cmgoodin

I am trying to determine the causes of many reports of "Sync Issues" associated with Time Code from various Production Recording Machines. In order to establish a baseline for calculations used by the various manufacturers I need to assemble a collection of Broadcast Wav Files from the different machines that all have a common known Time Code. I have already collected files from Sound Devices 700 series and Fostex DV824 I need test files from DEVA IV and V Tascam HD-P2 And Aaton Cantar. Also the Fostex PD6 and DV40 Also Test files from Pro-Tools 7.xx and Nuendo would also be appreciated. The files need to adhere to the following specs. 1 or 2 Channels Poly broadcast Wav files. 5 to 10 Seconds in length. 16 or 24 bit 48000 hz Sample rate. They can be blank (no audio) or if possible record the LTC time code from the TC out of the machine. This can be used to check latency issues with encoding. Use the following procedure to create each file. Recorder should be set to Record Run Mode with PRE-Roll set to 0 sec. or OFF 1. Set the TIme Code Frame Rate to the desired rate for that file 2. Set the Jam Time Code Time to 20:00:00:00 (twenty hours even and STOPPED) 3. Jam the TC clock to the 20:00:00:00 number. 4. Record 5 to 10 seconds so all files start at exactly 20:00:00:00 5. Change to next Frame Rate and repeat steps 2 through 4. I need files at the following Frame Rates. 23.976 FPS 25 FPS Non Drop 24 FPS Non Drop 30.00 FPS Non Drop 30.00 FPS Drop Frame 29.97 FPS Non Drop 29.97 FPS Drop Frame I hope to find out if there are differences in each machine and the algorithm used to stamp the time code in the BWF header for each frame rate. I am finding so far that there are errors in the Time stamps that could be responsible for discrepancies between machines on what the actual time code for any file is. Without establishing these baseline files it is impossible to determine the accuracy of Time code used in double system setups. You can email any files you create to me at cmgoodin@pacbell.net Thanks to anyone who can help out. ----Courtney Goodin

Jeff, One problem when you have your own domain is spam-bots using your publicly published response address as a return address on bogus Spam email. These spam-bots harvest addresses from public web pages and sometimes just change the primary address keeping the domain name to use in the "From" field of the spam. If you are using a "Catchall' address this can be problematic with all email that is not deliverable from these spambots "Returning" to your email address through the Catch-all address. My problems come from the fact that I have some email addresses that have been publicly posted on my websites for over 15 years. So they are pretty much on every-ones spam list. But the server side spam filters that use heuristic filters to determine if it is spam does a pretty good job. They do things like check returned emails and check to see if the email being returned was actually sent from the ip of the "return to" address. ---Courtney

I HATE people who use these challenge email system. It causes all the people you want to respond to have to respond Twice. And sometimes you don't get the reply email that says you have to send the message again because your email spam filter has filtered out the automated response from the auto-reply bot..... These systems are problematic for me because I deal with my email daily on 2 to 3 different computers. So I may have written a long response to someone on one computer then I don't get the "you need to reply again" message until I am home or on another computer and don't have access to my original response. So I just don't respond.. rather than having to recall what I said and re-type it. Just check with your ISP. Most have Heavy duty server side Spam filtering these days that eliminates 95 % of all the spam before it gets to my inbox. SBC Yahoo catches a lot. After I turned on their spam filters, My typical inbox went from 150 to 250 messages a day to 5 to 10. I can easily deal with the small amount of spam that leaks through. And Once a week I scan the Bulk mail folder where it all goes to look for any real messages that got misclassified as spam. ---Courtney

I don't think there is any anti Mac conspiricy going on at Microsoft. There are many (if not more) security updates for the Windows version of Office as well. It has nothing to do with "not properly coded" software. There is no "proper way" to write code. When designing a piece of software your primary goal is to write code to achieve some utility for the user. Making that work reliabley is the focus of the programmer. Of course anytime you make a tool someone can invent a way to use that tool for other un-intended purposes. I think the inventor of the Ice Pick never envensioned it being used as a surgical lobotomy tool. Security issues emerge from places where no one expected them. If they had expected them, then they could have written measures to prevent them. That's what patches are for. Once an exploit is invented the coders can devise a way to prevent that exploit. Since we don't live in a fantasy world where people can predict the future, it is impossible to prevent any possible unknown exploitation that may take hackers years of random tinkering to discover or invent. ----Courtney

Since MS Office is a bundle of products and not a single application, it was sold in many different configurations.. (with Outlook, without, Some with Access some with Power Point Some with publisher etc.) The installer has to look for and update every product that was possible to bundle in MS Office not just Word or Excel. so an update can be quite complex. This is why the download is so large and complex. You can download updates for individual programs if you like from their respective support web pages at Microsoft's site. Also since OFFICE included email and address book applications those are frequent targets for hackers as they are used to spread spam and viruses to other people. So security issues are constantly being uncovered as hackers are finding new and unique ways to exploit the utility of these programs. ---Courtney

