NovaLog Hard Disk Audio Logger version 2.22.0 for Microsoft Windows 2000 / XP / Vista / 7 / 8 Software by GWS Audio Visual 18 Coleman Ave KEW EAST VIC 3102 AUSTRALIA Phone (03) 9859 6478 Mobile (0428) 481 985 Fax (03) 9819 7364 www.gwsaudio.com.au Copyright © Greg Segal / GWS Audio Visual 1997..2014 MANUAL ERRATA FOR NOVALOG 2.22 Nil. NOVALOG VERSION HISTORY 2.00 (11/2001) 2.01.0 (12/2001) - Required installation of RealPlayer. - Improved logic/error messages wrt. 1 or 2 audio cards, enabling and disabling recording functions. 2.01.1 (4/2/2002) - Removed bug that occasionally corrupted reading of hardware clock on certain motherboards. 2.01.2 (11/2/2002) - Fixed bug whereby Flavour labels on player and main form would appear blank (if player closed on last RealAudio file then re-opened). - Revised text in License/Copyright on About form. 2.01.3 (8/3/2002) - Hourly transition b/w high bitrate RealAudio files while running high bitrate HiFi PCM could result in RealAudio losing data or freezing - fixed by making writing of temp RA file to permanent occur after next file has started (cf. before). - Eliminated anomaly with Drive Select whereby "Max Possible" would result in Spare space that was not allowed under "Above Selection", This could ultimately cause recording to stop if using high bitrates and large files. 2.02.0 (31/5/2002) - Allowed licensing of a "light" version, NovaLog LT, which has RealAudio only (no PCM). Demo can be run in either form. - Player now has "Dir" button to allow selection of NovaLog files on other media. On NovaLog, will play any RealAudio or PCM file on local PC. NovaPlay extends this to network machines. - Fixed bug in player on slower PCs where sometimes codec info and level meters would not work. - Further refined Drive Select to be more conservative in space allocation. Space infringement by foreign data no longer causes recording to stop - instead oldest NovaLog files are deleted to maintain space margins, and in an extreme case (> 4 hrs lost), a warning appears on the main form. - On shutdown, writing of last RealAudio file from temp to permanent now brings up a splash screen to explain what is happening. - SystemControl now has 2 checkboxes - * Can select Autostart with Windows (previously required a manual shortcut in Startup folder). * Can choose whether UPSClose closes Windows when a UPS shutdown occurs (previously used a separate .ini file). Windows close now works properly on Windows NT/2000. 2.02.1 (22/7/2002) - Discoverd a bug in the player triggered by playback of any of the first 4 files in the list. The list is updated when a new file is starts recording at the the top of the clock, and this would bring up an error saying "List Index Out of Bounds". The error was benign, and has been fixed. - Refined action of player trackbar used for positioning within files. Improvements also relate to Cue/Review buttons on screen and keyboard left/right arrows. - Player Dir select form would give access violation on Windows XP when selecting (at least) CD ROM. Fixed by limiting ListView to Report cf. List style as before. - Installer no longer installs the RealAudio system file pnen3260.dll in C:\Logger\. (~800K). Instead NovaLog uses the one installed by RealPlayer in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Common\. This means that (a) NovaLog always has the latest version if RealPlayer is updated. (b) The download size of the self-extract version is reduced. - NovaLog now writes Title/Author/Copyright fields into the file header. This is visible in RealPlayer, and is also extracted by the NovaLog player. It is only revealed if there is a disparity between the file name and the embedded Title. 2.02.2 (18/8/2002) - Some PCs have exhibit "phantom" recording devices e.g 'Game Compatible Device' or 'Voice Modem'. Previously a fresh NovaLog install may attempt to initially use one of these and produce an error message when it failed to work. (The fix was to select a valid device in RealAudio Settings, though this may not have occurred to less experienced users). NovaLog now tests each device on startup and will only try to record with a device that actually appears to be a genuine sound card. - The size of NovaPlay.exe has been reduced from a little over 1MB to about 850kB by removing references to source code only required by NovaLog. 