Hi Julian
This "Play Next Item or Stop" switch issue you describe in this post has now been resolved in PlayIt Live 2.03 - https://www.playitsoftware.com/Products/Live.
With regards the USB audio output, this sounds like a buffer issue, I would recommend increasing the buffer time, or changing out the hardware completely.
With regards to the keyboard stopping completely, is this an issue with PlayIt Live not being focused (the active window) when the keyboard buttons are pressed?
Re: "Play Next Item or Stop" switch issue - thanks, Jason, it's good to know that it wasn't just me and that there was something that could be fixed! I will make sure we upgrade before our next outside event.
Re: USB issue, I will try an increased buffer (tho 500ms seems a sizeable buffer already?). I hope that works because apart from trying a different USB cable, swapping out the hardware would be major - the only hardware involved is the laptop, the mixer (A&H XB14), and the USB cable that connects them.
Re: keyboard issues - unlikely, IMO, as the problem persisted after using the mouse in the PIL window, which should presumably have reset focus to PIL if it wasn't already? But I will double-check that next time because I do have to [ALT+TAB] switch between PIL and the stream encoder from time to time during an OB.
Thanks again :)
Julian Swift-Hook
In testing (after updating the software but before the event) everything worked, but the following day, at an outside event at which we were using Playit Live to provide the OB music, things didn’t work so well.
Firstly, the “Play Next Item or Stop” switch did not reliably stop play after the current item finished. Sometimes play stopped when the red STOP icon was displayed, and sometimes it didn’t. On occasions, even when the switch was toggled to “stop play”, the next item started unexpectedly.
It happened last Monday, too, when we were also doing an OB. I managed to capture it on video.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/phis25wwkazms2g/2018-05-07%2015.07.16.mp4?dl=0
Secondly, the USB audio output (going to the USB connector on the mixer) was interrupted momentarily each time I typed into the search bar to locate a track, as if the computer couldn’t cope with sending the USB audio and receiving a keyboard input at the same time. In case it’s relevant, the Playback Buffer Length in “Settings | Advanced” was/is set to the default 500ms.
Thirdly, during the course of the day, all the keyboard shortcuts stopped responding altogether, and I had to revert to mouse (well, touch-pad) operation. I guess a reboot would have fixed it, but we were in the middle of an OB so that wasn’t really an option.
Yesterday we were at Wembley doing our most important OB so far, live commentary on the FA Vase Final in which our local team was playing. The above issues manifested themselves yet again, which impacted on our OB again.
I am using the latest build of PlayIt Live version 2.02 on a recent HP Envy with a AMD A10 processor and 16GB of RAM.