New Ots Release!!

[neast70]

WHOA! In my email today ...

Great news! Ots Labs is proud to announce the immediate availability of the 
OtsAV 1.94.027 release. 

Highlight: You can now store a music video that previously would have 
required around 200 MB of disk space in as little as 40 MB - that's 
one-fifth - for the same visual quality! Also, convert your MP4/MOV files to 
Ots seamlessly in one step!

For those who didn't get the email, details here!!  http://www.otsav.com/download-relnotes/
They also have some awesome specials going on in conjunction with this new release.

I should be going to bed, but instead I'm downloading. Really looking forward to some of these features!!

Ben @ HRDSound

[milky]

Yep! Already sorted my OtsAV TV upgrade license.

What is not clear is whether the old version has to be uninstalled. My advice would be to do so, BUT make sure that you have a backup of your OML (Usually in C:\OtsLabs\Data) and any other files you may have stored in the OtsLabs folder BEFORE proceeding with the upgrade.
You may also have to uninstall Studio, as 1.94 comes with a new version.

More once I have taken the plunge.

[milky]

Now here's a question for Ots Staff.
I use Studio on a different PC from my production PC to convert music and videos to Ots format. As of this moment, the version of stand-alone Studio on OtsLabs website is the old one. When will this be updated, or can I move the .exe file from my production PC?

[mixfm]

Yep! Already sorted my OtsAV TV upgrade license.

What is not clear is whether the old version has to be uninstalled. My advice would be to do so, BUT make sure that you have a backup of your OML (Usually in C:\OtsLabs\Data) and any other files you may have stored in the OtsLabs folder BEFORE proceeding with the upgrade.
You may also have to uninstall Studio, as 1.94 comes with a new version.

More once I have taken the plunge.

I took the plunge about 12 hours ago and all went smoothly.

FYI I didn't uninstall the previous one first.  I installed over the top - it seems to "know" that the previous one exists and replaces it.

[mixfm]

Now here's a question for Ots Staff.
I use Studio on a different PC from my production PC to convert music and videos to Ots format. As of this moment, the version of stand-alone Studio on OtsLabs website is the old one. When will this be updated, or can I move the .exe file from my production PC?

FWIW, I have a similar set-up.  What I do is install OtsAV on my main box which runs the station and license it appropriately.  I then install OtsAV on my other box (the one I use OtsAV Studio on) but I leave the product unlicensed.  It appears that only OtsAV itself needs licensing; Studio does not need a licence.

Check out all the formats supported now (screenshot attached).

[milky]

OK, considering my unanswered question (above), I installed Studio on my production machine and tried a convert of an iTunes M4V file that I had had to jump through hoops to convert before this latest version. Once I selected "All Files" in the drop down box, the source file showed, and, when selected was immediately recognised by Ots as something which should use the new codec (ffmpeg) to convert.

It was not a fast conversion (on an i5 laptop), but, considering in the past I had to feed it through various, lossy programs to eventually end up with an mpeg file that Ots could play, I was happy to wait.

Incidentally, Ots Studio is very fussy about the build of ffmpeg.exe you use. Apparently it must be version 3.3.1, and that took some finding as there are numerous iterations for each of the operating systems. The one I got to work (for 64 bit Windows 10) was from here http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/win64/static/. The one marked "latest-win64" did NOT work, but the one labelled "ffmpeg-3.3.1-win64-static.zip" worked out of the box.

The trick with installing ffmpeg.exe is to download the file from the link above, unzip it, then open the "bin" folder and copy the ffmpeg.exe program to C:\OtsLabs\Plugins\encoder folder (you may have to create the path). The end quality of both the audio and video is mind-blowing!

[milky]

FWIW, I have a similar set-up.  What I do is install OtsAV on my main box which runs the station and license it appropriately.  I then install OtsAV on my other box (the one I use OtsAV Studio on) but I leave the product unlicensed.  It appears that only OtsAV itself needs licensing; Studio does not need a licence.

Check out all the formats supported now (screenshot attached).

I hear what you are saying, MixFM, but, if you go to the Ots download site, you can actually select Studio as a separate item (because it does not require a license). However, it shows the previous version number which does NOT include the latest import goodies. I could do what you suggest, and install the entire (1.94) package on my work machine, but it should be available on their site.

Incidentally, if you click on "All Files" from the drop down, you can also select m4p, m4v (iTunes) which don't show in the other list. Just be aware that they will convert at 48,000Hz and Opus audio by default. At this stage, I don't think that there is an option to override this, but I see that there is a menu item to set parameters (not working).

[Darryl]

Thanks Milky - I followed the instructions on the ots site and got the latest ffmpeg and it didn't work.  Another trap for new players is that Windows blocks all content until you right click, choose properties and click the Unblock button.  Even if the file is extracted from an untrusted zip, the resulting .exe file will blocked.  I'm giving the 3.3.1 download (thanks for the correct info) a go now.

[Darryl]

No joy on my promo only mp4 files so far:
Ots Studio Professional (1.02.001) log file - generated 20-Jun-2017
07:22:52 - Log opened.

Operation: Import files to current Ots file.
Ots file: Untitled
Encoder module: lame_enc.dll
Encoder settings: 44100Hz Joint-stereo VBR:32/320kbps,1 Q=High
Number of files to import: 1

*** Importing file 1 of 1, C:\video\po\1 - Katy Perry f{D} Migos - Bon Appetit.mp4 ...
Transcoding to VP9 and/or Opus in temporary WebM container ...
FFmpeg did not report appropriately. Install v3.3.1+ to Plugins\encoder\ffmpeg.exe
     ERROR: Unable to transcode source media

(0 files out of 1 successfully created)

07:22:54 - Log closed.

[Darryl]

No - it was a problem between chair and keyboard - I was still using the latest ffmpeg.  It's importing OK now.

[milky]

That's the error I kept getting, until I specifically downloaded the 3.3.1 version mentioned in the error log. I don't know how that will pan out as ffmpeg is improved over time. It looks like we may be stuck in a time warp.

[milky]

Oh, and by BTW, if you are thinking of going back and re-ripping some of your MP4/M4P files through the new encoder, be aware that some of the earlier ones may not work. I haven't found out why yet, but I suspect that ffmpeg has some minimum requirements which may not be met by the earlier video files. Possibly, there are some switches which could be set to override its fussy nature, but the parameters have been set by the Ots guys and we currently have no way of tweaking these.

[Ots_Steve]

Now here's a question for Ots Staff.
I use Studio on a different PC from my production PC to convert music and videos to Ots format. As of this moment, the version of stand-alone Studio on OtsLabs website is the old one. When will this be updated, or can I move the .exe file from my production PC?

Hi Milky,

For now you can just copy the OtsStud.exe (and OtsPlay.exe if you wish) from your main machine and put in the same C:\OtsLabs\ folder and it will work fine. Both of these files don't require a license.

Cheers,
Ots_Steve

[Ots_Steve]

Hi Guys,

3.3.1 is the latest stable FFmpeg *release* build. If you choose the very latest option you will get the *nightly* build which is not guaranteed to be stable (that may be why it didn't work for you).

If you haven't read here yet, be sure to as it contains a lot of useful information regarding this release, codecs and FFmpeg (it was linked to from the important release notes page http://www.otsav.com/download-relnotes/ ):

http://www.otslabs.com/studio-codecs/

Cheers,
Ots_Steve

[dj1]

Yes indeed,

It takes a long time tho you must use 3.31