2.10.0 (5/11/2002) - Added a third "bare bones" version, "NovaLog LT" with one RealAudio Flavour (16kb/s Music), and no drive space control - always uses max. space, save for >700MB on C:\, >100MB others. Unlock keys allow the following :- < Ver 2.10 Ver 2.10 (no equiv) upgrades to NovaLog LT NovaLog LT upgrades to NovaLog NovaLog upgrades to NovaLog Plus So in this version, "NovaLog" has RealAudio with a choice of flavours and the Drive Space Manager, and "NovaLog" Plus is the one that adds HiFi PCM. - Added END MARK button on player that defines a point at which playback will pause. - Added capability to copy to a Windows wave file. Uses segment defined by current pause spot as start, and End Mark. Found in Options/Copy To Wave. Can also use compressed formats via Windows Audio Compression Manager - format "Change" button. - Options menu also now contains Update (NovaPlay) and Current File (NovaLog) choices; these were previously separate buttons. - On SystemControl in NovaLog Plus, added a warning if Drive Space clicked while the other task set at Max. Space - causes trouble! - The installation CD label refers correctly to RealOne player being included. Also provided is the earlier RealPlayer 8 Basic. RealOne requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or later to be present, which may be a problem on older computers. There is no difference apparent in the operation of NovaLog or NovaPlay between these versions of RealPlayer. 2.10.1 (12/3/2003) - Several users with Windows XP had reported NovaLog claiming "RealPlayer may not be correctly installed" when in fact it was. This was only an issue when logged in below Administrator level. Turned out NovaLog was asking to open the Registry with write permission when only read was required - this was only allowed at Administrator level. Fixed. - NovaLog uses a hardware driver to allow reading of the mother- board clock, and also to give a status output to LPT1 pins. This was not loading in 2000 and XP when below Administrator level. The driver has been updated. It now operates at lower levels providing it has been loaded by briefly opening NovaLog at Administrator level first. If it fails to load, NovaLog now continues to work, but an error message is visible. - Further issues relating to Windows XP at lower user levels have been examined - looking at what happens if NovaLog is first run at Administrator level, then at a lower one. In this case, NovaLog will complain that certain files can't be altered or deleted - specifically... * C:\Logger\NovaLog.ini (settings) * C:\Logger\ACMTest.wav (test for PCM recording, wave file copy) Error messages have been added suggesting causes & fixes. However, problems will still arise if audio files recorded at Admin. level are encountered for erasure/renaming at lower levels. Changing Windows file permissions in C:\Logger would be the best solution. - NovaLog has identified audio devices by number (0, 1, etc) and has assumed they are constants on a specific PC. However on XP it seems they alter with the choice of device made in the Control Panel. RealAudio recording now uses the device name, as this does not change. 2.10.2 (11 Aug 2003) - The hardware driver for reading the hardware clock (Win9x only) and which accesses LPT pins for status output was problematic. It operated correctly on NT/2000/XP at Administrator level, but only at lower levels if the PC was started in Admin. first. It turned out that a Registry entry was not being written during the installation process. Fixed - Windows can be started at any level and NovaLog always loads the driver (TVicHW32) correctly. - NovaLog writes a test file (C:\Logger\ACMTest.wav) for PCM wave recording and copying. If this file was first written at Admin. level, problems will occur at lower levels. This file is now deleted immediately after use, so avoiding the problem. - Created an installer for the DNET codecs required to play the RealAudio 3/5 "flavours" used in NovaLog 1.n. Necessary as the current RealOne Player doesn't come with them. This utility is on the installation CD and at www.gwsaudio.com.au. - NovaLog finds the default 16 kbps Music codec by looking for a text string match, as the codec numbers vary between machines. With RealOne player the name altered to "16 kbps Music" from "16 Kbps Music" as previously ('k' lower case), and the match fails (would commonly default to 5kbps Speech). The comparison is now case insensitive. - On a screen resize with NovaLog, the play button(s) would remain in their old location and be displaced wrt. the main form. Also apparent on XP Remote Desktop if local and remote had different screen resolutions. Fixed, along with other form positioning issues. - With RealOne Player, playback level meters would run 2 seconds ahead of the audio. Fixed - and still OK with RealPlayer 8. 