This topic contains historical information on changes, enhancements and corrections to XStudio by version number and date. For the most recent changes and enhancements, see the What's New topic.
Version 3.5.2.525 - 01/11/2018
1.Change. XStudio includes an updated XEngine, which corrects a problem handling audio files that have a valid header but contain no audio. Previously, if playback of such a file was attempted, XEngine would lock up and have to be killed in Task Manager.
2.Fix. XStudio would set itself as the active, foreground application when a banner or countdown timer dialog was hidden automatically, even if XStudio was not the active application on the host PC. Now, if a user is working in another application when one of these dialogs closes automatically, XStudio will not set itself as the current, active application.
Version 3.5.1.510 - 01/23/2017
1.Enhancement. When dragging a song from the music search dialog to the log, the song's intro time is now included, if available.
2.Enhancement. When performing a music look-up to update the log, the intro time is updated, if available.
3.Fix. Corrected a problem in audit reporting where XStudio would report an audio item as "CANCELED" if the item's Aux Mark was less than ½ second.
4.Fix.Dragging a song from the music search dialog to the log did not work properly if the search dialog's display columns had been rearranged.
5.Fix. Corrected a condition where XStudio would produce an exception when importing a music database and the contents of the release year field were invalid.
6.Fix. Corrected a problem where a music import would fail if the source data file had records containing extraneous spaces at the beginning of a record.
Version 3.5.0.490 - 06/08/2016
1.Enhancement. A new task, Remote Start, has been added. You can use this task as a part of an Action assigned to a switcher Input Relay, for instance, to duplicate the functionality of the original game port remote starts. As availability of good-quality game ports, particularly USB types, seems to be diminishing, the Remote Start task may be a good alternative if you have a switcher with available, unused Input Relays. See the topic Remote Starts Using Input Relays for a step-by-step procedure to implement remote starts using input relays.
2.Enhancement. Importing of music data has be revised to include more information. Depending on the music scheduling system you are exporting your library from, XStudio now imports song run time (length), category, intro, ending, album, and release year. Note that some library exports do not include all of this new information and when not present in the source data, XStudio will leave the affected field blank. The additional information is visible as a default in the Music Maintenance area of the XStudio Automation Setup dialog. The Music Search Dialog as a default displays a subset of the additional fields and can be user-modified to display or hide fields of your choosing. If you update an older version of XStudio, the additional data is imported the first time an auto-update of the music data occurs or if you manually re-import the data in the Music Maintenance dialog.
3.Enhancement. A new music export template for MusicMaster has been introduced. This template adds the fields Album and Year (typically Peak Year or Release Year) to the exported data. A sample template is included in the XStudio installation. The template contents are documented in the Exporting MusicMaster topics. This new export structure can be constructed and used with other music scheduling systems as well. See the topic Generic dcsTools (XStudio) Export for more information.
4.Enhancement. Cart macro characters are now converted when dragging and dropping a log item directly onto a playback deck or into the Audio Clipboard, and when macro characters are used in a hot button. In all cases the macro characters are evaluated at the start of play.
5.Enhancement. XStudio now detects Windows 10 and adjusts its display accordingly.
6.Change. The underlying database engine has been updated to NexusDB version 4.
7.Fix. When changing the Next-to-Play marker on the log, either user-directed or with a log directive, the display font settings for the old and new log Next-to-Play items were not updating immediately.
8.Fix. The focused control would occasionally "disappear" when tabbing among fields in task dialogs.
9.Fix. The Remap Input Relays task edit dialog has been updated to ensure the task description length is correct.
10.Fix. The Music Data Auto-Update dialog has been updated to correct the tab order of controls.
11.Fix. The Open Log dialog has been updated to ensure the "Busy" display doesn't disappear behind the main dialog when scanning for available log files.
12.Fix. Corrected log validation error dialog typo.
Version 3.4.0.450 - 02/05/2015
1.Enhancement. A new start-up option, Start Audio Engine, has been added. If enabled, XStudio will check to see if XEngine is running at start-up and if not, offer to start XEngine.
2.Change. XStudio event logging has been changed somewhat to be more consistent in how event entries are constructed and written to the daily event log. The change should improve readability of the event log.
3.Fix. When in Live mode, XStudio would transition to the next-day log when Play Through Directives was disabled and there were directives on the log beyond the last playable log element. Now, XStudio will play the last element and stop. If Play Through Directives is enabled, XStudio will behave as before, transitioning to the next-day log.
4.Fix. If a user unintentionally caused XStudio to transition to the next-day log and then manually opened the correct log using the standard XStudio open log dialog, XStudio did not correctly reset the current-day and next-day log dates.
