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First Steps

The following chapter will describe the necessary steps when the AudioCutter Cinema is used for the first time. Beside some installation information this also includes configuration tips for the used audio hardware, the audio output and information about the particularities of the different operating systems the AudioCutter Cinema supports.



Pecularities of the AudioCutter Cinema

The AudioCutter Cinema uses a completely new program and design concept. This is true not only for the user interface. The implementation - which consists of a Java application and a native program core - is also not a trivial solution. This design concept provides the possibility to offer nearly identical versions for much different operating systems and hardware platforms. Also porting to a new operating system is possible very fast.

In detail, the AudioCutter Cinema consists of a platform independent Java«-Application which controls the graphical user interface and a parallel working program core of native code. That means also if the Java-layer of the program is OS-independent, the core is not. Therefore it has to be noticed to use the correct version of the program.

There are many advantages of this concept: The GUI and the usage of the AudioCutter Cinema are (nearly) identical on all supported operating systems and platforms and because of the native core the complex audio calculations work as fast as known from conventional programs. Additional the core and with it the whole software package of the AudioCutter Cinema is really small.

System Requirements

1)
The requirements in memory, computing power, harddisk-capacity and -speed strongly depends on the used settings and the size of the audio projects. The hardware requirements increase and require more RAM and computing power if

Installation

After downloading the AudioCutter Cinema you own a compressed archive which has to be extracted. This operation creates a directory named as AudioCutter which contains all data necessary for the installation or a temporarily directory with a setup/installation program including all files necessary for the setup/installation process.

Information about the operating system specifics related also to the installation process can be found in section Operating System Specifics.

After the Installation the AudioCutter directory contains different files which can be used to execute the program. One of them is an executeable "ACutterStart" or "ACutterStart.exe". This executeable offers the possibility to start the AudioCutter Cinema quick and easy by double clicking them or by entering the name of it into a terminal. This executeable should be also used to create symlinks.

If the AudioCutter Cinema doesn't starts after double clicking "AudioCutterStart" there could be a problem with an incorrect or corrupt Java« installation. To get some information which help to find the problem, the scriptfile "AudioCutter.bat" or "AudioCutter.sh" should be used. This script executes Java« directly and shows all occuring error messages. These error messages can be used to fix the problem.

Java

The AudioCutter Cinema requires Java« which is available now for nearly all (important) hardware platforms and operating systems for free. If an error message is printed after executing "AudioCutter.sh" or AudioCutter.bat which says, the command "java", "jre" or "javaw" couldn't be found, Java isn't installed or this installation is completely damaged. A tutorial how to install the Java Virtual Machine« and what has to be done if other errors occur can be found here. An other version of this document which is updated regulary can be found online at http://www.VirtualWorlds.de/Download/java.html.

Required Base Configuration

If the program is executed for the first time some changes in the default configuration may be necessary. Therefore the configuration window will be opened automatically after the first program startup.

If the uses operating system doesn't supports virtual memory, or if it is too small or too slow, it is recommended to use the program-internal caching. In this case the AudioCutter Cinema requires a directory which can be used to store the cached data into. The default directory is "T" which can be found inside the "AudioCutter" installation directory.

To get the best results with a high working speed it is recommended to change this directory and to use a own empty partition or a separate harddisk for it. Please note: This directory is used for harddisk recording also if you don't use the internal virtual memory!

If you change the directory for the virtual memory you have to select a filename. The filename you choose here will be ignored completely so it is possible to take every name. The program itself creates files with own filenames later so the name you enter is not relevant.

The next step is the configuration of the audio output. Here you have to choose the resolution of the audiodata (= the depth in bits), the replay frequency and the number of supported channels which is supported by the used audio device and its drivers really. Sometimes the operating system and involving the AudioCutter Cinema offers variants and possibilities which are not supported by the hardware. If you select such a variant, it may be possible the audio device cannot be opened or the audio hardware doesn't replays anything. In this case you have to change the audio output settings. Please note: this isn't a misfeature of the AudioCutter Cinema but it results in the special features of it. Most programs doesn't offer such variable output formats and because of this the problems with hardware and drivers doesn't manifest with them.

To get some more information about possible problems with device drivers and audio hardware please refer the following section.

Operating System Specifics



Linux

Installation

The AudioCutter Cinema has to be installed in the directory "/usr/local". Otherwise you have to change your PATH environment variable to make it possible for Java« to find the native program core. This method is not recommended - so following this fact, the correct path to this documentation should be"/usr/local/audiocutter/doc/start_e.html".

Normally the program will be installed correct if you use the included installation script. It was tested using different Linux distributions and variants and it is working properly. After unpacking the delivered archive using 
 tar -xzvf AudioCutter.x.xxx.tar
you will find two new files in your actual directory - a new archive and the installation script. If you execute the script using 
 ./install
the program will be installed automatically. After the script finished you only have to restart your window manager (e.g. KDE or Gnome).

Program Start

To execute the program you can use the executeable "ACutterStart" or the shell script "AudioCutter.sh". It is also possible to single click the AudioCutter symbol on your dekstop or to choose the AudioCutter entry in your start menu (see submenu "Multimedia" inside of the start menu).

Audio-Devices and -Drivers

As a first step the AudioCutter Cinema requires a working audio system. We recommend to use the OSS«. The program may work with other solutions like the ALSA« drivers but because of different incompatibilites we do not guarantee the complete functionality on it.

In practice it can be seen that some device drivers allow nearly every samplefrequency and sampledepth but because of natural limitations of the hardware they can't be used meaningful. If the AudioCutter Cinema isn't able to replay anything please change your audio output settings. We also recommend to refer the manual of your audio hardware to find out the configurations which are really supported.

As a next point we found drivers which allowed opening of record channels for the harddisk recording functionality of the AudioCutter Cinema but reading from these drivers failed completely. An really extreme example of such a driver blocked all operations completely and stopped the whole program.

Hardware Requirements

In theory the Linux version of the AudioCutter Cinema also works with a 86486 compatible processor. But independend from this fact we recommend to use faster processors with more computing power to work liquid with this program.

Windows«

Installation

The AudioCutter Cinema can be installed at any desired place. To do that, please execute the setup program which will guide you through te complete setup process.

Programm Start

To start the program you can use the executeable "ACutterStart.exe" or the shell script "AudioCutter.bat". Both can be executed by double clicking it. Alternatively the program can be started via its entry in the start menu.

Audio-Devices and -Drivers

An device for the audio output can be selected in the configuration window. The option "default" is a summarization of all available audio devices. If you choose it, Windows« uses the audio device which fits best to the other audio settings. That means, if you change your settings, it is possible Windows« selects an completely other audio output device. To use a specific audio hardware, please select it explicitely.

Using Windows« we found also some problems with audio device drivers. Some of them allow opening of the device with samplerates, depths and channel numbers which aren't supported by the hardware. Sometimes the operating system was able to detect this misconfiguration. In this case the AudioCutter Cinema reacted with an error message. Otherwise the audio device doesn't outputs data and there is only silence when a sound is replayed. This problem can be fixed by changing the audio settings to lower (or other) configurations.

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