PassageExpress.com

Bernie Schwitzgebel · Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 4:40 pm Post subject: Background Music Problem

In my current project I have chosen to have background music play as soon as the presentation / menu screen becomes visible. The music plays continuously while viewing slide shows and other folders for which I have created button. All of this works fine.

If I add different sound (music) tracks to play during each slide show the sound tracks that are unique to the slide show begin to play instead of the background music. That is as I want it.

When the slide show is over the slide show music stops and I am returned to the presentation screen - - but the background music does not start again. Is this normal? I would prefer that the background music begin again when the slide show is completed.
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Bernie

Bernie Schwitzgebel · Posted: Mon May 29, 2006 5:54 pm Post subject:

So far I have had no suggestions for correcting my apparent problem. Basically I would like to have my chosen background music playing anytime the presentation menu is visible. But I have found that when a slideshow (with its sound track) begins, the background music stops and the slideshow sound track plays instead. When the slideshow is finished the presentation menu once again appears, but with no background music. I was of the impression that the background music should play any time the presentation menu was visible.
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Bernie

tdew · Posted: Wed May 31, 2006 11:43 am Post subject:

Hi Bernie,

So far I have only used sound on the front menu page one time. It was an old radio advertisement that invited people to see the rest of the project. While it was fun once, it would have been really annoying if it had started up again each time you went back to the main menu.
In general, I think of the menu page as the breather between slide shows, so haven't assigned music to that page.
I'm sorry to say, I don't know the answer to your question, but will keep it in mind.
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Terry - volunteer forum monitor

Loretta Shupe · Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 6:54 pm Post subject: Background Music

Hi Bernie,

Passage Express does run the background music just once at the present time.

When your users go into the presentation, there is a button in the lower left corner called Background Music. They can click on it to launch the background music at any time.

This is a happy medium, we believe. Your music has introduced the theme of your presentation and they then have the option to keep the music going or to let it run just the one time.

Do you feel it should be changed?

Loretta

Bernie Schwitzgebel · Posted: Thu Jun 01, 2006 8:51 pm Post subject: Re: Background Music

ldahling · Confirmed family historian Joined: 30 Jun 2006 Posts: 11

I am using background music for the DVD menu, and the software does tell me that it will play continuously while the menu is displayed. That means to me that it should be looping continuously. This is just like you generally see when playing a commercial DVD movie. Unfortunately, it only plays the track once and is silent thereafter. When the menu displays again after the movie is finished, it again plays just once. I was really hoping to loop that track, and I edited it so that it would break at the right place.

tdew · Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 1:22 am Post subject:

Hi,

How long is your music piece? Could you make it longer?
Won't the length of time it plays be determined by how long the individual viewer stays on the menu before moving to the next part? Or am I missing something?
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Terry - volunteer forum monitor

ldahling · Confirmed family historian Joined: 30 Jun 2006 Posts: 11

The music is 13 seconds long and is intended to repeat over and over. It plays once and stops no matter how long the viewer stays on the menu. I can certainly make it longer by pasting itself to the end of itself and so on, but it will still end at some point and be a larger file than it needs to be. I want it to act like many commercial DVD menus act. The DVD menu setup says, "This sound will play repeatedly while your menu is displayed." That means that it should loop repeatedly. It does not. Not only do I want it to, the software tells me that it will. Is my setup wrong or is that software note wrong or is there a bug? Thanks.

tdew · Posted: Fri Jul 07, 2006 11:37 am Post subject:

Hi again "L"

If you look up higher in this thread, Loretta answered the looping question and said that the music on the menu plays just once. Maybe the "repeatedly" refers to the fact that each time you go back to the menu it will repeat and play again.

The size of the file shouldn't be much of a consideration on a DVD. If you use the .ogg format that the program supports rather than the wav format it won't even be as big as it might have been.

Since you are able to paste it over and over and make a longer clip, you could make it as long a a minute or so. I doubt anyone would leave the menu on the screen for that long - or if they did, they might be glad if the music stopped at that point??? (Think of video games!!)
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Terry - volunteer forum monitor

ldahling · Confirmed family historian Joined: 30 Jun 2006 Posts: 11

Thanks. It could have been that Loretta was referring to a presentation menu rather than a DVD menu. I've seen that they can be different. For example, every item on the DVD menu must play a movie. The exit key that was copied from my presentation menu is invalid. The software says what it says, logic is logic, and English is English. It doesn't do what is advertised, and perhaps programmers read this blog and will note it. I understand about music getting on one's nerves, but this is a functionality issue and not a design issue. For example, one purpose of the music is to tell you, "Hey, your DVD is on and you are ignoring it. Shut it off and save some energy." You are right about the file size not being a big deal here. One note, the .ogg format is quite disappointing. Everything that converts to it has skips in it. I've used other converters with no more luck. Maybe it is my environment. Too bad they don't support .mp3. Please understand that I don't view this as life-threatening. I'm just reporting what I feel is a bug on the "Bugs and Fixes" thread. Thanks again for all of your valuable input. Have a good one!