Posted By Paul Kafasis on September 8th, 2013

It’s only been two days since we unveiled Intermission, but we’ve already got a 1.0.1 ready. It’s got several important bug fixes, including a fix for a rare problem where audio playback might fail. Additionally, multiple small issues with sound effects (the bleeps and bloops made when you receive an email, get an instant message, or anything else) have been fixed.¹

Perhaps the most important fix, however, is one for our visually impaired users. The initial release of Intermission lived up to its claim of buffering any audio, including that from Mac OS X’s built-in screen reading tool, VoiceOver. That’s a bit overzealous, however, and it had a tremendously confusing effect. In retrospect, it’s obvious that VoiceOver audio should be excluded from Intermission’s buffer. We worked quickly to improve things, and VoiceOver users can rest easy now, as Intermission 1.0.1 excludes VoiceOver audio from its buffer.

Get The Latest

Existing Intermission users should definitely update immediately. Just open Intermission’s Preferences window, then click the “Check for Update” button to get the latest. You can also download it directly, of course.

If you haven’t checked out Intermission yet, you should! You can read all about our new tool to pause and rewind live audio on your Mac on our previous post, then head over to the Intermission page. Grab the free trial and take it for a test drive.

Bonus #2: Timeshift Microphone Audio With LineIn

In our initial post, we mentioned a bonus Intermission use case — recording audio from the past with Audio Hijack Pro. We also requested feedback on interesting use cases for Intermission, and have already heard ideas we never considered. One of the most interesting thus far is bringing in microphone audio for timeshifting. This can be used for all sorts of different things, from giving lectures a “What did he just say?” button, to recording a Skype chat long after its started.

However, Intermission doesn’t automatically buffer microphone audio. Fortunately, several of our intelligent users realized they could use a second Rogue Amoeba application to get that audio into Intermission’s buffer. Using our free LineIn app, you can bring audio in from a microphone and pass it through to Intermission.

LineIn in action, passing microphone audio out to headphones

To avoid creating a feedback loop, be sure to use a pair of headphones for audio output. Then, by simply activating LineIn and having it pass microphone audio through as above, microphone audio will be included in the buffer and it’ll be possible to pause and rewind it. Whether you want to grab an archive of a Skype conversation even after it’s over or just desire a real-world replay button, using LineIn with Intermission will enable you to get that audio back.

We’ll be considering removing the need for LineIn, by adding an option to include microphone audio in Intermission’s buffer. Stay tuned for more Intermission updates, and please keep the feedback coming. We’re thrilled to hear of new and interesting use cases for Intermission.

Footnotes:

1. Worth mentioning, Intermission intentionally passes those sound effects through to your speakers even when audio is paused, rather than buffering them. That means you won’t miss anything important just because your audio is paused, nor will you be confused later when listening to buffered audio.

   Unfortunately, due to a bug in Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) itself, this functionality requires Mac OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or higher. And fear not, Mac OS X 10.9 (Mavericks) users – support is coming soon, once we’ve done more extensive testing. ↩