( Macintosh PPC only )
 FAQ - soundsaVR Version 1.2 
Last Updated: Sept. 14, 1999
*new since last version of this document in green

General Questions 

Q) What version of QuickTime works best with soundsaVR movies?

A) QuickTime 3 (and even 4.0) has several bugs that affects soundsaVR movies.  Most of these have been fixed in version 4.03, which is the latest version.  This is the version that users should use if they want to have the best soundsaVR experience.

Q) How can I get the sound to only play back between x and y degrees like in the demo version?

A) This is a feature revision that is slated for the 2.0 release. Please see the soundsaVR tips and tricks section of the ReadMe for more information on how to accomplish a similar effect using sound volumes. The demo version simply stops movie playback unless the pan angle is within a certain range.  This disabling effect is not viable for individual sound control.

Q) Does soundsaVR work with object movies?

A) No.  Object movies are basically linear movies with a special controller. They generally have longer durations than a panorama movie causing tile and sound misalignment.  When soundsaVR lengthens the movie, object node interaction is no longer possible because individual frames are stretched out of range of their corresponding controller "angles". Due to the differences between the format of object movies and panoramic movies, there are no plans to support object nodes as QuickTime does not have support for asynchronous track playback 


 
 
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Troubleshooting 

Q) What types of VR movies does soundsaVR support?

A) Many  movie incompatibility and sound playback issues were caused by time scale problems that  limited usable movies to those which contained equal, whole second node durations. In version 1.1 all movies should work, as long as all nodes in a multinode have equal durations. (greater than .01 seconds). 

Q) How do I ensure that multinode movies created by QTVRAS will work with soundsaVR?

A)  Each node in a multinode must be of equal duration. Node duration is determined by the number of tiles specified in QTVRAS. Ensure that the "Compression" section of the "Panorama Maker Settings" for each node have horizontal and vertical tiles set  to the same value or to values that yield a common multiple .  Check out the "QTVR Tile Calculator" that comes with soundsaVR 1.1 which can be located in the "Goodies" folder.

Different horizontal and vertical tile dimensions can be used as long as each node still uses the same number of total tiles.  The following example is a compatible movie file because each node uses six tiles so each node will be of equal duration:
Node 1:      1 horizontal tiles           6 vertical tiles
Node 2:      3 horizontal tiles           2 vertical tiles
Node 3:      2 horizontal tiles           3 vertical tiles


 

Q) Why does flattening a soundsaVR movie in MoviePlayer, result in a much larger sized file?
Q) Why does the popup item 'Save As QuickTime Movie', from the Netscape Plugin, cause my machine to freeze?

A) When QuickTime flattens a movie, it  increases the data size of each looping sound ( #loops * sound size(k) ).  soundsaVR has specially written flattening code that prevents normal file size increases, reducing file size dramatically using QT3 file format. When  the "Save As QuickTime Movie..." menu item is the plugin forces the flattening option.   As a result, the Netscape QT3 plugin also increases the movie's size while flattening.  Only QT Pro registered users can choose this menu item. Since QuickTime gives no feedback while it resolves references in preparation for movie flattening, the computer appears to freeze while it does so.

When using a registered copy of QT Pro the "Save As Source..." menu item must be selected as this method saves files normally and does not force movie flattening.
SoundsaVR 1.2 saves out movies that have an embed tag causing the plug-in's "Save As QuickTime Movie" to behave just like "Save As Source..." when using QuickTime 4.02.
In MoviePlayer/QuickTimePlayer do not chose "Make movie self-contained".  Instead, chose "Save normally (allowing dependencies)" and save the movie to the SAME file name.  This will preserve the references to the sounds, and also save any changes you have made in MoviePlayer. Make sure you first make a copy of the movie you are editing, so that you do not lose the original.


 
Q) Why does a soundsaVR movie suddenly display a "broken icon" and display a "Low memory. Can't Play" message after playing for several minutes?

A) This is a known bug in QuickTime 4 for Windows.  The only workaround at this time that will eliminate this problem is to make all the sounds in the movie non-directional (ie. ambient).

Q) The RTSP track I'm using has a video portion.  When I add it using soundsaVR, the video is not visible.  Is there a way to make it visible?

A) Since soundsaVR supports adding sound to panos, and not video,  RTSP tracks (with a layer greater than -5) are hidden behind the pano when they are imported.  However, you can make the video visible on top of the pano by changing the track's layer in QTPlayer Pro to -5 or lower (-5, -6, -7, etc) before you import it.


Q) Are there any compatibility issues when playing movies that contain sounds compressed with QDesign?

A) After investigating several reports of this problem, it was isolated to an incorrect version of the Sound Manager extension being installed. See the QDesign Users Guide, Technical Support Page #16:

"Ensure that the correct version of the 'Sound Manager' extension, version 3.3, is installed in the 'Extensions' folder in the 'System' folder on the startup drive."

If problems are encountered with sounds, please check to make sure that the sounds correctly play in MoviePlayer before they are added to a VR node using soundsaVR. 

Q) Why do I always get a "Save changes to the MoviePlayer document..."  dialog when I close a soundsaVR output movie after viewing it in MoviePlayer?

A)   The wired sprite that makes directional sound movies work dynamically changes the volume of sounds as the movie is panned. MoviePlayer "notices" these changes when the movie is closed.  Either "Save" or "Don't Save" can be clicked with no ill effects as the movie is not flattened.  Viewing the movie in SimpleText, or in a browser, will not trigger this dialog.  We have found that this problem only occurs if the viewer is capable of editing QuickTime movies, like MoviePlayer when QT3 Pro is installed. This problem has been fixed in QuickTime 4.x. 


 

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