Frequently Asked Questions
Upgrading from Spot 4
General
Video and audio
Encoding
Do I need a new dongle if I upgrade from Spot 4 to Spot 5?
No, you don't. Your old dongle can be updated to work with
Spot 5 via email.
How does the dongle update process work?
After receiving your order confirmation email, follow these
steps:
-
Download the file ddchange.exe from
http://www.spotsoftware.nl/downloads/spot5/ddchange.exe.
-
Run ddchange (make sure your Spot 4 dongle is connected to
your computer before doing so).
-
Copy the information shown in the
ddchange window (right-click the list and select "Copy All Information")
and send it to upgrade@spotsoftware.nl.
Do not click any buttons yet.
-
An email will be sent to you containing an update code. This
code should be entered in the "Enter update code here" field.
-
Click "Make changes to dongle" and
your dongle will now work with Spot 4 and Spot 5.
I get error 118 when running DDChange.
You have clicked the "Make changes to dongle" button without
entering your update code in the "Enter update code here".
Is my product key the same as my dongle update code?
No, they are two separate things.
-
Your product key is used to activate your copy of Spot. You
are only asked for it when you run Spot for the first time.
-
The dongle update code is required to update your Spot 4
dongle so it will work with Spot 5. You will receive this code after
completing step 3 of the dongle update process (see above).
I get a connection error when trying to run the trial
version.
The trial version of Spot requires an active Internet
connection, so make one exists before launching the program.
The program appears to stop responding after I enter my
product key
It may take up to 60 seconds for Spot to verify your product key. If you
receive a "Connection timed out" message or the program appears to freeze,
there may be a remote connection problem. Cancel the product key request
and restart Spot.
The spell checker isn’t working
Spot uses Microsoft Word to spell check subtitles so if a
version of Word is not installed on your computer, you cannot use the
spell checker or the thesaurus.
If you do have Word installed and the spell checker is still
not working, make sure you have the correct language selected in Spot’s
language bar above the video window.
I can’t type in capitals
Select Tools, Options, Checks, Auto Check
and turn off the "Correct two initial capitals"
option.
I can’t raise subtitles using Ctrl+Alt+Up/Down
If nothing happens when you press Ctrl+Alt+Up/Down, then
another program on your computer, usually the software installed by your
graphics card, has most likely hijacked the key combination. You need to
find out which program is the culprit and then change or disable the key
sequence.
Spot adds a space between letters in abbreviations such as
U. S. A.
Select Tools, Options, Checks, Auto Check
and turn off the "Insert space after punctuation"
option.
How do I set a fixed number of characters per line?
Select "Set Characters Per Line Width"
from the Subtitle menu.
Setting a figure of 36, for example, will ensure that only a maximum of 36
characters are allowed per line. Note that as the only way to set the
maximum number of characters per line is by using a fixed width font (i.e.
a font in which each letter shares the same width), Spot will change the
current screen font to Courier New. This will not affect the target
broadcast font.
There is a more elegant approach that lets you keep Are edit font. Change the edit line width to a figure that sets the CPL
value on the status bar to approximately 36 (e.g. 5000). Because Arial is
a proportional font, this does not guarantee that you won’t be able to
type more than 36 characters in a line but it will prevent it from
happening most of the time. As you work, keep an eye on the two line
length indicators above the current subtitle: if they turn red, one of the
lines in the subtitle is too long. When you’ve finished working on your
file, a "Too many characters in line
check" (or switching to
Report view will pick up any warnings you may have missed.
How do I tell Spot where to store my backups?
Spot creates the backup folder for you. You manage all the
backups from the Options, Auto Recover
window.
I can’t find the recut or master recut windows
The recut and master recut windows have been combined into a
single Offset window. You
can access it from the Cues menu or by
pressing .
I selected the wrong frame rate when I opened a video file
Click the small black arrow on the right of the "Open
media file" button on the video toolbar, select "Delete video format flag" and then reopen the video.
