| Ots Studio |
To navigate to the ACI chunk handler to adjust mix points click on the + next to the item you want to edit in the File Chunk Map area -- this will expand the item and show the associated chunks. Click on the Audio Control Info chuck, this will display the Audio Control Info chunk handler.
When you click on the Show Intro or Show Outro button the chunk handler positions the waveform scrollbar in the correct position in order for you to view the intro or outro. If that region of the waveform has not been mapped, then it maps it first. Mapping refers to decoding that portion of the stream in order to be able to generate the display. If you're just tweaking intros or outros then normally you won't need to view more than just the very beginning or ending of a track, and so the ACI chunk handler won't waste time mapping the entire track. If you need to view the complete waveform however, then simply click on the Show All button, and the entire track will be mapped and displayed.
To set a particular point, you first choose the point you wish to set from the drop down combo control.
You then click on the Set On Graph button, move the mouse pointer to the position where you want to set the point, and click the left button.
Tip: As a shortcut, you can simply click the right mouse button instead of clicking on the Set On Graph button.
Not all points can be set totally independently of one another. There are various relationships that exist between certain points in order to keep them within the official Ots Media File ACI standard. When setting a trim point, the fade and reference points are also set to this new location -- that is when you set the trim point, you are really setting all three points to that position. For that reason, you should always start by setting the trim point, then subsequently setting the fade and reference points. Of course if you don't want to change the trim point, but rather just need to make a slight tweak to one of the other points, then that's fine. Just don't set other points, and then set the trim point, because if you do then the other points' locations will be reset to the new trim point location when you set it!
When setting a reference point, note that it must lie within 3 seconds of the trim point. The mouse pointer will change if you are outside this range, so you don't need to worry about this, just be aware of it. Since a track's intro can have up to a 3 second difference between the trim and reference points, and so can a track's outro, this means that when two Ots items are mixed using the ACI data, that the longest possible time that the two songs will overlap one another for, is 6 seconds (unless they are being played at slower tempos, etc). This is not an arbitrary limitation, but rather has been carefully thought out. Remember that the goal of mixing with ACI data is that any two songs will professionally mix together. It is not reasonable to expect to be able to overlap a lengthy intro or outro with another song, and be sure that it will sound professional no matter what the other song is. If you want to perform special lengthy overlap mixes between particular songs that you know just happen to mix well together, then that should be done manually in real-time, as this is not the type of mixing that would meet the criteria of the ACI specification (nor its goals for that matter).
When you click on the Play button, the track will play in any one of a number of different play modes. The current play mode can be set with the bottom drop down combo control. Some play modes include Raw - from cursor, ACI - from cursor, ACI - Intro, ACI - Outro intro hard, etc. These modes are fairly self explanatory. You can test your current ACI point settings by using one of the modes such as ACI - Intro after hard. This mode will play the last 10 or so seconds of a special Ots Studio track, then mix into the start of the track you are currently editing, honouring the ACI settings. This allows you to preview exactly how the song would mix in other playing software, without having to go to the trouble of saving the file and loading it into another program. Note that as a shortcut, you can always double-click on the waveform and it will play in "raw" mode, regardless of the current play mode setting.
For any audio/video/CD+G content that is strictly karaoke, check the Karaoke Flag checkbox. By doing this, OtsAV will recognize the audio as karaoke, and display a K in the Attributes column. This helps with identifying the right track to play if you have multiple entries of the same song in your Media Library.
Tip: To set the Karaoke Flag on all items in an Ots file, use the Item/Chunk filter option.