User accounts may be created anywhere on your LAN. Most administrators create user accounts on the on-air machine, simply as an added safety measure (your files are still there if the LAN or server goes down, and there is no possibility of network latency when you hit the "Play" button). However, nothing prevents you from putting user accounts (i.e. audio files) on a remote server, and we have numerous customers who have put all of their user accounts on a central server in order to facilitate backups. A typical 100Mbit ethernet card could theoretically accomodate 70 separate CD-quality audio streams, although physical collisions on the LAN caused by multiple computers vying for network access simultaneously will reduce that to around 30.
We've introduced a new feature in VoxPro 4.0 which we call Auto-Network. Administrators will love this because it allows you to network all of your VoxPro machines without any setup or configuration at all. (In fact, the only configuration required is if you do NOT want the VoxPro workstation to have network access, or if you want to restrict access to only a few other VoxPro workstations.) The VoxPro network allows any user to login to his/her personal account from any VoxPro workstation on the LAN, and access (play/edit/record) files from that workstation.
For collaborative situations we have several functions and approaches that may be used, depending on your requirements and the desires of the users. Users may share a single account simply by logging in to the same account from different machines. VoxPro doesn't allow you to open, edit, move or rename a file that is already opened by a user on another machine, so there is no danger of file corruption due to multiple user access. Another callobarative tool is simply the "file copy" function -- any file (or multiple files) can be copied to any other user account just by selecting that user from the "Copy to..." menu. Finally, the administrator can grant UserA access to UserB's account, through the "Access Rights" menu. In this case, UserB's folders become accessible from UserA's "Folders" menu. And, of course, files can be imported and exported via normal Windows mechanisms.
Other new features that might interest you:
Auto-Import--
VoxPro automatically imports media files that appear in a folder specified by the user.
EZ-Export--
Allows users to export files to a particular folder in a particular format with just one click on the mouse.
Zoom--
Toggle between zoom and normal mode with just one button.
Automatic Gain Control--
Useful for timid callers and loud jocks, operates on each channel independently.
Normalization--
In case you forget to turn on AGC!
Markers--
Add tags with labels at any time, whether recording, playing or in standby. Go to a marker position with one click of the mouse.
VU Meters--
Actually, peak program meters with a 30ms integration time.
Improved Effects--
Fantastic time stretching and pitch shifting effects, as well as reverb, echo, flanging, chorus, EQ, distortion, reverse and more.
Rip CDs--
With built-in support for the public domain freedb online database.
Standard Format Files--
We've abandoned the proprietary file format used in VoxPro 3.0 in favor of the standard RIFF WAV file format.
