Allow switching between logarithmic and linear audio waveform thumbnails
Closed, ResolvedPublic

Description

Reported in tracker:

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=361398


"The current rendering method of audio thumbnail waveforms - as far as I can tell - is logarithmic. This makes it hard for me to see low volume changes in audio.

Allowing to switch between logarithmic and linear audio thumbnail waveform rendering would make editing easier for my process, which is heavily based on where audio starts and stops.

In the case of ffmpeg, if the showwaves effect is used, the scale parameter can be set to use lin or log https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#showwaves"

frdbr created this task.Oct 4 2018, 12:06 AM
frdbr triaged this task as Normal priority.

Yes. we do use ffmpeg for audio/video clips, see file src/jobs/audiothumbjob.cpp

Actually, MLT is used if you didn't set the path to ffmpeg under "Settings" -> "Configure" -> "Environment".

It should already be linear but I see what you mean. Changing to ffmpeg results in better thumbnails and might already be sufficient for your process.

So providing the default path to FFmpeg should do the job, is that right?

Well, I had a look and we use FFmpeg but not the showwave effect. Currently we retrieve the audio data directly from FFmpeg using the "data" effect which does not seem to allow logarithmic output. We might have to perform the transformation on our side... so it's a bit more work...

jlskuz closed this task as Resolved.Nov 12 2023, 2:49 PM
jlskuz claimed this task.
jlskuz added a subscriber: jlskuz.

We discussed this topic during the sprint in November 2023. Not a priority right now. Closing.