A video file won’t open/plays erratically/is out of
sync with the audio
Although it’s possible that the video file you are trying to
open is corrupt, a more likely explanation is that your system does not
have the correct video decoders installed and therefore cannot render the
video correctly. The default decoders installed by Windows will not let
you play back MOV or MPEG-2 files, for example, and may cause problems
when attempting to play other video formats, such as WMV or MP4. To work
around this problem, installed a good quality decoder such as ffdshow and
configure it to decode the most common video formats. There are several
diagnostic tools available on the Internet, such as GraphEditPlus, which
will help you identify the decoder which is causing the problem.
Subtitles in the video preview window are boxed
If you are running Spot on Windows Vista or Windows 7 and
have not selected the "Use VMR9 to render subtitles"
option in the Video, Preferences
window, navigate to the Spot install folder, right-click the file spot.exe,
select Properties, then turn on the option "Turn off desktop composition"
on the Compatibility tab.
How can I increase the size of the video window?
The video window is automatically resized whenever you change
the size of Spot’s main window. If you maximise Spot, you will maximise
the video window.
The encoder doesn't work
If you are encountering problems when encoding, try one of the suggestions
below.
- If you have the VobSub DirectShow filter installed on your computer
and it is set to autoload, this might be preventing the source video
from connecting to the encoder. Turn off autoloading in VobSub.
- One of Spot's encoder library files (PictureMixerPXT.DLL and
VideoConverterPXT.DLL) may be missing or unregistered. To register a DLL
file, open it with regsvr32.exe in the Windows\System32 folder.
- Select the option "Show filters" in the Advanced Encoder Settings
window. When you start an encoding session, this will pop up a list
displaying the various codecs and filters that are used to encode the
video. Check that the list contains the two files mentioned above and
does not reference VobSub.
- Select (or deselect if selected) the option "Force RGB32 colour
space" in the Video, Preferences window.
I get error 62 when trying to encode The encoder is in an
unknown state. This may occur immediately after aborting and then
restarting an encoding session. Click OK to dismiss the error message and
click Encode to begin encoding. What is upsampling? Upsampling is a technique used
during encoding to increase the size of the source video to match the target
resolution with no obvious loss in video or, more importantly,
subtitle quality.
To try to explain this better, imagine you are encoding from a 320x240
MPEG-1 video and want to output the result in PAL 720x576 format. Because
the subtitle font size is determined by the source video size, you will
have to use a small font in order to stay within the safe area. When the
encoder resizes the source video to 720x576, your small subtitles (which
will not look particularly pleasant to begin with) will be stretched by
the same amount. The two images below show the video before and after
encoding.
With upsampling enabled, the source video is rescaled to the target
size before the subtitles are overlaid on the video. This means
that the size of your subtitle font is determined by the size of the
target video and, as a result, no subtitle resizing occurs.
My encoded video doesn't contain subtitles
There are two reasons why subtitles may not appear in your encoded
video.
-
When you created the subtitle stream, the baseline for the subtitles was
set to a value greater than the height of the source video. For example,
if you are encoding a 320x240 source video and outputting at 720x576,
your subtitle positioning must be based on the source video size and
not the target video size. Note that the reverse if true if you have
upsampling enabled.
Encoding from 320x240 to 720x576 without upsampling: baseline must be
less than 240.
Encoding from 320x240 to 720x576 with upsampling: baseline must be less
than 576.
-
Your subtitles have been timed
against the timecode in the source video. If the in cue for the first
subtitle in your file is 10:00:02:00, the subtitle may be in sync with
the source video when rehearsing in Spot but will not be encoded in the
target video as it is only marked for display after ten hours and two
minutes. To stop this happening, either a) select "Auto-offset
subtitles" in the Advanced Encoder Settings window before encoding (you
must have the source video loaded in Spot's main window for this to
work); b) time your files starting at 00:00:00:00; or c) offset the
timing of your subtitles.
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