AudioCutter Cinema

Configuration

To use the AudioCutter Cinema effective and meaningful it has to be configured correct before. Depending on the intended purpose of the sounds which have to be created and depending on the performance of the used hardware, different configurations are possible.

The configuration window can be found in menu "Special", menu item "Config". This window is subdivided into different panels and configuration groups which will be described in detail now.

Audio Settings

This panel is subdivided in different partitions too. All parameters which can be found here influence the audio output and the internal processing of audio data. On the upper side of this panel a combo box can be found which selects the audio device used for output. Please note: it is important to select a device which is meaningful useable for the output of audio data. There are all devices listed which are known by the operating system as audio devies. Sometimes also devices like VoiceModems can be seen here which are useless for the AudioCutter Cinema.

Depending on the automatically ascertained capabilities of the selected audio hardware different parameters of the following sub-panels can be selected or the related buttons are deactivated because these features are not available.

Output Settings

This panel can be used to select the output format of the data replayed by the soundcard. Here it is possible to select the sample resolution (in unit bits) and the sample frequency (sometimes also called sample rate; in unit Hz).

Standard settings for typical audio hardware would be 16 bit and 44100 or 48000 Hz. More professional soundcards could be able to handle higher values (e.g. 24 bit and / or 96000 Hz). More exact information about the capabilities of such soundcards can be found in the documentation of it.

Higher sample resolutions and frequencies result in a higher amount of data which has to be handled. Also the complexicity of the output data calculation increases - and the time these calculations require when higher values are used. On the other hand smaller sample resolutions and lower frequencies result in less memory usage, shorter calculation times and faster processing of the output data.

If there are operating system specific problems with hardware and drivers please see section Operating System Specifics.

Audio Encoding

A special feature of the AudioCutter Cinema is the support of different soundmodes and the possibility to encode the output signal in different ways. Using the panel "Audio Encoding" a preferred soundmode and encode method can be used. This panel also depends on the hardware capabilities and so it may be different settings aren't possible because the related buttons can't be selected. Following soundmodes and encoding methods are available:

selectable soundmode	number of required audiochannels (hardware-dependend)	encode method	specialities
1.0 Mono	2	none	both audio channels replay completely identical audio data - similar to play back of a mono signal on stereo-hardware with two speakers lowest hardware requirements
2.0 Stereo	2	none	requirements for memory and computing power slightly higher as for 1.0 Mono
2.0 Surround	2	compatible with Dolby Surround and Circle-Surround	mode with surround sound capabilities
4.0 Quadro	4	none	best replayed with soundcards offering 4 output channels surround sound mode
5.0 Surround	5	none	high memory and computing power requirements surround sound mode
5.1 Surround	6	none	compatible with dts and Dolby-Digital in number of channels and calculated speaker positions very high memory and computing power requirements high class surround sound mode requires a soundcard with 6 audio channels (5.1-sound-capability)
6.0 Surround	6	none	very high memory and computing power requirements high class surround sound mode requires a special soundcard
6.1 Surround	7	none	compatible with dts ES and Dolby-Digital EX in number of channels and calculated speaker positions very high memory and computing power requirements high class surround sound mode requires a special soundcard

Internal Samplefrequency

Beside the output sample frequency a separate value for the internal sample frequency can be set. The much higher this internal frequency is, the much higher calculation quality is possible. On the other hand also the hardware requirements increase togehter with the internal sample frequency. The highest selectable frequency requires a hardware with really much amounts of RAM and computing power. If a value is selected which is to high for the available memory and the computing power, long calculation times have to be expected.

Following values van be used:

"Factor 1" - internal calculation takes place with the sample frequency of the loaded file. If more than one file was loaded, the highest sample frequency of all files is used. If a new sound is generated without loading a file, 44100 Hz will be used. Independend from the loaded file a internal sample frequency of 96000 Hz will never be exceeded.
"Factor 2" - internal calculation takes place with the double sample frequency of the loaded file. If more than one file was loaded, the highest sample frequency of all files is used. Independend from the loaded file a internal sample frequency of 96000 Hz will never be exceeded.
"96000 Hz" - a fixed internal sample frequency of 96000 Hz will be used.

Please note: The number of useable soundmodes and the maximum internal sample frequency depends on the version of the AudioCutter Cinema. Differences can be found between the available versions AudioCutter Cinema Home, AudioCutter Cinema Pro and AudioCutter Cinema XS (Xtended Surround).

Display Settings

This panel offers configuration possibilites for the waveform graph and the units used in all panels, windows, for all calculations and parameter settings.

"Sample Time Format" - unit of x-axis; all parameters which control or display the time will be shown in this unit. It can be changed depending on the usage of the sound, so the unit "frames" would be very useful for all animation-related sounds.
"Frames/Second" - if the "Sample Time Format" is set to unit "Frames", the used framerate has to be set here. For all other possible units of the x-axis this value isn't used. As an example: a standard framerate could be 25 fps (= 25 frames per second).
"Vertical Scale Format" - unit of y-axis; all parameters which control or display the amplitude will be shown in this format
"Wave Graph" - representation of the waveform inside the WavePanel
- "lines" is a very fast mode but some details get lost when a small zoom is used
- "lines / solid" draws the waveform as lines when large zoom values are used (zoom-in) and changes to the slower but more detailes solid-mode when the zoom values decrease (zoom-out).

Cache Settings

This panel offers the possibility to change and to optimize the settings for the AudioCutter-internal virtual memory. This specific virtual memory works independend from all methods offered by the different operating systems. Because of this, both memory management systems shouldn't collide. That would result in a very low working speed!

Following settings can be used / changed:

"use internal chaching" - turns the internal caching on or off. Only if this checkbox is selected the internal caching is used and the following option "Cache Threshold" is available. Normally the internal cache should be used only if the operating systems doesn't offers his own virtual memory or if it is to small or to slow.
"Cache Threshold" - The AudioCutter Cinema allocates and uses normal memory until this threshold is reached. If more memory is used for audio data, parts of it will be put to harddisk. This threshold should specify an amount of RAM which can be allocated without the usage of the operating systems cache. Typically not more than 50%-70% of the available RAM should be set as threshold here.
Please Note! If this value is to high, the data may be swapped between RAM, the operating systems cache and the virtual memory of the AudioCutter Cinema, which results in very slow working speed and continuous harddisk usage.
"Cache Directory" - specifies the path to a directory which can be used to put the cached data into and which is located on a disk drive with enough free space. If an existing path is changed, the new path will be used after the next restart of the AudioCutter Cinema. After leaving the program, the cache directory will be cleared which can result in longer harddisk accesses after the program is closed.
Additional this directory is used from the record function also if the internal caching was turned off. To handle the possible large amounts of data, harddisk recording is performed. This requires a caching directory. So the path to the useable caching directory should be set also if no internal caching is used!

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