Hope you like the page: www.youtube.com/user/PamFax

During the past years we have consistantly improved the audio and video recording system in Pamela. In Pamela 4.6 some major improvements were done in the video recording system.

However, we still see that some areas of the audio recorder can be improved. The core engine we’re using there is already a bit older so we thought it is time for an overhaul.

Pamela 4.7 will have a complete new recording code module on which the audio and video recording will be based. This core system will perform a lot better and also use even less CPU as 4.6. This is one of the main objectives, improve performance and at the same time “modulize” the engine so that we are flexible to expand it in future.

Talking about future, we will be starting the development of Pamela5 as soon as 4.7 is out the door. I can’t say too much except that Pamela5 will be a massive change from what Pamela has been offering till today. You will not loose any functionality but there will be a lot of very interesting new things. I’m sure you’ll like the new approach and idea. More on this later!

Please note that the currency is only available for China and Malaysian residents.

Changes:
Bugfix: Recording did not appear in recording list when connection to Skype was lost.
Bugfix: Recording did not appear in recording list when a new call was received during an active recording.
Bugfix: On Windows7 there was an error when recording Skype video when the Skype window was outside the desktop area.
Bugfix: Potential crash at the end of a call recording.
Change: Call recording warning disabled by default.
Change: Major improvements in audio engine of Pamela which improves the performance of Pamela.

To update just open Pamela and click on the Help menu and then “Check for update”. This will provide you with the correct update version. Download and run the setup which will update Pamela to the latest version. All your data and settings will remain untouched.

Note that upgrades are free for our free and license customers.

Watch it here: http://shop.skype.com/know-how/videos/extras

Feature: Added WMA support so audio recordings can be in WMA format
Bugfix: Pamela 4.6.0.28 does not always recognize active call
Bugfix: Automatic inbound/outbound recording not reliably working
Bugfix: Memory usage optimizations in audio recording
Bugfix: On Windows 7 Pamela did not register MP3 correcty
Bugfix: Resolved potential crash situations
Bugfix: Video recording optimizations
Change: Improved error message texts
Change: Added a default setting for proxy ports
Change: Auto Skype Mood and Status change is now disabled by default

We made corrections for Windows 7 and also disabled by default the feature to change the Skype Mood and Status during a call. It seemed that Pamela was not always receiving the information that the call had ended and thus Pamela was not able to change the Mood and Status back to what it was before. We assume that Windows Messaging (the communication channel used by Skype API) is responsible for this. We are looking at how to resolve this with some changes.

Besides stability fixes in various areas, this hotfix also adds a new feature which is support for Windows Media Audio format (WMA). In case where you don’t want to use MP3 you can set Pamela to record in WMA format which is also compressed and easy to handle.

You can upgrade for free by downloading the latest version. Just open Pamela and click on “Help” and then “Check for update”. Download and run the installer which will upgrade your Pamela to the latest version.

Take a look at 12:00 where Stefan talks about Pamela. Thank you Stefan for sharing this great video with us.

Feature: Info when user clicks “play” button during a call
Feature: Added additional variables to format the call recording file name
Bugfix: Mood editor showed wrong # of remaining characters when copying text into editor
Bugfix: Language editor set to max # of characters to prevent crash when loading the LNG file
Bugfix: Mood editor tooltips are now translated
Bugfix: “Minimize Pamela at video recording start” option is not saved after exiting Pamela
Bugfix: Sometimes error message dialogs were not in focus and thus not visible for user
Bugfix: Custom record full desktop had disabled record button
Bugfix: Fixed crash in custom video recording on removing webcam
Bugfix: Fixed an issue where Pamela would stop video recording after about 4 minutes
Change: Start external application entry box expanded to 256 characters
Change: Options: all port setting maxed to 65535
Change: Removed the cut off “Not…” text from list view
Change: Considerable speed improvements and lower CPU usage when recording Skype video

In addition we were able to significantly decrease the CPU usage when recording Skype video.

If you want to update, open the main Pamela window and click on “Help” and “Check for new version”. Alternatively you can visit the website and download. Make sure you download the same version as you have.

So, what are the big changes? First of all we completely redid the Skype video recording module. This was used a lot in Pamela since introduction in 2006 but since then evolution of the software world has caused more and more issues with it. So we decided to completely re-write the recording part.

We have managed to create a very low resource recording, this is especially critical as any video application already uses considerable resources. We also wanted to make the settings very simple. In Pamela 4.6 you will see only three main settings regarding video. FPS, the captured Frames Per Second. This impacts file size and quality of the video. Then there is the size of the video file (320×200 up to 800×600 including a YouTube setting). This obviously impacts size of the recording too. And then there is the audio quality starting from “low” to “highest”.

The output file is default WMV format and with Pamela 4.6 we’re doing away with all the complex codec configuration.

In addition there is a video custom recording option which will just record anything from the webcam.

If you have Pamela Professional you can just download and install which will update your Pamela to 4.6. If you do not have Pamela Professional or another Pamela version you will have Pamela Professional in trial mode (full functionality for 30 days).

UPDATE: Pamela 4.6 is now released as final version. Download from www.pamela.biz

So, we decided to re-write the entire module from ground up based on DirectX. This is a Windows subsystem which allows for easy access to audio and video components in Windows.

The engineers have created a first test application which works flawlessly already. The CPU usage is between 3-5% and thus really low. The output file is WMV format which is compressed and a lot smaller then the current AVI. There will also be no more requirement to select a codec or install one so the trouble with this will be gone too. We are testing this internally and plan to release this in Pamela 4.6.

The inital results are very promising. I will keep you updated as the development progresses.

Oh, you may ask yourself when we plan to release this module? With a bit of luck it should be out second week of July.