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ecatools(1)		       Multimedia software		     ecatools(1)

NAME
     ecatools - audio processing utils based on ecasound

SYNOPSIS
     ecaconvert .extension file1 [ file2 ... fileN ]

     ecafixdc file1 [ file2 ... fileN ]

     ecalength file1 [ file2 ... fileN ]

     ecamonitor [host][:port]

     ecanormalize file1 [ file2 ... fileN ]

     ecaplay [-dfhklopq] [ file1 file2 ... fileN ]

     ecasignalview [ options ] [ input ] [ output ]

DESCRIPTION
     Ecatools  are  simple  command  line utils for audio file processing.  Each
     tool is designed to perform one specific operation. Most of the tools  also
     support batch processing.

     ECACONVERT

     A	tool for converting a set of files to a common target format.  This tar-
     get format is given as the first command line argument, and its  syntax  is
     .ext.

     ECAFIXDC

     A simple command-line tool for fixing DC-offset.

     ECALENGTH

     See the separate ecalength(1) man page.

     ECAMONITOR

     Ecamonitor is a util program that can be used to monitor an active ecasound
     session.  Ecamonitor  is  able to show information about the current chain-
     setup such as list of inputs, outputs, current position, effects,	the  en-
     gine status and numerous other things.

     By  default  ecamonitor  will try to connect to IP4 address "localhost", to
     port "2868".  A different address can be specified when  starting	ecamoni-
     tor,  for	example "ecamonitor foo.mynetwork.com" or "ecamonitor foo.mynet-
     work.com:4500".

     To enable inbound connections, ecasound has to be started with the --daemon
     option. Ecamonitor is implemented in Python using the NetECI API.

     ECANORMALIZE

     Ecanormalize is a command-line tool for normalizing audio files to  utilize
     the full available sample resolution. Ecanormalize first finds out how much
     the  input  file can be amplified without clipping and if there is room for
     increase, a static gain will be applied to the file.

     ECAPLAY

     Ecaplay is a command-line tool for playing audio files.  Ecaplay  uses  the
     libecasound  engine  and is thus able to handle all audio formats supported
     by the library.

     Files can be selected for playback either by specifying  the  filenames  on
     the  command-line,  or  by  using the playlist mechanism. In playlist mode,
     files can be added to the playlist using the -q option. The -p  option  can
     then  be  used  to play all tracks on the playlist. Ecaplay will repeat the
     playlist tracks until explicitly stopped (with  double  Ctrl-C).	Playlist
     can be flushed with -f and its contents listed with -l option.

     If not otherwise specified, ecaplay will use the audio output device speci-
     fied  in ~/.ecasound/ecasoundrc for playback. A different output device can
     be selected with ECAPLAY_OUTPUT_DEVICE shell environment variable	or  with
     the -o:output_device command-line option.

     Playback  can  be	stopped  at  any time with Ctrl-C. If multiple files are
     played, first Ctrl-C will stop the current file and move  on  to  play  the
     next  one.  Issuing Ctrl-C twice (within one second), will cause ecaplay to
     exit.

     -d:debuglevel
	    Set libecasound debug level. See ecasound(1).

     -f     Flush the playlist contents. See also options -l, -p and -q.

     -h     Print usage information and exit.

     -k:number
	    Skip 'number' of files.

     -l     List the current playlist contents to stdout. See also  options  -f,
	    -p and -q.

     -o:output_device
	    Use  'output_device' instead of the default output device (as speci-
	    fied in ~/.ecasound/ecasoundrc). Syntax is same as used by "-o" eca-
	    sound option (see ecasound(1) man page).  This option overrides  the
	    ECAPLAY_OUTPUT_DEVICE environment variable (more info below).

     -p     Play  tracks  in the playlist (in looped mode). See also options -f,
	    -l and -q.

     -q     Queue new tracks to the playlist. All filenames given  on  the  com-
	    mand-line will be added to the the playlist. It is possible to queue
	    new  tracks while another instance of ecaplay is using the playlist.
	    See also options -f, -l and -p.

	    ECASIGNALVIEW

     Ecasignalview is meant for monitoring signal amplitude and peak statistics.
     It accepts the following options:

     input  The first option not starting with a '-' is interpreted as an  input
	    string. This can be a device or a filename. All formats supported by
	    libecasound are accepted. Defaults to '/dev/dsp'.

     output Similarly  to input, second option not starting with a '-' is inter-
	    preted as output. Defaults to 'null'.

     -b:buffersize
	    Buffersize in sample frames. Defaults to 128.

     -c     Enable cumulative mode. Counters  are  not	reseted  after	refresh.
	    *deprecated*

     -d     Enable debug mode.

     -f:format_string
	    Specify default audio format. See ecasound(1) for details.

     -r:rate_msec
	    Specify screen refresh rate in milliseconds.

     -I     Use linear scale for showing audio sample amplitude.

     -L     Use logarithmic scale for showing audio sample amplitude.

     -G, -B, -M*, -r, -z
	    Ecasound options use to modify the engine behaviour, see ecasound(1)
	    manpage for details.

	    When  ecasignalview  is running, the following keyboard commands can
	    be used to control the operation (requires system support  for  UNIX
	    terminal interface control):

     spacebar
	    Reset   statistics	(max-peak,  avg-amplitude  and	clipped  samples
	    count).

     q or Q or Esc
	    Quit ecasignalview.

	    It is also possible to reset the max-peak and clipped-samples  coun-
	    ters  by  sending a SIGHUP signal to the process (i.e.  from another
	    console: "killall -v -HUP ecasignalview").

     More complete documentation for ecasignalview can be found  from  "Ecasound
     User's Guide" (see ''http://nosignal.fi/ecasound -> Documentation'').

ENVIRONMENT
     ECASOUND Path to the ecasound executable. Used by many ecatools.

     ECAPLAY_OUTPUT_DEVICE Device ecaplay should use for audio output. Same syn-
     tax as for ecaplay/ecasound "-o" option.

FILES
     ~/.ecasound/ecasoundrc   The  default  ecasound  resource	file.  See  eca-
     soundrc(5) for details.

     ~/.ecasound/ecaplay_queue File used to  store  the  ecaplay  playlist  (one
     track per line with full path).

SEE ALSO
     ecasound (1), ecalength(1), "HTML docs in the Documentation subdirectory"

AUTHOR
     Kai Vehmanen, <kvehmanen -at- eca -dot- cx <kvehmanen -at- eca -dot- cx>>

				   12.11.2005			     ecatools(1)

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