This topic contains historical information on changes, enhancements and corrections to XStudio Voice Tracker by version number and date. For the most recent changes and enhancements, see the What's New topic.
Version 1.5.2.160 - 01/11/2018
1.Enhancement. Users can now optionally have voice track recordings auto-start on first detected audio rather than the recording starting immediately at Aux Mark in an auto-track sequence. This feature can be used to avoid any "dead air" at the beginning of the voice track, thus tightening up the playback sequence in cases where, for instance, a song ends cold. When enabled, manual recordings also start at detection of first audio. The audio threshold for starting the recording is set using the Record Auto-Start Threshold property in Preferences.
2.Enhancement. Song intro times are automatically updated when refreshing information from the music data.
3.Change. XStudio Voice Tracker now checks to ensure that the just-recorded voice actually has audio in the file. If the voice track has no audio data blocks, the user is advised to re-do the recording and the voice track cart is not committed, either automatically or manually by the user.
4.Change. The Aux Mark LED has been enlarged to provide a more obvious cue when auto-tracking.
5.Fix. Certain non-standard data in an exported music data file would cause an AV when being imported. XStudio Voice Tracker now detects and works around these unexpected values.
6.Fix. XStudio Voice Tracker would erroneously copy a completed voice track to the root directory of the drive on which is was running if a station's voice track transfer audio path was empty. No file copy should have occurred if no transfer audio path was defined.
Version 1.5.0.145 - 07/13/2016
1.Enhancement. A floating clock display has been added. The clock is configurable for size, location and color scheme. See the topic Using the Clock for additional information.
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 Voice Tracker 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 Voice Tracker will leave the affected field blank.
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 Voice Tracker 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. Previously, if the audio engine was not running when XStudio Voice Tracker launched and XStudio Voice Tracker could not start the engine, the list of available audio devices for playback and recording would be empty until XStudio Voice Tracker was restarted. Now, if the audio engine is later started, XStudio Voice Tracker will update the device list, eliminating the need to restart XStudio Voice Tracker to populate the device lists.
5.Enhancement. XStudio Voice Tracker now detects Windows 10 and adjusts its display accordingly.
6.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.
Version 1.4.0.125 - 08/11/2014
1.Enhancement. Users can now define non-audio log element display colors. Individual text and background color combinations for Directives, Log Notes and Program Titles can be set in the new User Interface section of Preferences.
2.Enhancement. The XStudio Voice Tracker installation now includes a ready-made music export template for the Windows version of MusicMaster. See the topic on Exporting Data from your Music Scheduling System for more information.
3.Enhancement. The XStudio Voice Tracker manual, supplied in PDF format, has been optimized for duplex printing.
4.Enhancement. XStudio Voice Tracker now detects Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012R2 operating systems and adjusts its display accordingly.
5.Fix. Under certain circumstances, XStudio Voice Tracker would not detect the audio engine running in console mode in Windows 7.
6.Fix. File dialogs in the Preferences area now display on the correct monitor in multi-monitor environments.
Version 1.3.0.115 - 02/20/2012
1.Enhancement. A new option in Preferences allows users to disable Auto-Commit of newly-recorded voice tracks. When disabled, the user is prompted to commit or discard the voice track. If discarded, the recording is deleted and no file copying occurs, if enabled.
2.Enhancement. When a voice track recording is completed and committed, XStudio Voice Tracker now updates the corresponding log item's displayed length and the hourly totals display is updated.
3.Enhancement. Copying of audio files to the transfer directory is now retried several times before notifying the user the copy has failed. If another program has locked a voice track 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 XStudio Voice Tracker is retrying the copy operation.
4.Enhancement. In addition to the main display audio engine connection LED changing to red when disconnected, a message dialog is now displayed when XStudio Voice Tracker is unexpectedly disconnected from the audio engine. The message appears when the disconnect is detected and every minute or so thereafter until reconnected.
5.Enhancement. If XStudio Voice Tracker is unexpectedly disconnected from the audio engine, XStudio Voice Tracker will now attempt to reconnect, including restarting the audio engine service if stopped, at approximately 1-minute intervals. If the audio engine is running in console mode, no restart attempt is made.
