Describer Workbench 0.8.3

Describer Workbench 0.8.3 fixes the narration loudness and two Windows updater bugs.

What is fixed:

• Narration loudness. Exports now set each spoken description to the loudness of the video's own sound in the 30 seconds around it. A quiet room in a long meeting gets a quiet voice. Before, the voice on a quiet meeting video could be up to 16 dB louder than the room. Speech volume is now a trim on top of that match.
• No clipping. A limiter keeps finished exports below -1 dBFS (full scale). The mix steps use float audio files, so nothing clips before the limiter runs.
• Updater: install folder lock. The update helper now leaves the install folder before it swaps the folders. Before, the swap could fail with "being used by another process". The app then put the old version back.
• Updater: pending download. A download that waited for a busy job now starts as soon as that job ends. Before, it could wait for an unrelated job.

Updating from 0.8.2 on Windows:

• Best way: update by hand. Close the app. Download the Windows ZIP below. Unpack it into a new folder. Start the new copy. Your settings and projects stay, because they are not in the app folder.
• The in-app update in 0.8.2 has the two bugs that 0.8.3 fixes. For this one update, the old 0.8.2 updater runs:
  • If you opened the app by double-click (the usual way), the update cannot replace the app folder. The app closes and does not start again. Your 0.8.2 copy is not changed. Update by hand. You can delete the folder DescriberWorkbench.incoming-<number> next to the app folder.
  • If Check for updates waits and does nothing, choose Check for updates again and click Cancel in the second folder picker.
• From 0.8.3 on, the in-app update works when you open the app by double-click.

The drafting engine is the same as 0.8.1. The measured drafting quality is the same. See the 0.8.1 release notes.

Known limits:

• Preview playback in the app still uses the old volume. Only exports match the video loudness.
• The model can still call something a vote when there is none.
• Results change from run to run on the same video.
• AI output is a draft. Check every draft before you export.

Downloads:

• Windows x64 portable ZIP: signed as Scott Converse with Azure Trusted Signing, timestamped, and checked with Authenticode and signtool.
• macOS Apple Silicon DMG: ad-hoc integrity signature only. No Apple publisher certificate or notarization.
• Linux x64 DEB and portable archive: unsigned.
• unix-media-sources-arm64.tar.gz: source code for the media tools inside the Mac app.
• Python wheel, source package and offline documentation.

All files come from commit 42c3e38, except the documentation ZIP: it has the fixed update advice from commit b87afcc. See SHA256SUMS.txt and release-verification.json for file hashes and provenance.