4.06 issues including out of sync on XP

[psinkiws]

I just ran a show on 11/1 and had to revert back to the 3.40 version to avoid synchronization issues. The problem started when a patron brought up their personal CD and I inserted it into my CD Drive. The music stopped moments later but I was able to resume it by clicking on the play button. However, the lyrics were badly off-sync with the graphics. I ran the older version after that without incident. I have a Dell 9300 running XP Media Center Edition with 1GB RAM, a 60GB Internal HD, NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 with 256MB, 500GB External USB 2.0 HDD, and external Plextor PX-716UF USB 2.0 Drive. I do have the Process priority set for Real-Time but did not have any applications running other that Hoster. Background tasks include AVG 8.0 and PC Tools Spyware Doctor 6.

I have tried to use the intermission show display to have a slide show. I assumed that it could do that since the control is labelled Select Image Folder. I was disappointed to find that I could only select a single image and not a folder. I was later disappointed to find that I had to use MS Paint to scale down the size of the image since the Center tool did not resize the graphic to fit the screen while maintaining the proportion. Stretch forces it to the size of the screen but distorts it much like on the Desktop. Tile works the same as well.

There are still some Songbook creating issues as any use of special characters like / { or } actually take up additional characters when creating a songbook since the RTF coding requires a preceding slash character. Any long entries with special characters are thereby truncated.

Also, when entering a long list of performers, Hoster causes display problems. I only saw this when I had someone enter a list of 12 people to sing the twelve days of Christmas. It was a clever performance but I had to hold their slip aside to properly announce the next performers as Hoster could not handle it.

Also, there is no single click method of skipping the ending of a song. The skip button seems to be more for marking a track to be skipped.

Also, when importing CDs, the controls are awkward. The tracks do not show up on the list below unless you choose to search the online database. I find it awkward to make the necessary edits to make the information conform to the standards defined within your personal songbook. I can provide you with additional information, if necessary.

I think the intentions are good for version 4 but I think that there is still some polishing necessary to make this a viable product. I do appreciate your recognizing the need for a fallback position by providing a new version of 3 just in case you run into problems with 4. I don't know of many companies that go out of there way to do that. Thank you again.

Peter