2.10.3 (9 Sept 2003) - On some XP machines, an error message would appear whenever recording or playback was started. This was triggered by NovaLog scanning the CDROM drive while examining potential record/play locations, and XP would complain that there was "no disk in the drive". Apart from the nuisance value, NovaLog and NovaPlay would function normally. The message has now been suppressed. - Whenever a file is played, NovaLog/NovaPlay compare the file name with the "Title" metadata area that was written when the file was recorded. Previously this was only based on the "File ID" part of the user name (eg station callsign). This build now compares the complete name (excluding the numeric prefix) for additional security. - NovaLog LT previously had no drive space management - it would use all space on all local drives apart from preset safety margins. The Drive Space form on this build now has a drop-down selection to allow the choice between all drives or one specific drive. 2.20.0 (6 July 2004) - The recording side of this release is based on the Helix Producer Software Developer Kit (SDK) version 9.1 from RealNetworks. Previous versions had used the RealProducer 8.5 SDK. - The SDK change now allows the "temp" file used during RealAudio recording to be located in the destination directory. When the file concludes, it is simply renamed. Previous versions had to copy the whole "temp" file, which at high bitrates may have taken up to a minute (though no audio was lost during this time). - Previous releases had used RealPlayer's codecs for recording, which caused problems with RealPlayer 10. Now NovaLog installs its own codecs for recording, and the issue is resolved. This change also allows 3rd party codecs to be added, and we hope that "aacPlus" (HE-AAC) will be available in the next release for stereo recording. - The change to the above SDK has reduced the blank space sometimes appended to RealAudio files (see "Known Problems" below). Some space can still be present, but no audio is ever actually lost. - On playback, earlier versions checked that the text part of RealAudio file names matched information in the "Title" metadata area. This gave some protection against alteration of the file name. (The file name is used to establish playback date & time). This version now encodes the file name and other information into a hidden metadata area using 256 bit encryption. Any alteration of the file title or contents will be detected and flagged to the user. If only the file name is changed, the original name is revealed. - NovaLog did not work correctly on non-English installations of Windows, as it assumed that the system files for RealPlayer would be in "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\". NovaLog now reads the Registry to obtain this path, and this problem has been corrected. - The expression of the day, date and time in NovaLog file names is now controlled by the "Regional" settings in the Windows Control Panel. This also applies to the current date/time display NovaLog, and the playback day/date/time. However, the "time separator" is fixed at an underscore as described below. - In previous versions, the "time separator" in NovaLog's file names was a semi-colon (;), which was chosen since the default colon was illegal in file names. However, the semi-colon has some problems too:- * Some CD burning software claims that it breaches ISO standards and replaces it with an underscore (_). * Some users employing NovaLog to feed Internet file servers report problems parsing file names with semi-colons. Given the above, it was decided to make NovaLog's time separator an underscore (_). 2.20.1 (4 August 2004) - A problem was discovered in the previous build when NovaLog was set to auto start with Windows (via the checkbox on the System Control window). In this case, NovaLog would report it could not find the file named Encsession.dll, and fail to start. However, using a shortcut in the Windows Startup folder instead did auto start properly. The bug related to NovaLog being initially wrong about its "working directory" as Windows started, and is fixed in this release. 2.20.2 (1 January 2005) - In the previous version (at least) the player would not automatically continue to the next file if a key was pressed while playing. This could happen if NovaLog was minimised (ALT-TAB), or if the the player had been "driven" from the key board. This release fixes that bug. 2.21.1 (11 Sept 2005) - All previous versions of NovaLog would cover the entire screen including the task bar. While it could be minimised, many users still found it awkward to use with other software. This release adds a checkbox to the Settings window (previously known as System Control) which toggles NovaLog between the full-screen mode and a normal window. In the latter mode the menu bar has an Edit menu to access Settings, and a Help menu for the About dialog. - NovaLog has made a call to the hardware clock every hour to ensure the Windows clock is correct. While this was important with the DOS based Windows (95/98/ME) is largely redundant in the later versions (NT/2000 & XP). Recently some users have reported