You are incorrect. A macro virus usually has 2 components. One is the code that spreads the virus by infecting other files. Those infected files then have the ability to infect other document files or any file that has a compatible macro language. (like Excel, Access, Word, Power Point etc). This is how almost all viruses spread (Serial infection). They can also carry a payload or second executable section that can do other things than just spread the virus. The VBA macro language that MS Office uses in its products has the ability to copy or erase files or to load and send email etc. on whatever platform it is running on. So you are not immune in any way because you happen to be on a MAC. If you open an infected Doc or Spreadsheet file and have not disabled all macros, it can execute copying itself into other files on your machine and thereby spreading and infecting all doc or xls files on your drive or in your documents folder. As I said most viruses are not massively destructive by design in order to avoid detection. If they wanted to however they could easily erase all the files in a folder or send infected emails to all the people in your address book. The files they erase or modify can be from any application. Most anti-virus software looks for and can remove these malicious macro viruses. However you have to have the anti-virus software running in order to catch the known viruses BEFORE you open the infected files. Microsoft has built in a macro warning to the last several versions of Word and Excel. It will warn you that a document may have macros embedded in it and allows you to disable all macros before you open the document. You can however turn this warning off, and many people do because it goes off on any macro (good or bad) that is embedded in the file. The Microsoft Macro Warning does not check to see if the macro is on any virus list. It just tells you there is a macro embedded. It could be something the document's author put in to ease viewing or perform calculations or any one of a myriad of helpful things a macro can do. ---Courtney

No Jeff, Macro viruses do affect MAC users and Windows Users equally. Since they use the native programming language of the application they spread and infect other document files on any platform that supports that product. Here is a quote from Microsoft's web site on FAQ's about word macro viruses. here is the link to the full article if you are brave enough to click on it. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/187243 Also here is a link to a page that describes Macro Virus protection Tool from Microsoft for the Macintosh. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/133895/ ----Courtney

Another myth about viruses and Worms is that they bring your system down or erase your hard drive. The reality is that in order for a virus to be successful is has to spread from user to user without detection. It can't do that if it does anything that makes its presence known and a Dead machine will not propagate a virus so it will never spread. This is one reason native OSX Mac viruses are so rare. There aren't enough Macs talking to Macs every day to spread them and they die out. Keep wishing for more market share and you will attract more viruses. The reason Mac users falsely belive their systems are more secure is not because the OS is written much better. It is because there are so few Macs in comparison to PCs that there are not enough hacker tools available to detect and exploit the weaknesses in the OS. However now that Apple moved to the X86 architecture the low level virus code that doesn't utilize the operating system can run across platforms. Jobs found this out when he released a cross-platform version of Safari recently. Now all the hackers on the PC side can use their plethora of hacking tools to analyse and find security holes in Safari. It was a wake-up call for the Apple programmers who thought they were writing secure code. In reality it was just that their code didn't warrant the attention of hackers because it was too small a segment of the market to bother with or the tools to detect security flaws weren't widely available on the Mac platform like they were in the much more mature and wide-spread PC arena. Apple had to issue several Safari updates just a few days after the release of the cross platform version. These updates attempted to fix over a hundred security holes found in just the first few days of exposure to the tools available on the Windows platform. With the massive publicity drive that surrounded the iGod... oops, I mean iPhone, it attracted the attention of some of the worlds most notorious hackers. They want to capitalize on that publicity so they are now competing to see who can hack the iPhone first. So iPhone users, if your car radio suddenly starts tuning in a strange station every time your get in the car or your NAV system starts leading you in circles, it may be your iPhone has been hacked and is using blue-tooth to take over your car. ---Courtney

Yes, PC users can be infected by Doc files bearing Macro and VBA embedded viruses that come from MAC users. This is a big problem. Most PC users have Anti-Virus software installed (out of necessity) which will warn them of these viruses if their machines become infected. However MAC users think they are immune from viruses (they aren't) and they don't bother with anti Virus Software. Their machines are infected with these Macro-Viruses that dwell and spread through MS Office Documents. I see Mac Users as the kind of "Typhoid Marys" of the computer world. They are constantly infecting each other and PC users by passing infected documents around that aren't scanned for viruses before they send them to unsuspecting friends and clients. And you don't have to be a genius to keep your machines virus free in the PC world. I do it by just never opening an unsolicited file attachment and not clicking on any links in an Email that I don't know the source of. Of course the spammers are getting more creative at spoofing messages from known Banks and Service companies. I just treat every message I get from a bank (even my own) as spam and never click on anything. Just viewing my messages as plain text. I never download anything from sites that contain pirated software or music. Using these simple rules you can avoid about 99.9% of all the millions of viruses that are out there on the Net. Unfortunately doc files you are expecting and that you need to edit or view have to be opened. For those I run a free but competent virus software that examines every file I download or send. (AVG free from GriSoft) It updates itself automatically daily and since it is free, I never am nagged by it asking for more money because it's virus database subscription is about to expire. ----Courtney

