OK, I've done a couple of searches on this and can't figure it out exactly. Can someone tell me what Seek Tool actually does?

Cheers,

M

HiYa,

As far as I know, the seek tool shows a representation of the tracks "volume" over its length. Using the knob you can them quickly move from the beginning of the track to the end.

Handy, if you have continuous mix albums (like live albums), then you can see the track changes by periods of relative silence which show up easily in the "waveform like" display.

Once a track has been played completely from start to end the waveform is saved so it does not have to be regenerated every time.

Cheers, Sim

Your order number is 73
Order placed at Mon 3 Feb 2003 8:27 am

You can also use the left and right buttons to fastforward and rewind to the next or previous section, as defined by the seek tool's idea. It's supposed to be able to find a significant change is a song, os maybe the transition between the verse and the bridge, etc. It does a not bad job.

The Seek Tool is described in one of the software release notes during the 2.0 beta phase. I think it's in the notes to 2.0 beta 3 or 2.0 beta 11, I don't remember which.

I've been holding off making a FAQ entry for it, because its behavior keeps changing as Toby tweaks it on the way up to 2.0 final. When 2.0 final is out, somebody remind me to get a final FAQ entry put together.

The Seek Tool is also very handy for downloaded radio shows.

I download a 5hr radio show in WMA format and put it on the EMPEG (about 70MB). Then you can use the dial to skip those pesky commercials (you have to press the dial once to change it from Vol mode to seek mode).

It works considerably better than Window Media Player itself to play back these long tracks.


Note: The seek tool jumps are sort of large for a 5hr track (30-35sec) and the display only handles tracks up to 4hr37min (the pointer moves back to the begginging, but otherwise it continues to function fine).

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For how many tracks does the seek tool store info on? How much disk space does that equate to?

Hello ADent,

You report that the Seek Tool only handles tracks up to 4hr37mins. If this is the case, then this is a bug.

Have you experienced this problem on more than one track? If so, would you mind getting in touch with me so that I can fix this problem?

I suspect that the track has a dodgy duration tag which can lead to the observed behaviour. If you can provide me with the file you experienced the problem with then I can tell you for sure.

Regarding the seek tool jumps: Since the track is scaled to the screen width, it is possible to calculate the exact size of a jump. There are 128 pixels on the screen, and 4 jumps per pixel (you should have to click the knob four times to get to the next pixel). So simply dividing the track duration in seconds by 512 will give you the number of seconds per jump. The 4 jumps per pixel is arbitrary and could be user settable. Note also that for VBR encoded tracks, particularly long ones, the seek accuracy is reduced by the fixed sized TOC.

Toby

The 4 jumps per pixel is arbitrary and could be user settable.

Promises, promises.

Promises, promises.

Hey, man, Toby usually delivers on those. Much to Rob's dismay when he finds out that another new whiz-bang Toby feature got snuck into a "bug fix" release.

But much to our delight.

Hey, man, Toby usually delivers on those.

We never did get that Christmas visual he promised though...

We never did get that Christmas visual he promised though...

Yeah we did. Info Tex Snow.

You're right, as ever.

Testing shows that the pointer jumps to the beginning between 4:39:37:21 and 4:39:37:35.

It happens on every really long track I have (which all happen to be WMA files).