I have come across an annoyance - not sure if it is a bug - I am hoping it is - so it can be fixed!
I am a music producer and browsing audio files without having to load a heavy duty audio application or using a media player is a plus.
I don't like the opus media player - too many clicks - but the movie' viewer plugin is fast (the idea is to play an aif or wav the instant as it is selected - for fast browsing - like photos) - however it does not play aif or wav files.
I tried adding the 'wav' and 'aif' extensions under "preferences-> viewer -> viewer plugins->movie->configure" however this did not work. What does work is if I rename the wav or aif extension to 'mov' - so I know it is not a compatibilty issue.
The other plugin 'Active X + Preview + Office + Web' works if I add extensions to this - however the problem with this plugin is that it is too slow in loading and this makes it not practical.
It is also not practical to rename all my wav files to mov to get the fast speed of the movie viewer plugin - so is it possible to get it working with aif and wav files if I add their extensions?
There's no bug there. The movie plugin is only meant to play movies, not audio-only formats.
The ActiveX plugin will use whatever preview handler or ActiveX control is installed for the formats on your system. Usually Windows Media Player. The speed of it is up to the preview handler / ActiveX control.
well it is a shame you cannot modify the movie plugin to also play wav or aif files - because its speed is far superior than the Active X one.
So much so that I will not use the Active X one.
Alternativly It is also a shame that the in-built Opus wav player has to pop out in a seperate window instead of auditioning in the viewer window...the pop out player means I have to double click on every wav file - which defeats the purpose of a fast file browser.
Currently in my research I have found that a NZ based developer, Xequte, have this function with their explorer with an app called Smart Pix Manager or MegaView - however all the other powerful functions of Opus like batch renaming with regex etc they do not have......
A shame that such a powerful app as Opus lacks power in the audio department...
There's also a plugin API that lets any interested developer make a better music player for the viewer pane, if anyone wanted to. So far nobody has enough to write it, and I've got too many other things in my list to look at it anytime soon.
it just that I don't think there should be any difference with the concept of browsing picture files - with audio files.
if I rename the .wav or .aif extension to .mov - problem solved.
So this seems like a minor change to implement.... is it alot of coding?
as for 'specialized audio' tool comment - my point was that I DON'T have to use a specialized audio tool - so this IS for 'file management'.
Audio files need to be managed just like picture files...
if u could somehow add this to your todo list I would be greatly appreciative and also spread the word to all my audio colleague (who are on PC - you will be surprised how many - gone are the days of audio production only residing on MAC)
yes small wav files play immediately with the active x plugin - but it struggles when browsing quickly and also for long files (especially for 24bit 44.1 KHz -or 16bit for that matter) - however the 'movie' plugin handles these with ease - if I rename the extension to .mov.
is there a way to 'trick' the movie plugin into thinking they are movies?