ProppFrexx ONAIR User-Forum

I'm posting this on behalf of a friend trying this software. I hope you can understand what he is talking about.

1.) Right now, if the software hits a dead file (meaning the file has either moved or has had a slight name change like adding 'radio edit') the automation just stops. Doesn't skip over it, it just stops. Now...the good news is, if you're using more than one playlist, what it WILL do is just start playing that....BUT....what if you only have one primary playlist? What if you're a commercial station and switching playlists prematurily isn;t an option? ...and in order for it to skip to the next playlist, you MUST make sure that your playlists are setup to start after one finishes....otherwise....dead air!

2.) Proppfrexx doesn't maintain playlist order despite SAVING it! Usually after a relaunch/reboot, I'll discover the the first part of the playlist stays fairly intact, but then part way down, you start to see the order floundering about and then it's the tedious task of putting it all back together." and also... At first I wasn't sure, but then it took a clean install on a separate new machine and a playlist of songs that were VERIFIED to have ALL the mp3 tag information in tact to see if this is really happening or not, and it is. What happens is that after a while, something somehow CLEARS the 'properties' information of the mp3 file. Well, since on this second machine, the only applcation running that touches those files are Proppfrexx.

and also...


Proppfrexx is a bit of a resource hog. On a Core 2 Quad running a single audio DSP, it uses about 20%-25% CPU constantly. Subtract about 5%-7% without the DSP. On a Core i7, that number is much lower and really insignificant, but let's be realistic about hardware that essentially just sits there running automation. You're usually not going to want to spend a whole lot of $$ to use a very high end PC for that...at least, not on a small community station/non commercial station. This issue should be fixed...especially for your more lower budget/community broadcaster who doesn't have a huge surplus of high end machinary dedicated for strictly auotomation purposes.

End

**That is what was wrote to me in his email.

I'll try to get some more answers. I'll direct him to this thread.

To answer you questions - "Why doesn't he post the questions by himself?"

That's what I asked, but he said he is too busy and can't be bothered, so he just sent me the info and asked me to find out. Oh well.

1) Dead Files:
I can not reproduce this issue here! Of course ProppFrexx checks this and in case a playlist entry is 'not playable' (dead) it will simply be skipped.
I just made a quick test here to double-check this...and as expected it works like as expected and skips 'non-playable' entries (eg. I added a track to a playlist and then renamed the physical filename).
ProppFrexx also doesn't switch (randomly or unexpected) playlists (in case more than one is open)!
So what your 'friend' is describing doesn't Sound like what ProppFrexx is suppost to do.
A couple of questions:
- What Version is you 'friend' using?
- Why doesn't he post the questions by himself?
- Can he give a few more Details to exactly reproduce the issue?

2) Playlist order:
I am also absolutly not able to reproduce this here!
ProppFrexx never reorders the order of the playlist entries by itself - nor does ProppFrexx 'clear' any MP3 file properties...so there must be something else going on!
Can you also please give a more detailed and exact description on how to reproduce the issue:
- What do you mean by 'properties'?
- What inforemation is 'floundering'?
- What MP3 tags are changing?
- What is exactly happening?

3) Resources:
ProppFrexx is a modern multi-threaded application doing real-time audio-processing in parallel...all that takes a bit of CPU.
The CPU usage heavily depends on what you are doing, your mixer Setup, the number of media libs you are using, the Overall Setup and usage (eg. Cardwalls, Playlists etc.), the DSPs you are using, the Screen Setup/layout, the number of mixer-channes and the Audio Driver (ASIO, WASAPI or WDM), your update and buffer settings etc. etc.
However, on my 2 years old Laptop having a quite old quad (2GHz) CPU I discover a CPU usage of only 2 to 3% !
This is not much.
Using even older CPUs might be differnet - however, I assume in a real professional environment and (as you said if you're a commercial station) - then I guess Hardware isn't really a big issue.
And if you don't want to spend any money for a decent hardware, you can only expect a decent performance.
Not much to do about this!

So maybe your friend can sheed some light on the above questions...since overall I can not reproduce any of his issues...and definitly Need more info.

Thanks!

he said he is too busy and can't be bothered

Strange!
Probably he is doing something wrong...he must be playing with the demo version!
So which version is he effectively using?!

Well so far I found out why he didn't sign up himself, and he said he did actually 2 times, but was never given access to the forum, so he said forget it. I remember this problem too when I signed up. I think you need to do something about this as there might be several people getting rejected for some reason.

He hasn't written me back yet. Sorry.

Due to massive spam attacks I switched the board to manual forum approval and I needed to exclude several free mail-services from being accepted, like gmail, gmx etc.
So a regular, valid and verified email address is needed, that's all.

However, any news regarding the real issues...?

Ya, for now he said he's too busy to respond. Sorry to bother you. If he even sends me a report, I'll post it.

If there are no further info available or your 'friend' is unable to provide any...I really must assume, that this is a dead item.
As I and also a couple of others users can not reproduce any of the given issues...I tend to close this subject...?!

Guess this can be closed, if there is no further info - as I am also completely unable to reproduce the issues.