6.Enhancement. An updated version of the audio engine is included in this release. It includes stability enhancements and support for Windows 7.
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Audio Engine Prerequisites |
7.Enhancement. XStudio Voice Tracker is now aware of multiple monitor host systems and properly saves and restores its position on the correct monitor.
8.Enhancement. XStudio Voice Tracker now reports the host operating system in more detail and has been updated to reflect the release of Windows 7.
9.Change. A new installation program is now used that reduces the installer "footprint" and is simpler to use. When the new installation program is run and the previous XStudio Voice Tracker installer is detected, it is uninstalled (after user confirmation), removing files that are no longer needed.
10.Change. When closing XStudio Voice Tracker, users are now prompted to confirm they wish to close the program.
11.Fix. The main display could start up in a minimized state at program launch.
12.Fix. When multiple audio files were in an EOM state (between Aux Mark and end-of-file), the Aux LED was turning off prematurely when the first item's end-of-file was reached.
13.Fix. The bit rate for 44.1 PCM audio was displayed incorrectly in the cart edit dialog.
14.Fix. Corrected a problem with calculating the Length and Aux Mark values of large long-form PCM 44.1 stereo files. When the problem occurred, the length values would be displayed as negative numbers in the cart edit dialog.
Version 1.2.0.85 - 04/02/2009
1.Enhancement. XStudio Voice Tracker now displays .DAF file version v1.4 extended cart header information in the cart view/edit dialog. Information contained the the v1.4 header includes song title, artist, hook line information, intro and outro times and tag text.
2.Enhancement. Performance when retrieving large lists of stations has been improved.
3.Enhancement. Loading of malformed logs has been improved. Specifically, it has been observed that traffic logs produced by Wide Orbit occasionally contain invalid records, both under-sized and over-sized as a result of incorrect padding of the log record. The problem would be evident only if a user opened an original pre-merged traffic log.
4.Enhancement. The standard installation of XStudio Voice Tracker now prevents inadvertent "double-launch" of the application. Only one instance of XStudio Voice Tracker is allowed on each PC.
5.Enhancement. The Open Log dialog has been updated for better performance when building a list of available logs for a station and there are a large number of files in the station's log folder.
6.Enhancement. The XStudio Voice Tracker documentation has been reorganized to a more logical structure, along with a number of sample display updates.
7.Change. Users are no longer allowed to edit voice track cart properties if the cart is actively recording. In addition, checks are now made to ensure that if a voice track cart properties are edited by another application while a user has the cart properties dialog open and then the user tries to commit the changes, the user is warned and offered the choice of either continuing to commit the changes or to cancel the changes.
8.Fix. Corrected a problem that occasionally occurred in an auto-track sequence if a user stopped playback of an intro before stopping the recording. On the very next auto-track sequence, the outro would play but the voice track recording would not start.
9.Fix. Corrected a problem with the Station Info panel where the font size for the displayed text would occasionally be too large, causing the displayed station name and call letters to not fit completely within the panel.
10.Fix. If the host PC has more than 2GB RAM installed, the reported amount of available RAM was incorrect. On PC's running Windows 2000, XP and Vista, the correct amount of RAM is now displayed.
Version 1.1.2.78 - 04/08/2008
1.Change. Playback of multi-cut carts has been modified. Previously, if the next-to-play cut did not exist, only the first item in the cart rotation list was checked and played if it existed. Now, if the next-cut-to-play file does not exist, the entire rotation list is checked until a cut is found that does exist. If none of the cuts in the rotation list exist, an error message is displayed.
2.Fix. During an auto-track sequence, if a recording was active and a user attempted to stop playback with no rehearsal audio playing, the next auto-track sequence would not start properly. This has been corrected.
Version 1.1.1.76 - 07/03/2007
1.Change. The "!" (exclamation) character has been added to the list of acceptable characters to use in defining cart masks. While DCS and Maestro documentation indicated the exclamation was an invalid character to use, it has not been enforced and users have created carts using this character.
