iTunes on hold when Calibre is working

[highwaykind]

I prefer to loudly sing along with whatever's playing on my iTunes while I am editing books in Calibre. (am woman, can multitask).

Which becomes first a little amusing, then highly annoying, because whenever Calibre is doing something, iTunes quits playing on me for a while. As soon as Calibre is done (fetch news, add book, convert etc), my music resumes.

PC specs: Vista Ultimate, 2 monitors, and the all important: 3GHz, 4GB of DDR2 This should be more than sufficient to do both tasks simultaneously without me going out of breath from holding a note while iTunes/Calibre figure things out, right?

Tried checking/unckecing CPU core setting in Calibre Preferences, didn't seem to do much.

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by highwaykind

Which becomes first a little amusing, then highly annoying, because whenever Calibre is doing something, iTunes quits playing on me for a while. As soon as Calibre is done (fetch news, add book, convert etc), my music resumes.

You can try 2 things.

1. Go to the preferences, general tab and set job priority to low.

2. If that isn't enough you can also use the attached batch file to start calibre. Just drop it in the Calibre program directory. And create a shortcut to it.

All it has in it is

@echo OFF

REM Start up the calibre program.
REM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
REM
REM The use of 'belownormal' priority helps keep the system
REM responsive while Calibre is running.  Within Calibre itself
REM the backgound processes should be set to run with 'low' priority.
REM Using the START command means that once Calibre has launched
REM then the batch file exits. 

START /belownormal Calibre

It is a small subset of itimpi's batch file he uses to set various environment varibles.

I hope this keeps you singing.

[highwaykind]

Thanks! Will try low priority

But also:
I've got a pretty fast PC, why can't everything run in normal priority (or even high if I choose to?)

[DoctorOhh]

Originally Posted by highwaykind

I've got a pretty fast PC, why can't everything run in normal priority (or even high if I choose to?)

Tilts head, shrug shoulders.

[itimpi]

I do NOT have a fast PC (only 2,6GHz single-core) and with my batch file iTunes and Calibre co-exist quite happily.

[mores]

You should get a mac!

*ducksandrunsforcover*

Seriously, I think it's the way Calibre is programmed; using some kind of cross-platform-able kit it is possible to run on a lot of platforms, but requires enormous system resources.