DIRAC LE Restrictions?

[madshi]

Congrats on the new version!

We've discussed this before (via email), but since you're about to release a new version, I thought I'd use the opportunity to ask politely again:

Would you be willing to consider changing the limitations of the LE version a little bit?

My situation is this: I'm offering a freeware tool (named "eac3to") targeted mainly at consumers who want to process movie audio tracks. In the movie world, there are audio tracks in 3 different speeds:

- digital cinema: 24.000 fps
- NTSC / Blu-Ray: 24.000 / 1.001 fps
- PAL: 25.000 fps

It's quite common for movie enthusiasts to mix and match audio and video tracks of different DVD / Blu-Ray releases world wide. As a result there's a need to convert audio tracks between the above mentioned 3 speeds. Currently there's no affordable software which can do this in high quality without changing pitch. So I'd really like to add this functionality to my freeware tool. But obviously I'd need "Phase-locked surround processing" for that, since movie audio tracks are usually surround (5.1 or 7.1) or at least stereo.

I wouldn't mind whatever limitations you find suitable, as long as I could do what I need. I'd only need to be able to stretch and convect by factors "1.001", "0.96" and "0.96 / 1.001" (so stretch + convect = 6 factors). No other factors needed. I wouldn't even mind if processing was artificially slowed down 10x compared to the non-LE versions or whatever. But as far as I understand, when processing stereo or surround audio tracks, "Phase-locked surround processing" is really needed, right? And since my software is (currently at least) freeware, I can't really afford to buy the Pro (or even Studio) license.

I understand if you don't want to soften up the limitations, after all you want to earn some money with your software, too. Just thought I'd bring my situation to your attention, since you really seem to be serious with what you're stating so nicely on your homepage:

Featuring an entirely free full-quality LE version, it was created to provide a free basis to give developers of all kinds of audio software a common, high quality toolset for creating their applications. We believe that time stretching and pitch shifting are tools that should not be limited to proprietary applications but are indeed important enough to be readily available as building block for all software developers, without costly licensing, nebulous marketing language and trade secret issues.

Thanks for reading, Mathias.

Mathias Rauen
Systemsoftware Mathias Rauen
http://www.madshi.net

[neuronaut]

Hi Mathias,

thanks for asking. As I told you via email some time ago I'm afraid we can't alter the restrictions of the LE version more than we already have (and since the free LE version now has formant correction as well I think this is as much as we can give away for free).

Adding the phase locking code back in would make the LE version vulnerable to hacking in order to unlock it (which is something that is impossible to do with the LE version right now because the required code just isn't there) and would take away a large group of licensees (not to mention that they would not be amused if they paid for something that is now free).

I'm sorry, but we just can't do this.

Best regards
+Stephan

[madshi]

Hi Stephan,

I understand very well. Thanks for your reply.

Regards, Mathias.