Version 3.3.2.435 - 03/27/2014
1.Enhancement. Preference properties for controlling the font type and size used in the main display's inventory list have been added. These settings can be changed on the User Interface tab in Preferences.
2.Enhancement. A new task, Banner Message, has been added along with a new floating dialog (the XStudio Message Center). This task can be used to advise operators of changes in system configuration (for a ballgame, for instance) or anything else that might be needed to get the attention of the operator.
3.Enhancement. A new task, System Backup, has been added. The backup operation occurs in the background and does not affect XStudio operations. When the task is executed, the XStudio system database tables are backed up to a target location defined in the task. Optionally, XStudio preference and settings files, including hot button configuration files, can be backed up. The task also has a option to zip the backed-up files to save disk storage space. See the System Backup and Restore topic in the appendices for more detailed information on setting up a system backup, what is backed up and how to restore backed-up files.
4.Enhancement. Station configuration information can now be exported and imported in Preferences.
5.Enhancement. Additional detail information is now logged to the XStudio event log when a user changes the Next-to-Play item manually via the log's pop-up menu, [F7] keystroke and [Double-Click] on a log item. The cart number and log description are now logged to help better identify which item on the log the user set as Next-to-Play.
6.Enhancement. The XStudio manual, supplied in PDF format, has been optimized for duplex printing.
7.Fix. Under certain circumstances, an error could occur some time after a user performed a [Right-Click] on the log to display the log's pop-up menu. This action could set up a future AV when the log was updated and the new log had fewer items than it did when the user popped up the menu. The error was handled by XStudio and did not affect operations, but was annoying. Additional checks are now made before attempting to access the log record the user [Right-Clicked] on to prevent this error in the future.
8.Fix. When starting XStudio, the comparison between the on-disk log and log snapshot time stamps were not being handled properly. This led to unneeded splicing of content from the on-disk log.
Version 3.3.0.385 - 01/22/2013
1.Enhancement. A new task type, Remap Input Relays, has been added. This task allows you to replace the input relay mapping for a selected audio switcher device with a completely different set of Actions assigned to available input relays. This task can also be used to restore the original "default" relay mapping for a device.
2.Enhancement. The Start Play task dialog has been updated to support drag and drop re-ordering of the Cart Rotation List. A Macro Help button has also been added to assist in adding cart numbers containing macro characters to the Cart Rotation List.
3.Enhancement. Handling of Start Play tasks that use the Cart Rotation List has been updated to fully support rotation of multiple cart numbers, including checking the inventory (if available) for missing and, if applicable, out-of-date carts.
4.Enhancement. A new Relay Queue Maintenance dialog has been added. The dialog displays all active Start Play tasks that use a Cart Rotation List. Cart rotations can be modified by adding, editing and deleting cart numbers in the rotation. The Next-to-Play property can also be modified. Changes made are active until XStudio is restarted. Users can also change the Current Voice setting manually in this dialog. See the topic on Using the XStudio Relay Queue Maintenance Dialog for more information.
5.Enhancement. Time-Approximate Directive handling in Satellite Mode has been implemented to support automated sports broadcasts and similar events where breaks are sequence-sensitive rather than time sensitive. The log now distinguishes between and displays the next fixed time directive (NxtU =>) and time-approximate directive (NxtA =>). Users can manually mark the next time-approximate directive to be used to handle situations where XStudio needs to be synchronized with the next network break event. An example of how to use this functionality is discussed in the Satellite Programming - Special Events topic.
6.Enhancement. Functionality to execute an Action at the start of playback for a specific cart has been implemented. This feature can be enabled or disabled in Preferences and is disabled as a default. For additional information, review the Embed an Action in a Cart topic.
7.Enhancement. At start-up, XStudio now scans the log from midnight to current time and will update the Current Voice property if any Set Voice directives are found.
8.Enhancement. A menu item has been added to optionally display the inventory AuxMark length in the log Length field (View | Log Display | Use Inventory Length on Logs). When enabled, displayed log items will have the matching cart's inventory AuxMark length value instead of the original log length value. Note this feature is display-only, the underlying log is not changed.
9.Enhancement. An cart's (audio item's) Agency field information is now passed to the audit data file for reporting purposes.
10.Enhancement. You can now clear an entire page of hot buttons in the Cart Wall dialog. A toolbar button or pop-up menu item can be used to reset all hot buttons on a selected page to an unassigned state.
11.Enhancement. XStudio now detects Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 operating systems and adjusts its display accordingly.
12.Enhancement. When an updated log is detected and is being merged (spliced) with the active log, if no matching directives are found on the active log and the new log has content at times beyond the active log's last log record, XStudio will scan the later times on the updated log and merge (splice) the new content if there is a valid directive at a later time on the updated log.