clock corruption on XP which was alleviated by disabling the hardware clock call. In this release the call is set by a checkbox on the Settings form, and the default setting is OFF for NT/2000/XP. - Previous versions always sent status information to LPT1 about the "StdLog" RealAudio recording process. If a printer or other device was also trying to use the port problems could arise. This version allows disabling of this access and selection of ports other than LPT1. - Some users of non-English Windows have reported random changes of the decimal separator in the number at the start of NovaLog file names. This should always be '.' but some other locales use ',' and sometimes this character would appear and cause problems with playback. We believe the cause has been identified and expect the bug should not re-appear. 2.22.0 (25 Oct 2005) - In NovaLog Plus an attempt by the user to select the same audio device for Log and HiFi recording was previously blocked. We have been alerted to the fact that under Windows XP it is often possible for one audio card to simultaneously supply audio to multiple applications. In this version, if the user does select the same device for both tasks, a warning dialogue appears, but the selection can proceed. - NovaLog Plus was previously able to record in only one audio format for "HiFi", namely PCM. In this version it is possible to nominate any format available under the Windows Audio Compression Manager. However, not all formats will work under given channel and sample rate options, nor will RealPlayer necessarily play them. Users should check that a format is actually playable before leaving it in operation. - In the previous release (2.21.1) hardware clock calls were set "off" by default in Windows NT/2000/XP due to some reports of clock corruption and the view that such calls were redundant. The experience now is that even Windows XP clock stability is impaired if these calls are not made (and no external reference is used). So in this release the default setting is "on" for all Windows versions, but the user can alter this on the Settings window. - There have been requests for a "multichannel" NovaLog whereby several PCs on the same network run NovaLog with different registration details. The catch with this approach is that NovaPlay will see multiple files with the same timestamp. In this version NovaPlay will detect different "FileID" strings in file names, and give the user a choice of which channel to play. If only one FileID is present then the relevant dialogue box does not appear. NOVAPLAY VERSION HISTORY NovaPlay (the network player for NovaLog) is built from same source code as NovaLog, so all bug fixes and enhancements in the playback side of NovaLog apply to NovaPlay as well. NovaPlay will always report the version / build number of the NovaLog source it is based on. WINDOWS 64 BIT INSTALLATION ISSUES (12 May 2011) The NovaLog & NovaPlay 2.22 installers have been rebuilt using Inno Setup. This now allows installation on 64 bit Windows. With this installer, NovaLog and NovaPlay operate satisfactorily on Windows Vista, and Windows 7 and 8, 32 or 64 bit versions. REALPLAYER COMPATABILITY PROBLEM NovaLog and NovaPlay will not work with RealPlayer from version 14.0.0.600 onwards, (released 28 Oct 2010). A compatable legacy version of RealPlayer (ver 11 gold) is available at www.gwsaudio.com.au. KNOWN ISSUES * At the end of RealAudio files there is sometimes a second or two of blank space. All audio is present - the space is just padding. The problem is more apparent with lower bitrates. If such a gap is included in a wave file copy, it can be easily removed with any audio editor, and the result is a seamless transition from one file to the next. The adoption of the Helix Producer 9.1 SDK in NovaLog 2.20 reduced this problem, but did not eliminate it. * When playing some higher bitrate RealAudio formats, the level meters may lag the audio by a second or so. This problem may only occur when RealPlayer 10 is installed. * On Windows Vista / 7 / 8 :- - Audio device selection reflects the newer standard which deals with input sources rather than complete sound cards. - The "Mixer" button on the Settings form does not work. Use the Control Panel to access a level control for the input source. - An error message may appear when NovaLog is closed. This is "bad behaviour" but it does not affect NovaLog's operation. FUTURE DEVELOPMENT NovaLog 3 is under development. Main features :- * No requirement for RealPlayer. * Up to 4 stereo / 8 mono channels. * Formats include PCM, FLAC (8/16/32 bit), MP3, OggVorbis, WMA. * Hourly files (as at present), or triggering by audio level (VOX), or contact closure. * Scheduled recording in all above modes. Greg Segal March 2014 END OF README.TXT