Running 7.3.4 Professional Studio (on the radiostation I do some work for) I’ve noticed something strange?
When I look at the playlist, select the first three files of the hour, and open up the mix editor there is no dead space at any point.
But when creating a mixdown (to mp3) of this three files I see there is a gap of about 5-10 seconds after the NEWS.
So in mix editor - TOTH - NEWS - START OF HOUR
and in playlist mixdown to mp3 file - TOTH - NEWS - 10 seconds dead space - START OR HOUR
I have the NEWS set to AUTOMATICALLY REDO AUTO CUE every time the file is opened ticked or unticked. No change.
The Mixdown function works just like the Mix Editor (and container playback) internally, actually uses the same mechanism. It places the item onto a virtual timeline, with the starting time calculated from the respective item durations and cue markers.
I assume the news file is overwritten every hour?
This gap you see, does it possibly coincide with the difference of the actual duration of the current file, and the one displayed in the playlist?
Thank you Torben, I guess that was the issue.
So far today all mixdowns look fine so I guess it has something to with the difference in duration of the NEWS file which indeed is overwritten every hour.
Ok, I wonder why the duration is not updated internally when the item is opened for the mixdown. I’d say it’s some kind of bug or unexpected behavior, but I have to look into it deeper.
One workaround would be to execute an error check through the playlist popup menu (This Playlist → Check for Errors) - this will briefly open all files and update their durations in the playlist.
Just be aware that you must not have any cue markers on files that are overwritten externally, because they will not update automatically with the new duration, and playback will end prematurely if a new version of the file is longer than the original one.
An exception is when you use “inverse cue markers” (= negative numbers), these will always be calculated according to the current duration. There is a small button in the cue marker list in the Cue Editor to toggle beween regular and inverse cue markers.
Regarding the CUE markers. I have tick the box where it says “AUTOMATICALLY REDO AUTO CUE every time the file is opened” on this specific file so I guess that’s fine on a file that changes in length every time it is overwritten.
Fyi: All stations I‘m working with don’t do this with the news file because mAirList (and any other playout software) could easily misinterpret a too long lasting silence during the talk as the cue point for fade out (and often did)…
Better solution: Train or advise your news-team / -deliverer to exactly cut the files closest to the last spoken word…
