Author Topic: Audi out of sync/is there a media/sequence offset feature in xSchedule?  (Read 345 times)

Offline ryancacophony

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Hi there, thanks for your continued work on OSS, it's much appreciated.

I'm working on sequences on xLights on my laptop, and when I test them, they are fully in sync, in trems of audio matching the pixel output, matching the waveform visual.

I've begun trying to set up xSchedule to schedule my show. It's running in a separate computer, in a VM with a USB Audio device being passed through. But when I play through xSchedule (and xLights), regardless of the sequence, the audio is consistently delayed such that the lights are flashing before the beat hits.

I'm not sure what exactly could be causing this, be it the USB audio device itself, the VM usb passthrough, or something weird with xLights, but the simplest fix in my casee would be to have some kind of sync offset, similar to whats available in FPP as "Media/Sequence Offset". I looked through xSchedule and was unable to find a similar feature, am I missing it, or does one not exist?

In lieu of such a feature, I'm not sure how else to debug the delay - it's hard to tell if my audio is in sync with other applications as I connect to the VM using VNC, which has a visual lag for the UI, but inputs should be relatively quick, and when I play audio files, they seem to play immediately on input (clicking play or pressing spacebar) with no perceived latency, but its hard to be 100% sure. I've tried to run FPP as they provide a docker container, but have had no luck passing through the audio device whatsoever

Offline keithsw1111

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Re: Audi out of sync/is there a media/sequence offset feature in xSchedule?
« Reply #1 on: October 21, 2020, 02:12:39 AM »
Is bluetooth or newer radios involved in either scenario (sequencing or playback) Both are the primary cause of lag.

Offline ryancacophony

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Re: Audi out of sync/is there a media/sequence offset feature in xSchedule?
« Reply #2 on: October 21, 2020, 10:17:37 AM »
Nope, it's USB audio device -> analog 3.55mm cable (headphone jack) -> speaker input. If I plug the speaker cable into my laptop (where I edit sequences in xLights) its perfectly in sync

Offline keithsw1111

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Re: Audi out of sync/is there a media/sequence offset feature in xSchedule?
« Reply #3 on: October 21, 2020, 11:36:20 AM »
It sounds like a hardware issue with that adapter. Your options seem to be get an adapter without the lag or adjust your sequences to match the timing the device shows by adding some time to the end of the song and shifting all effects.

Offline ryancacophony

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Re: Audi out of sync/is there a media/sequence offset feature in xSchedule?
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2020, 12:19:20 PM »
Unfortunately I've tried 2 adapters so far, the original being a Sabrent adapter [1] and the second being a Sound Blaster Play 3 [2] which as I understand is a pretty common adapter used for shows, and they both exhibit similar if not the same latency. I suspect its something with the hardware passthrough for the VM given the consistency across adapters.

Shifting effects for the sequences, while a workable solution, is not a great solution - It's a lot of manual work for 10-20 sequences, and needs to be reversed and then redone if I want to adjust a sequence (which, being new, I'm tweaking things fairly regularly).

I was hoping xSchedule, being pretty close to feature parity with FPP might have a similar option to the "media/sequence offset" but it seems not... I've attempted to get FPP running in Docker/a VM but have had no luck, so I'm looking into just buying a pi to run the show at this point.


[1] https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Aluminum-External-Adapter-AU-EMCB/dp/B00OJ5AV8I/
[2] www.amazon.com/Creative-Labs-70SB173000000-Sound-Blaster/dp/B06XBZ38ZJ/

Offline keithsw1111

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Re: Audi out of sync/is there a media/sequence offset feature in xSchedule?
« Reply #5 on: October 21, 2020, 01:12:57 PM »
Xschedule doesn?t have it right now as it has never come up before.