Cue Points

DirectMedia Xtra® is the first third party Xtra to support cue points. Cue points can be marked in the Properties Dialog box that appears when you create or when you double-click a DirectMedia Xtra® cast member. (note: cue points can not be used with Director 5)
Each DirectMedia Xtra® can have up to 64 different cue points marked. Cue points times are measured in milliseconds, and the name of the cue point can have up to 32 characters.  To create a cue point you should first locate the time using the preview movie in the Properties Dialog window. Then select "ADD". A window will appear for you to define the name of the cue point. If you need to modify a cue point later you can double-click its name on the list of cue points and edit its name and time directly. You can use the "GOTO"  button to check the location of a cue point, and the "REMOVE" button can be used to delete a cue point.
DirectMedia Xtra® does not modify the video file in any way. The cue points are maintained by your DirectMedia Xtra® cast members, so you do not need to leave Director or mark them again if the original video is recompressed. 


Creating Cue Points from Lingo

There are two functions that you can use to create and remove cue points from Lingo. 

addcuepoint(member x, cuepointtime, cuepointname) -- this function can be used to create a new cue point from Lingo. Cue points are automatically sorted for you.
Example:
addcuepoint(member 2, 10500, "NewCue")

removecuepoint(member x, cuepointindex) -- this function can be used to remove a cue point. You should supply the index of the cue point to be removed.
Example:
removecuepoint(member 2, 1)


Using Cue Points

DirectMedia Xtra® cue points can be used just like Director built-in media cue points. You can use the "Wait for cue point" option in the Tempo channel of the score for easy synchronization of media, as shown in the "Testbed.dir" sample movie. For advanced Lingo users, the following properties are supported:

isPastCuePoint(sprite x)
mostRecentCuePoint(sprite x)
the cuepointtimes(member x)
the cuepointnames(member x)

Please consult Director's documentation for more information about these properties. 

DirectMedia Xtra® sprites also receive the onCuePassed Lingo message. However, Director's documentation is inaccurate when it comes to the syntax of this particular Lingo message. The correct syntax is:

on cuePassed me, whichChannel,
cuePointNumber, cuePointName

Director's help does not mention the me parameter, but we found that this syntax also applies to SWA and Quicktime® generated cue points. You can use this event to get information about cue points from inside your behaviors. Again, the "Testbed.dir" movie uses this command to display the name of the most recent cue point on the screen. Please examine the movie for more information.

IMPORTANT: The "Wait for cue point" setting in the Tempo channel does not work correctly if the DirectMedia Xtra® sprite is in the very last frame of the score. This is also true for SWA and Quicktime® sprites. It is always a good idea to avoid using the very first and the very last frame of the score in Director, since they do not behave exactly like all the others.