Options - advanced settings
By clicking on the options button in the middle area of the application you get full access to all available settings and options.
Sound card configuration and settings
There are two different ways to configure your sound card properly - it can be done either automatically oder manually.
Select the device and line that tunebite shall use to record from and then adjust the recording volume level. You can do this either automatically or manually:
- To detect automatically, press the "Auto detect" button and wait a few seconds until the detection is done.
- To detect manually follow the procedure bellow:
- Select recording device (from the "Sound card" drop-down box)
- Select input source (from the "Input"->"Source" drop-down box)
If the sound card supports recording from the output wave signal you should take this input mixer, usually named "Stereo Mix" or "Wave Out Mix". If not you have to manually put a loopback cable from the Line-Out to the Line-In of your sound card and choose for the input mixer "Line In".
- Press the "Test tone" button and then adjust the recording volume (from the "Input" slider) until the input signal is in the yellow range.
Note that when the detection is over you have to make sure that the same sound card device is used by Windows Media Player and/or iTunes for playback:
- To configure WMP go to "WMPlayer->Options->Devices->Speakers->Properties" and select the detected sound card as sound playback device.
- To configure iTunes go to "Control Panel->Sounds and Audio Devices->Audio" and select the detected sound card as your default sound playback device.
High-Speed digital dubbing
Tunebite can perform high-speed digital dubbing (accelerated digital recording). It installs a driver that is able to switch the player program to a faster playback mode (you can notice the slider of the player moving faster than normal). The maximum acceleration that works properly is automatically detected and depends on your hardware configuration and player program, on most systems it is 4x with WMP and 2x with iTunes. If there are problems with the quality of the recorded tracks (esp. tracks considerably longer than the original) you'll have to decrease the acceleration and try again.
Please choose your favourite file format depending on your planned usage of the audio files created by tunebite.
OGG. If you plan to hear the audio files only on your computer, OGG is the file format with the best sound quality.
MP3. If you plan to hear the audio files on multiple devices, MP3 is the file format with the best compatibility. If the MP3 file format is disabled you have to search the internet for the MP3 encoder "lame_enc.dll" with the button "Search for lame_enc.dll" . After you've found and downloaded it, you have to import the MP3 encoder "lame_enc.dll" by pressing the "Import lame_enc.dll" button.
WMA. If you are a fan of Microsoft's encoding technologies and all your devices support the WMA file format, then choose WMA.
You also can decide if your audio files are recorded with a constant or variable bit rate. A variable bit rate usually provides better quality but less compatibility.
Video file format
Please select how you want to use the video. This will change the size of the recorded video. Also it depends on your system performance.
Choose optimized for pc for better quality or optimized for mobile devices for faster processing and lower system performance.
You can choose between the following two formats:
- WMV, the created videos can be watched on every Windows XP computer and on most portable media players. This video file format is free.
- MPEG4, the created videos can be watched on much more portable media players, e.g., the iPod..
Tunebite needs the 3ivx encoder to create MPEG4 files. 3ivx is a MPEG4 encoder from 3ivx Technologies.
Please keep in mind that video capture is a very CPU intensive process. If you encounter any frame drops or further problems during the capturing process please modify your video settings to get better video output results. If necessary please tweak your settings as follows:
1. Lower the video size (affects the size of the captured video)
Choose Optimized for Mobile devices: tunebite will capture 50% of the original video size if the original size is larger than 320x240, otherwise it will capture 100% of the original size.
2. Reduce the video speed (affects the video capturing speed)
The lower the video capture speed, the lower the CPU usage during video conversion, and hence the smaller the probability of frame drops!
Important: two or more input files are considered to represent the same original track if having identical: file name, duration, artist, album and title.
- keep all recordings: duplicates are allowed
- keep all recordings that have different settings: duplicates that have different encoding parameters are allowed
- keep the last recording only: duplicates are not allowed, the last will be kept
- keep the best recording only: duplicates are not allowed, the best as defined by the quality settings will be kept
When assessing the quality the following encoding settings are considered:
- encoder: MP3, OGG, WMA
- encoding type: CBR, VBR
- encoding bitrate: higher, lower
- recording: digital, analog
Note that a encoding parameter can be simply ignored if the value "don't care" is selected.
Normalization can be used to bring all recorded tracks to the save volume. Using 89dB will likely ensure that no clipping will occur. If the tracks do not sound loud enough you can increase the value. But if clipping does occur you will have to reduce the value. Also note the normalization is currently supported only for the mp3 and ogg.
Ouput folder and file name
All recorded tracks will be saved under the folder you specify and optionally artist and album sub-folders can be created. As regarding the file name, if not otherwise specified to create tag-based file names, the original track file name will be used
If automatic recording is enabled tunebite will intercept and record protected tracks as they are played back in Windows Media Player and iTunes. Hence no need to add the tracks to the tunebite's list of songs, just listen to them in your player and get them re-encoded.
By default tunebite deletes the list of already recorded songs when a new batch session is started. Check "[x] Don't delete recorded list after start of new job" to disable this behaviour. Tunebite can also control the volume level of the player programm in use. In most of the cases 100% of the player volume is what we need for not losing the loudness of the original tracks. However in some rare cases, depending on the loudness of the original track and the sound card in use, this might produce distorted output. If such cases it is strongly recommended that you lower the volume level of the player, e.g. you can use 50%. Alternatively, you can simply disable this behaviour and manually set the proper volume level dirrectly in Windows Media Player or iTunes.
The language can be dinamically changed at run-time, at the moment English and German are available.
You can evaluate tunebite as long as you wish. But please be aware that the trial version copies only the first 30 seconds of each protected song you listen to. To remove this limitation buy a serial number from our
webshop.
Music download services
In addition to the possibility to add files directly from the user interface, user defined folders can be specified as well. In particular with this option one can specify where the downloaded media files are saved and where tunebite can find them.
It is also possible to specify if subdirectories are included and as well if files are always added or just in case they are new and copy protected.
The following page contains the frenquently asked questions section.