13.Enhancement. Documentation has been updated to include additional information about the XStudio audit data file structure. See the topic Audit File Specification for additional information.
14.Change. When monitoring for files that might have changed, XStudio now tracks changes based on UTC time. This approach reduces the possibility of a change incorrectly being detected in circumstances where XStudio is operating in a time zone that uses DST.
15.Fix. When a user attempted to register XStudio by copying and pasting the registration key into the registration dialog, the registration key would be invalid because the user inadvertently copied leading spaces instead of just the registration key text. Now, any extraneous spaces are removed when the user pastes the registration key into the dialog. Additional feedback is provided when manually entering a registration key that is not the correct length, which can occur if a character is missed in typing or if copying only a portion of the registration key and pasting it.
16.Fix. Saving an edited Action in the Automation Setup dialog would occasionally be done incorrectly, resulting in the wrong Action being updated. The problem could occur if the user began editing an Action and while editing, another Action was executed by XStudio. XStudio now double-checks to be sure the correct Action is being updated and display an error message if the update cannot be performed.
17.Fix. Very occasionally, when XStudio was creating a temporary file to store information for display, the temporary file was not correctly created and the information would not be displayed. The problem has been corrected.
Version 3.2.0.330 - 09/01/2012
1.Enhancement. A hourly content back-timer has been added, integrated with the clock display. The XStudio Backtimer is a tool to help determine how much audio content remains to be played in the current hour versus how much time is left in the hour. Comparing these values produces an "over/under" time value that can be used as a reference in making on-the-fly adjustments. If XStudio is short of content, a negative value is displayed and if long, a positive value is displayed. See the topic About the XStudio Backtimer for more detailed information.
2.Enhancement. A Music Search Dialog has been added. It can be used to search the imported music database for song titles, artist names and cart numbers. A selected song can be dragged directly from the dialog to the log, any cart deck (for immediate play), the audio clipboard and hot buttons. Features include grouping by artist, incremental search, filtering of data, saving filter criteria for later use, most recent search words and more. See the topic on Using the XStudio Music Search Dialog for more information.
3.Enhancement. The ability to automatically update the XStudio music table has been added. When enabled, XStudio will check for changes in the source music data file and when a change is detected, automatically update the music table. When music data is first imported, the user is offered the option of enabling auto-update. Update settings can also be maintained in the Automation Setup dialog. See the topic on Configuring Music Auto-Update for more information.
4.Enhancement. Music Fade capability has been added. When enabled, audio items in the "Music" cart category are faded at Aux Mark by XEngine at a user-defined rate. Music Fade applies to all carts that in the "Music" category on all channels.
5.Enhancement. A new audio inventory manager has been introduced to replace the original inventory generation module. The XStudio Inventory Manager (InvMgr) stores data in a custom database. Performance is significantly better than previous implementations. While the initial inventory generation time (when XStudio is first started and an audio folder is assigned) is about the same as previously, subsequent updates to the inventory (adds, edits and deletes) is significantly faster. In addition, InvMgr-aware applications can connect to the inventory manager database to retrieve inventory information, if remote access is enabled in Preferences.
6.Enhancement. You can now choose whether the countdown of remaining air play time displayed in the playback decks is shown as the time to end-of-audio (the default) or shown as time to Aux Mark. The behavior is controlled by settings in the Audio Engine Properties area in Preferences.
7.Enhancement. Advanced Properties for XEngine have been added to Preferences. You can control the number of audio buffers used by XEngine, set the master gain for all audio played and enable automatic silence trim from the beginning of PCM audio files.
8.Enhancement. Log display times can now be shown as AM/PM times if desired. As a default, XStudio, continues to display log times in military format. To enable AM/PM time display, use the main menu item View | Log Display | Show Log Time as AM/PM. When enabled, printed logs also reflect AM/PM times.
9.Enhancement. The Broadcast Tools ADMS 44.22 audio switcher has been added to the list of supported resources.
10.Enhancement. When XStudio is launched and a current-day log is not found for the default station, an emergency log, if available, is loaded. XStudio now additionally periodically checks the availability of the current-day log when using an emergency log and if the log becomes available, will offer to load it. As a default, if the user does not respond to the offer, the current-day log is automatically loaded and spliced with the emergency log. This new behavior occurs only in Live, Satellite and Automation modes of operation.
11.Enhancement. A menu item has been added to optionally display the inventory description in the log description field (View | Log Display | Use Inventory Description on Logs). When enabled, displayed log items will have the matching cart's inventory description instead of the original log description. If imported music data is being used, this setting is ignored for carts matching the "Music" cart category. Note this feature is display-only, the underlying log is not changed. As a result, searching the log on the Description field may have unpredictable results if the log description and inventory description are completely different - i.e., characters in the search string are present in the log description but not the inventory description or vice-versa.
