Your comments

Jazon - do you normally update the Scene in the 24 hour period prior to seeing this problem at 00:30 PST?
do you ever see this problem on a day on which the Scene has not been updated?

By "updated" I mean, change to audio or change to character or any other attribute of the Scene.
please let me know, thanx
Gil
Hi Jazon,
SitePal transcodes your uploaded background to an internal format & size to optimize bandwidth use on playback.
We have recently looked at tweaking this mechanism to improve the visual quality when the scene is displayed larger. An update will be implemented in the coming weeks.
Regards
Gil
Hi -
Unfortunately ebay does not allow JavaScript in their pages, which limits what we can do to allow you to control the character in the auction page. Therefore it is not possible to implement a "delayed appearance" of the character.

What you can do - is use the Scene Settings to turn off "playback on load" and have the character speak only when clicked. That will work. I would also suggest using one of our "YouTube like" players to encourage folks to click on the character.

Hope this helps. Regards
Gil
SitePal Team
Jazon -
Thanks for following up with additional information.
To be clear - this is not "scheduled downtime" - but seems to be an unintended disruption that may be the result of scheduled nightly maintenance.

We are looking into this to confirm and hopefully resolve asap. I will advise when we know more - please allow several days.

Regards
Gil
SitePal Team
Jazon,
This is curious and not expected behavior. It might be a one time anomaly, or it may be related to nightly maintenance tasks on our servers that take place at that hour. We will look into it - will advise further when I have more info.
Please let us know if you notice this problem again.
Regards,
Gil
Luis -
Were you able to resolve the problem? If you post a link to the page we could look at it and advise. The issue is most likely unrelated to SitePal.
Regards
Gil
Richard -
Your observation is correct. The default volume is in fact set to 100% (and not 50% as I indicated).
To allow you the flexibility you are looking for, we will be introducing a new scene setting "default volume" which will allow you to set the default volume for your Scene. This implementation has been placed on our development schedule - it will be several weeks before it is available.
For an immediate solution, you can use the Javascript code noted above.
Regards,
Gil
As you probably know, iphone and ipad do not support flash playback within browser. This is not an issue unique to SitePal - any flash content does not show up on the ios platform.
We are looking at a solution that would automatically convert the SitePal Scene to video when loaded on ios devices. The implementation will be transparent to you - meaning you will not need to do anything to take advantage of it.
This implementation is still some weeks away. Your feedback is welcome.
Regards
Gil
SitePal Team
Richard -
You do not need to be a platinum member to use the client API. All packages support the client API.
We're looking into the default volume issue you raised. Will advise.
Regards
Gil
Hi Richard!
SitePal audio playback is set to play at midlevel volume (not too loud or too soft). Those viewers who think it is too loud likely happen to have their speaker volume setup too high. The true measure would be to compare SitePal volume to volume of audio from other sources.

Some time ago we opted not to include "initial volume control" as we were concerned of overcomplicating the product, and possibly creating pitfalls for our customers. We could revisit that decision based on customer input. Additional opinions are welcome.

That said - several options are available to you -
1. You can set the volume via the API. A function is available for this purpose - you would call it on completion of loading, and thus it would affect the speech before it begins. This is not hard to do - just a couple of lines of code to add to your page.
2. You can include a volume control with your Scene (a skin option) - for the user to set the volume. I realize this does not answer your requirement exactly, but it will help those users who find it too loud.
3. If you use recorded audio, you can record the audio softly to begin with. If you upload your audio, be sure *not* to use "enhance audio".

I think option #1 is your best bet - it also allows you to experiment with different volume settings to achieve what you want.
Regards,
Gil
SitePal Team