FIXED: it is now possible again to compress very long files to Ogg Vorbis, fixing a bug introduced in 6.2.

NEW: Added new functions to allow compression of sounds in Ogg Vorbis format directly to Director 11.5 ByteArrays or as Base64-encoded strings in memory. This allows uploading of compressed sounds directly using postNetText and postNetByteArray, a more convenient replacement for FTP uploading via ShockFiler.

NEW: Added new functions to allow decompression of Ogg Vorbis sounds loaded via Base64-encoded strings or ByteArrays to the sound list. This makes it possible to download compressed sounds using netlingo (getNetText and getNetByteArray), and avoid problems related to the changing location of the dswMedia folder in different versions of Shockwave.

IMPROVED: Functions that compress to Ogg Vorbis now take a single parameter determining the quality level for the compression, and are no longer restricted to 44100KHz sample rate. The conversion will respect the original sample rate and number of channels of the original file. This addresses problems with timestretch of compressed sounds on some versions of Shockwave, due to problems in the sound import/export Xtras.

FIXED: Increased version number and fixed the missing version information in the Windows Shockwave packages. All platforms now report the exact same format and field delimiter (6.1.1) to avoid problems when auto updating Xtras in Shockwave 10 and 11 depending where the Shockwave movie was published.

NEW: Added compressed audio support in Ogg Vorbis format through three new functions: axConvertToOggFile, axConvertToOggData and axLoadOggSoundIntoRAM. This allows uploading of compresed sound files from Shockwave using ShockFiler, as the MP3 Compressor Support Xtra supplied by Adobe with Director 11 can no longer be used in Projectors or Shockwave.

NEW: Compatible with Director 11 and Unicode (UTF8) strings (note: see the list of known limitations and the ones specific to MP3 support)

NEW: When used with Director 11, support for Windows Vista and MacOSX Tiger and Leopard on Intel and PPC (UB)

NEW: useTempDirectory environment property added.

NEW: axConvertToSFData function added, allows direct integration with ShockFiler

FIXED: this version addresses two different issues on the Mac Classic build that could cause the system to freeze or produce distorted recordings when recording to files in 8 bit sample depth. OSX and Windows are not affected, so the update is not necessary for users that are not delivering products to Mac OS 8 and 9.

IMPROVED: Users reported that on some Shockwave installation the DswMedia folder is not present. The useDswMediaDirectory environment property has been improved to allow the Xtra to create a DswMedia folder at the default location if one does not exist. Check the documentation and sample movie for instructions on the updated behavior. Movies published with 5.1 will continue to work.

FIXED: version 5.1 uses a smaller buffer recording buffer size, and this could create problems with older audio drivers with high latency. The behavior has been changed to match the previous buffer size used in version 5.02 (minimum of 128 ms.)

NEW: useDswMediaDirectory environment property is now available in Shockwave. This allows Audio Xtra to automatically locate and use the Shockwave DswMedia support folder as the soundsDirectory, useful to save files in the Shockwave environment.

NEW: peakVolume environment property is added. This returns the peak volume for the last audio buffer during a recording, and can be used to display a level indicator representing the recording volume to the user.

UPDATED: sample movie and documentation updated to reflect the new features.

Certified for operation with the Director MX 2004 10.1 update

ADDED: cross platform resources needed to build Classic projectors from MX 2004 10.1 Windows.

FIXED: a timing issue that could cause bad AIF file recordings when using axRecordToFile, under OSX only, in fast systems with multiple processors. OS 9 and Windows were not affected.

CHANGED: default recording settings for Windows are now 22,050/16/1. Version 5.0 used 22,050/16/2. This change is meant to improve default compatibility with older systems equipped with 16 bit sound cards.

IMPROVED: some scripts in the tutorial sample movie have been changed to include missing error messages and default initialization of sound settings on Windows.

DOCUMENTATION: Entries for axConvertToFile and axConvertToMember have been improved. Added missing error codes. Added technote detailing limitations of MP3 conversion.

NEW: selection of multiple audio devices. There are two new Environment properties that can be used to query the available devices and get or set the current device used for sound input: inputDeviceList and inputDevice.

NEW: Support for USB microphones. These usually appear as separate devices on Windows and Mac, and are selectable from the inputDeviceList.

NEW: support for USB webcams. These usually appear as separate devices on Windows and Mac, and are selectable from the inputDeviceList.

NEW: support for Apple ISight Firewire WebCam. This device can only be used under OSX, as Apple does not supply ISight drivers for OS9. ISight's default recording parameters are 48.000KHz sample rate, 16bit, 2 channels.

NEW: the environment properties preferredRecordingDevice and preferredVoiceRecordingDevice have been added to reflect the system preferences as set by the user in the SOUND Control panel. Audio Xtra will automatically use the preferredVoiceRecordingDevice on systems with multiple sound cards, unless the environment property inputDevice is changed.

CHANGED: several commands and functions (like getting the inputSource or setting the recordSampleRate) previously required that the record device was opened previously with axOpenRecorder() on the Mac platform. This is no longer needed, as the Xtra will automatically open the device if necessary and close it at the end of the operation.

CHANGED: axServiceRecording() is no longer needed.

ARCHITECTURAL CHANGE: The Mac OSX version no longer uses Quicktime for file based recording. This change eliminates some restrictions present in version 4.11, inherited from limitations introduced by the Quicktime architecture for sound capture:

REMOVED: dependency on Quicktime 6.02 or later is removed when recording to files under OSX.

CHANGED: axPauseRecording and axResumeRecording are now supported in OSX when recording to files.

CHANGED: Recording to files under OSX is now possible under all sample rates and depths supported by the audio input driver used.

FIXED: all known issues present in version 4.11 were addressed in this update, including fixes contributed by RedEye Software, updateStage and Tabuleiro. For a detailed list of changes please consult this technote.