12.Enhancement. A menu item has been added for opening an emergency log (File | Open an Emergency Log). This option is available in all operating modes and is intended for use in a situation where no logs exist for a station, an on-air situation has developed that requires completely different content, or XStudio is being used as a backup system and the user needs a custom emergency log.
13.Enhancement. Displaying file open and save dialogs has been updated to correct problems with multi-monitor systems (and some newer operating systems) displaying these dialogs in the wrong position or on the wrong monitor.
14.Enhancement. A log pop-up menu item has been added that provides the ability to quickly jump to the log record currently selected by the user whether it's within view or not. The item is available on the current-day log (Today Log) only and displays the log description of the user-selected log record. The feature is useful in situations where XStudio has scrolled the user-selected log record out of view as a result of making sure the currently-playing item is in-view on the log display.
15.Enhancement. Copying of inventory files to the secondary location (if enabled) is now retried several times before notifying the user the copy has failed. If another program has locked the file that is to be replaced, multiple attempts to copy the file increase the chance of success as the file may be released by the other program while XStudiois retrying the copy operation.
16.Enhancement. In previous versions of XStudio, when starting and the option to load the current-day log at startup was turned off, XStudio made no attempt to load inventory information. Now, if the option to generate & use local inventory (Preferences | Audio Properties) is turned on, XStudio will load and display current inventory information.
17.Change. The behavior of context-sensitive help has been changed so that when [Right-Click] of the mouse is used, the "What's This" pop-up menu no longer appears if there is no context help available for the control over which the mouse is located. When the context button on the toolbar or menu item Help | What's This Help is clicked and the user subsequently clicks on a control that has no help, the message indicating there is no help available is no longer displayed. Instead, the mouse cursor simply returns to its normal shape without displaying any message.
18.Fix. Carts (audio items) with a length or Aux Mark value greater than ~60:15 (60 minutes, 15 seconds) were displayed as being much shorter. Long carts now display correctly.
19.Fix. If a user changed the log font size, the second row of the log display did not increase its height to display the text in its entirety. This occurred in both the current-day and next-day logs. The height of that specific row had been inadvertently set to a fixed height. It is now dynamic like all other rows of the log.
20.Fix. When in Satellite mode and late-day breaks on the current-day log were empty, XStudio would incorrectly transition to the next-day log. XStudio now correctly waits until the active break directive requires transitioning the log.
21.Fix. When a Load Play directive on the log was processed in Satellite mode, break boundaries were not being respected and XStudio would play content intended for the next directive. XStudio no longer executes the Load Play directive if the break has no audio content.
22.Fix. If the Preferences property to duplicate the log description to the song title field was enabled, but the music table was empty, copying did not occur. Now, the standard log description is copied to the song title field in any case if the property is enabled.
23.Fix. The sort order of music data in the Automation Setup dialog (sorted by cart number) was different than the order displayed in the inventory list. The sort orders are now the same.
24.Fix. When editing an external resource, the previously-visible selected item was not being restored to visibility properly.
25.Fix. When the last element of a log is a Directive, the "busy" cursor would persist when the log was loaded or edited and the last segment length of the log, the one associated with the last Directive, would not be displayed on the log. This condition has been corrected.
26.Fix. When using a Broadcast Tools 16x4 audio switcher, manual channel updates from the switcher status display panel were not working correctly on output rows 3 and 4. This has been corrected.
27.Fix. When closing XStudio, the possibility existed users might encounter an AV. This bug has been corrected.
Version 3.0.0.210 - 03/23/2011 (Initial Release of Version 3)
1.Enhancement. A 4th playback deck has been added. Deck 4 behaves in the same way as Decks 2 & 3. It can be hidden or shown, you can use the audio clipboard or log as a source, and it can be the be target of drag and drop operations or hot buttons. The keyboard shortcut [Ctrl-4] can be used to start play (see the topic on keyboard shortcuts) and you can optionally assign a remote start button (see Preferences and the topic on the Remote Start Interface).
2.Enhancement. The Automation Setup dialog's size, position and host monitor number (for multi-monitor systems) information is now saved on exit and the dialog's previous position, size and monitor location are restored the next time it is opened.
3.Fix. When playback decks 2 or 3 had more than one item playing and the 1st item finished, there was a momentary flicker on the deck.
4.Fix. When assigning audio channels to a playback deck in Preferences, the change was not effective unless the user moved off the selection list. Now, changes are reflected immediately.