2.Fix. A updated version of the audio engine service is supplied with this version of XStudio Voice Tracker. It corrects a very occasional problem with "digital noise" appearing at the very beginning of a recorded voice track. Only PCM and apt-X encoded audio were affected. The updated engine is Version 1.90 (Build 20070630 - 17:48).
3.Fix. If a voice track cart was saved as a .dff file to an active ACP server and the user tried to edit the voice track cart, the cart was reported as missing. This occurs because the ACP server has already imported the cart into the inventory, in the process renaming it to a .daf file. Now, if the .dff is missing, an attempt is made to load and edit its corresponding .daf file. When edited, the cart is saved as a .dff, enabling an ACP server to re-import the revised audio cart.
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In the situation where voice track carts are targeted to an ACP server as .dff files, copying the file to a Voice Track Xfr Audio Path (if defined) will generally fail because the source .dff file is handled by the ACP server before the copy process can begin. If you are targeting voice track carts directly to an ACP server, the Voice Track Xfr Audio Path should be left empty. |
Version 1.1.0.75 - 03/22/2007
1.Enhancement. An intro count-down timer has been added. Display of the timer is optional and is enabled by selecting the menu item View. Check the item Intro Timer. The timer gets its value from the log, if available, and is active when playing an intro or during normal playback. The timer panel can be moved, re-sized and floated to accommodate your preferred placement and size. See the topic on Using the Intro Timer for additional information.
2.Enhancement. Users can now select a "default station". The default station's logs are displayed when the Open Log dialog is first used. If no default station is selected, the previous behavior of displaying the last station used logs is retained. To set a default station, select the menu item Preferences | Stations and navigate to the station you wish to make the "default station". With that station displayed, click on the [Set Default Station] button. A message will appear, confirming your selection.
3.Enhancement. A station information panel has been added. The information includes the user-friendly station name and the station Call Letters. Display of the panel is optional and is enabled by selecting the menu item View. Check the item Station Info. As a default, the panel is located immediately above log. The panel can be moved, re-sized and floated to accommodate your preferred placement and size.
4.Change. The help documentation has been modified to work with Windows Vista. Vista does not support the traditional help file (*.HLP). The help documentation is now supplied as a compiled HTML file (*.CHM).
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Microsoft Security Update 896358 not only fixes a vulnerability in HTML Help, it prevents HTML Help files from execution if the CHM file is installed on a network drive. CHM files installed locally continue to work. Symptoms: When you open a CHM file from a UNC path or from a network drive even if the network drive is mapped to a drive letter, the HTML Help viewer opens and instead of displaying the topic, it displays an error message "Action canceled" in the topic pane. Solutions: Install the application on a local drive to avoid this problem. Alternatively, there are some registry changes that can be made manually to re-enable using CHM help files from a network drive. A free HTML Help Registration Utility is available at the EC Software web site. |
5.Fix. The creation of the initial station in Preferences | Stations has been modified to eliminate rare conditions where mouse movement automatically activated any station field it was floated over.
6.Fix. If a user manually edited a voice track cart's properties, the changes were not being copied to the Voice Track Xfr Audio Path, if one was defined. XStudio Voice Tracker now detects these changes and copies the updated voice track file as needed.
7.Fix. A user could define an invalid default owner node number when setting up a station. The spin control allowed the user to set negative values. Now, if a negative value is detected, the owner node number is automatically set to zero, which is the default owner node.
Version 1.0.1.73 - 10/14/2006
1.Enhancement. The audio file properties dialog has been revised for a more consistent appearance as application styles are changed.
2.Enhancement. Handling of multi-cut cart playback has been improved. If the flagged Next-To-Play cut is not available, an attempt is made to play the first element in the rotation sequence.
3.Enhancement. A menu item under Log Settings has been added to enable copying the Log Description field to the Song Title field as applicable. This enables the user to hide the Log Description field, if desired, and still be able to see the non-music cart descriptions on the log.
Version 1.0.0.72 – 06/13/2006
1.Initial commercial release of XStudio Voice Tracker.
