posts on record and cannot find any post related to this particular problem in CE. By the way, is this forum moderated by any CE tech support at all? Seems like I wouldn't be the only one in the world who'd like to select a range in a script and expect it to select the same range in all files. Pretty big software design flaw if you ask me--or at least a power user's feature request that merits a spot on the next release's market requirements document. But I don't know the big picture so it would be great to hear from a CE engineer why they did that and if there is a workaround. Erik Sr. Staff Software Engineer Documentum, Inc. _________________ Bluegrass rules
Syntrillium M.D. Location: USA Posts: 5124	Posted - Tue Jan 21, 2003 9:51 am  Quote: By the way, is this forum moderated by any CE tech support at all? ---ejthomas Hello EJ. I've been at the NAMM show for the past few days, but yes, this forum is moderated by yours truly. Regarding the scripting function that you're after, I can only say that it functions 'as designed', though there have been some requests for what you're asking. We'll keep you posted. ---Syntrillium, M.D. _________________
ejthomas Location: USA Posts: 9	Posted - Tue Jan 21, 2003 11:26 am  Quote: Regarding the scripting function that you're after, I can only say that it functions 'as designed', though there have been some requests for what you're asking. We'll keep you posted. ---Syntrillium, M.D. Hi: Yeah, that's why I didn't call it a bug as I was pretty sure that it was working as designed, though I can't for the life of me figure out why selecting a range by entering seconds is serialized into a percentage of the entire wave in a script file that is designed to be run against more than one file. It would be simpler and more predictable to store exactly what the user just thought they did in the script file, like: Selected: 0:00:00:00 to 0:00:50:00 fixed How a selection is stored internally wouldn't have to change at all, but for scripts, just add a tiny bit of logic while reading and writing the script that converts to and from absolute seconds. But it's cool. My own software doesn't do everything for everyone either, so you'll just have to prioritize this request with others as a candidate for a new feature down the road. And, I'm often doing things with software that most people would never think of doing, so I'm no stranger to not falling within a standard deviation or two of the norm. But to meet my immediate needs, if I were to upgrade to CEP can I still work in stereo mode for mastering in much the same way I do now? I really love the CE features for compressing, normalizing (I've got the audio cleanup plugin too), etc. Does CEP have this "scaled" selection issue too? If I upgraded could I script what I need? If I could get what I need by upgrading I'd do it, though I don't really have a need for multi-tracking. Any comments would be appreciated. Thanks! Erik _________________ Bluegrass rules
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