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The Customer
The customer (Resonating FX) is in the business of selling
specific sound recipes that are used in the audio- and
video-editing industry. The project was to develop a
Pinnacle plug-in for importing the customer’s
sound recipes on to the user’s Pinnacle project
space. Pinnacle is the world leader in the areas of
audio- and video editing, TV broadcasting software and
hard wares. They have a product for home video editing
segments – Pinnacle Studio 9.1. Pinnacle provides
an SDK (VST SDK) for the purpose of creating Dlls /
plug ins to do any specific audio processing that is
not available in the Pinnacle studio features.
Challenges
and Solution Approach
The project was full
of challenges and that’s what made it exciting
for the Hanu Software offshore delivery team. The key
technical challenge was the limited support in Pinnacle
Studio for developing a minimal sized plug-in. With
this sized plug-in, there is no requirement for a full
package installation. However, this means the team was
required to use the pure windows raw APIs to do all
the fanciful GUI.They also provided a nice, easy to
use jazzy look and feel, so that it coincided with the
feel of the Home Video editing segment. The Hanu Software
multimedia team evaluated the various options to meet
the project objectives, and finally arrived at the solution
approach which was... the programmatic
simulation of UI.
Objectives
• Conceptualize
and implement the plug-in with the help of VST SDK
• Build or buy analysis for the tools to enable
the Architecture
• Feasibility Study - Identify the technical challenges
and solutions
• The Pinnacle’s VST SDK does not have any
API for importing the external wav files on to the pinnacle
project. This was to be implemented through the programmatically
simulating user actions on the Pinnacle Studio GUI.
• Develop a professional GUI on windows box for
this purpose
Solution
• Hanu Software
followed its 5-phase offshore delivery model to cater
to the needs of the client. The customer provided the
initial requirement document, which was refined during
the ‘Requirements Development’ phase.
• The team consisted of a Project Manager, aTechnical
Lead, and 3 C++ developers with audio /video software
development background. In addition, one QA engineer
was also assigned to the project. The QA engineer worked
side-by-side with the project team to understand the
requirements, develop the test cases, and conduct the
‘System testing’.
• The design and development was carried out at
Hanu Software’s OSDC based in Gurgaon.
• As part of the ‘High level Design’
Phase, the technical risk analysis and resolution was
done, in which all the solutions / sample code for technically
complex tasks were identified earlier in the project.
• Hanu Software implemented the C++ based architecture
for the project. Windows API was used to develop the
GUI and other features. This helped the no-dependency
architecture for the project, considering the end-user-based
home market segment. The key feature was that it can
simply be copied into the folder and it worked because
it was not dependent on any other component.
• Customer interaction – weekly teleconferences
were held (using the VoIP telephone service installed
at the Hanu Software offshore center) to keep the customer
up to date on the progress and also to discuss open
issues. Query resolution through emails, chat and voice
chat were used as needed. As required by the Hanu Software
development process, weekly progress reports including
timesheets was also submitted to the customer.
• Once the development was over, the QA engineer
started the System Testing using the system test cases.
Any defects found during the System Testing got reported
to the development team.
• After the QA verification, the system was delivered
to the customer. The Hanu Software offshore team helped
the customer with the installation of the system.
Benefits to
the customer
• The project
was successfully executed in spite of the technical
challenges by utilizing the strong domain and technical
expertise of Hanu Software resources.
• Hanu Software’s resourcing strength was
utilized to accomplish the project in the shortest possible
time frame, thereby enabling the customer to win on
the faster time to market factor.
• Faster time to market – Hanu Software
took the project from the requirements document to the
production roll-out in a little under two months. The
Hanu Software development center is open 6 days a week;
hence development was 20% faster.
• The cost effective solution matched the customer
budget.
• There was increased revenue by selling special
sound effects.
Programmatic
Simulation of UI
The solution was arrived
after the evaluation of all the options.I It was found
that this approach could be adopted to automate some
of the required operations on Pinnacle Studio. It is
the most popular video editing product used world-wide–
the world leader in the audio, video and broadcasting
technologies products and services. The Studio 9 plus
has three tracks for video editing – soundtrack,
audio effects track and movie track, where the user
can put the different wav or other format files in timelines
via menu options available in the product. For achieving
the speciaized sound effects recipes, the element wav
files were automatically put in the corresponding tracks
by developing a plug-in, which simulated the same keyboard
and mouse actions required in the Pinnacle Studio, but
done in a timelier, more coordinated manner.
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