Simple tool for splitting / speeding up WAVs

[Sensemann]

Hi everybody!

This is my first post to the forum, so for now and the future I want to apologize for my (perhaps) incomprehensible English - it's not my native language.
Then I'll have to say that this forum is one of the best sources for information on working with video. Thanks to everybody who has shared his or her knowledge! And please keep on with the good work!

Now to the topic. I'm from Europe and owner of a rather ancient TV set. Because of this I can watch only PAL movies on my standalone DVD player. Therefor I have to do a lot of NTSC-PAL conversions. Basically, I follow KingJohn's guide. For speeding up the audio part of a movie, I've used CoolEdit several times but was rather disappointed by its "speed". So I decided to code my own little program. The result is a small Java app (< 50 kB) with which you can split and/or speed up wav files. It's by no means perfect, but it does the job. If you're interested, you can download the application from this page.

Have a nice day,
Jens

[narked]

AT LAST!! have just tried it, excellent results. Compressed 1hr 30min wave in 6mins 45s, syncs perfectly. Have been using cooledit up till now (this would have taken over 40minutes). Will be recomending this from now on. There are a number of guides on this site that recomend different wave editors, perhaps you ought to link to them.

[mats.hogberg]

Tried it, but can't get it started - Doubleclicking sure doesn't work (That brings up my ZIP app) and cd to the program dir and executing "java wavworks11.jar" doesn't work either. I'm probably missing something obvious, but what? Got Sun JRE 1.4.0 installed...

/Mats

[Sensemann]

Hi Mats,
try the following: Open a DOS box, change to the directory where you've saved the JAR. Type

java -version

and then hit the enter key. You should get some informations about which version of the JVM you're using. If you get an error message instead, try to de-install Java and install it again. If there is no error message and you get informations about Java, type this command:

java -jar WavWorks11.jar

I hope that'll help...

Jens

[mats.hogberg]

Like I said, it's Sun JRE 1.4:
java version "1.4.0"

• Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.4.0-b92)
  Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.4.0-b92, mixed mode)

java -jar WavWorks11.jar results in:

• Exception in thread "main" java.util.zip.ZipException: Can't find file at java.util.zip.ZipFile.open(Native Method)
  at java.util.zip.ZipFile.<init>(ZipFile.java:112)
  at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:117)
  at java.util.jar.JarFile.<init>(JarFile.java:55)

I think I've heard that 1.4.0 was rather buggy - I'll give the latest JRE a go to see if that helps!

/Mats

[Sensemann]

Hmmm...
I've just installed JRE 1.4.0_03 on a clean system and there was no problem with starting WavWorks.
Perhaps it sounds like a stupid question: Before typing in the "java -jar ..." command in the DOS box, have you changed to the directory where WavWorks11.jar is located?
Another thing that could cause the error is a corrupted download. It may help to download the file again...

Jens

[mats.hogberg]

No questions are too stupid when dealing with end users. Believe me - I know! But in this case, I've actually been a Java coder, even if it was some years ago, I'm sad to say. Something must have been wrong with my classpath or something - after uninstalling and then installing latest JRE, everything worked. Now, I'll take her for a spin
Who said Java is slow and sluggish??

/Mats

[mats.hogberg]

Well, as far as speed goes, it's lightning fast - compared to GoldWave, SoundForge, CoolEdit et al. I've tried it on a 23.976 to 25 fps conversion project, and it syncs perfectly. Only slight problem is a somewhat "soaring" pitch in the shortened sound track - sounds a little like an old move with swaying pitch, while the original is perfect.
Requests for future improvements:
Flesh out frame rate conversion page with current duration/filesize and duration/file size after conversion
In addition to fixed frame rate conversion compress/expand, an option to compress/expand to a set duration in hrs, minutes and seconds would in some cases come in handy! Maybe even a %-age?
Great app! I think I'll do a 23.976 to 25 fps conversion incl audio and subs how to.

/Mats

[Sensemann]

The sound distortion is produced by a bug in the compress/expand routine. I've found out about it this weekend and think that i'll have it fixed by monday. When it works I'll post a message.
Your requests should be easy to implement and I try to code them as soon as possible.

Have a nice day
Jens

[mats.hogberg]

Great! I'm looking forward to the next version!

/Mats

[Sensemann]

Mats,

you can now download the fixed version. It should work without producing this strange "distorted" sound, but it's difficult to say because my sound system is kind of crap. I've tested it with some wavs produced out of pure sine sounds. With WavWorks 1.1 the deterioration of the sound was clearly audible, but there seems to be no problem with WavWorks 1.2, but as I've said, I'm not sure...
I would appreciate it if you could do a test on your own.
Additionally I've added the features from your "wish list".

Have a nice day
Jens[/u]

[mats.hogberg]

Great! I'll try it this evening, when I get home from work.

/Mats

[Sensemann]

For your information: There's another update for WavWorks available now (V. 1.3).
I've fixed a few minor bugs and enhanced the "Join" features.

Have a nice day
Jens

[mats.hogberg]

Tried 1.2, (sorry I didn't report this before!) and the "swaying" pitch has disappeared. Possibly still a slight degradation in quality, but not so much that I can be sure - and after all, you can't get 100% in this kind of transformation.
Will update to 1.3 asap!

/Mats

[Sensemann]

You're right... there is a slight degradation of sound quality, especially around high frequency bands.
I'm not sure if it is audible in "real world" sounds, but a frequency analysis of a few combined sines revealed that the actual transformation generates some high pitched noise.
At the moment I'm trying to solve this problem by implementing another kind of transformation. The new code is working already, but I'll try to increase the processing speed (the new routine now takes about 2 times as long as the old one).
I think by the mid of next week I can put the next version of WavWorks online.

Jens

[Sensemann]

I've put WavWorks 1.4 online. It contains a new algorithm for speed transformation that produces less noise, although it's slightly slower.
Again, you can download it here.

Greetings
Jens

[mats.hogberg]

Great! I've set up a Linux partition, and it will be interesting to see how it works under Linux...

/Mats

[dphirschler]

FWIW, you can speed up CoolEdit by disabling the "undo" function. This takes the majority of time because undo basically saves a new copy of the entire wave everytime you do an edit.


Darryl