Wav audio datatype and Hollywood

[nubechecorre]

Hi,

I and Gianluca Girelli write here after speaking with Andreas Falkenhahn of Hollywood. We have a problem with some Wav files and it seems that the problem is a datatypes problem.

I and Gianluca Girelli (aka Goblin) are developing the game "The Secret Of MiddleCity" and we encountered into this problem, the sound of wav files is weird/distorted. We tested the audio files under Windows, Mac and MorphOS and there is no problem, while under Amiga OS 4.1 fe it happens that.

We send the audio files to Andreas to look into it to see if the problem is Hollywood but after investigating he told us to contact the OS4 DevTeam and tell him that there is a problem on the datatype (a bug?).

So here we are asking if you can help us fixing the Wav Datatype for Amiga OS 4.

We really need it to finish the game and publish it..

Here more informations about us and the game:

http://www.gdg-entertainment.it/index-eng.html

Thanks for your help,

Davide Palombo,
GDG-Entertainment.it

[eliyahu]

can you provide more information? do the files not play at all, play in a distorted fashion? does the system freeze? are you seeing an error of some other nature?

also: can you provide a sample WAV file that exhibits this issue so it can be recreated?

-- eliyahu

[broadblues]

Indeed with out a test sample it's hard to help at all.

Do the samples sound correct in MultiView?

[nubechecorre]

Thanks for the reply at the moment (right now) my Sam is down but Gianluca has everything you are asking for.. He already registered his account here on hyperion forum, he need to be activated, just be patient and he will provide you all the informations..

Thanks!

[g0blin]

Hello guys,

here I am.

As Davide (Nube) said, we worked on the sound fx to provide a better gaming experience, but something is not working right.

We basically took some of the *.wav files we originally included on TSMC official demo and remastered them (adjusting volumes and such) with Logic 10 on a Mac system. Those sounds work well on many systems (Windows, Mac, MorphOS) both inside and outside of the demo/game.

On AmigaOS4, though, they play nice when using Multiview or TuneNet, but do play horribly distorted when played from inside a Hollywood code.
There is neither a system freeze nor an error message, only a (very) heavy static sound.

I originally thought they have been remastered using a 24bit sampling rate by mistake (Hollywood only supports 8 or 16bit samples), but here is the answer Andreas kindly gave me after analyzing the samples:

============
these *.wav files use an extended header format which Hollywood didn't recognize. However, they're not 24-bit samples but 16-bit ones. They worked on Windows because of DirectShow and on MorphOS because of datatypes. On OS4 the datatypes seem to be buggy as it's working in MultiView but not with Hollywood so you might want to report this to the OS4 team.

I've also added support to Hollywood for this extended header format so Hollywood will be able to load this format in the next version without the need for datatypes, but still you should report this to the OS4 developers.
=============

I'll send the samples to Andy via e-mail in a matter of minutes, since I already have his address. I can also provide a piece of Hollywood code if you guys need one.

Thanks for your help.

Kind regards
Gianluca

[nbache]

here is the answer Andreas kindly gave me after analyzing the samples:

On OS4 the datatypes seem to be buggy as it's working in MultiView but not with Hollywood

But MultiView plays via datatypes, doesn't it?

Best regards,

Niels

[broadblues]

On OS4 the datatypes seem to be buggy as it's working in MultiView but not with Hollywood so you might want to report this to the OS4 team.

Errm that is so backwards, it works in the OS software but not in my software so the OS has a bug?

I'm not saying there isn't a bug, but some better description of it from the hollywood dev might be helpful.

Thanks for the sampes they all play perfectly in both the Datatypes based players I have available.

[g0blin]

I don't know what to say.

I'm not blaming anyone, just calling for help. I'm not the Hollywood dev, so I don't know what's going on inside the framework.

I guess the only thing I can do at this point is using the old samples and manually adjust their volumes sample by sample from inside my code.
The reason why we remastered them was exactly to avoid this behaviour and equalize the entire batch of sounds for better consistency.

Thanks for your support anyway.

Kind regards
Gianluca

[kas1e]

@goblin
The best solution there will be to ask author of Hollywood to provide C based sample code, which will show that problem is in the OS4 parts. Not on hollywood, but on C. Once there will be reproducible test-case, its all can be fixed. Because if it all works over multiview, and didn't works with Hollywood, then need to test it on C (without involving of Hollywood) and if there will be problem, then its indeed problem in os4datatype and then (when have C sample test-code) it will be easy to determine and fix.

[g0blin]

Thanks kas1e for your help.

I'll report it to Andreas.

@all
have a nice day.