Hey Dave. It was good to see you at the Zaxcom/Coffey Sound Bar-B-Q last week. Of course you can always site anecdotal evidence of failure about any manufacturers line of products. Last Pilot I worked on we bought 4 brand new Apple Mac Minis to use for playing back screen images. 1 of the 4 was DOA out of the box. Need I mention the notoriousy problematic MAC Cube or the Newton with its less than stellar handwriting recognition. Or the design nightmare that was the iBook that looked like a toilet seat? What about all those recalled Mac laptop batteries? I never said eMachines Desktop was a quality product to be compared to MAC. eMachines Desktops were sold almost exclusively as entry level compters for those with very limited budgets. They served as a way for people who could not afford any computer to enter into the world of computing at an affordable price. For many people it was an eMachine or No computer at all. However I have been very happy with the 3 HP laptops that I currently have running. (the Compaq's are almost identical except for cosmetic differences in the cases) They are made in the same factory. The HP DV2300 series are now my favorites. (and I have over 15 laptops). For the price the HPs are hard to beat and I have not had any issues with the hardware due to quality of design or manufacturing defects. Scott Wood was just showing me his new HP laptop yesterday and he was marveling at how powerful and great it was as a mobile AVID platform and was very inexpensive. I don't have the same high opinion of HP Printers though. WHile they used to be quality products (15 years ago), they are now pretty much junk designed to be a disposable method of getting you to continuously pay $30/oz. for colored water. However, blaming a computer hardware manufacturer for virus infections or attacks by hackers is pretty disingenuous. It is like blaming your Sony TV for the poor quality of the writing of the TV show you happen to be watching on it. I have lots of Windows computers running 24/7 and all are on-line and none have ever been infected with a virus or worm. I only run a virus check once a week (in the middle of the night) and the rest of the time the anti-virus software catches anything that could be a threat before it ever gets a chance to infect my machines. I have to say I have received more virus infected Word files from Mac users than anyone else. ---Courtney

I'll let you know when the MAC version of BWF-Widget Pro is ready. Just hold your breath until then. ;-) As for running OSX on a Plain Wrap PC, IT is possible (I have seen it running) but all commercial versions of such a hack have been sued out of existence by the Almighty Jobs. Not to mention fortification of the OSX code to prevent it from running on any hardware that didn't come out of the Chinese based Apple Plants. Besides you would either have to run a Virtual Set of Drivers or construct your PC to match the apple Hardware so it's limited number of peripherals will work with the native apple drivers. --Courtney

Excluding Special Military PCs the Alienware laptops and desktops are the most expensive and overpriced line out there in the PC world. Their target market is Idle Rich Gamers who will pay anything to have the fastest machine out there to give them a gaming edge. They are by no means work-a day PCs or average in any way. ---Courtney

Is that a hint that you are working on a PC version of BoomRecorder (I hope I hope)? or perhaps a means of booting into OSX on an HP or Dell Laptop. ---Courtney

Jeff, Since the iPhone dosen't have voice dialing how do you make calls over the Bluetooth connected iphone in the car? Does your car put up a keypad on the NAV system/ Radio Screen to make calls? ---Courtney

As the article points out. If you try to put together a custom configured PC Laptop from a single vendor (Dell) you may end up with a more expensive laptop than the highest End Mac Book Pro. But if you shop around for pre-built and pre-configured laptops from some of the majors you can get much better deals. There are many quite capable machines for much cheaper than the nearest Mac equivalent. With Apple you have no competition so the prices are the same from all dealers. Same is true for DELL which primarily sells direct only. No real deals on either. However if you look at Acer, Gateway, HP, Compaq, Fujitsu and Sony you will find a lot better deals and a far greater variety of features. For example Frys has a HP Laptop on sale today for $849 It is an AMD Turion 64 x2 (Dual Core) SL56 processor, with 2 GB or Ram, 160 GB HD 15.25 WXGA Glossy screen, Firewire (400) and 3 USB 2 ports, Super Multi +/-DVD Drive that supports 8X DVD-RAM, Nvidea SE6150 Graphics Chip. 801.11g WiFi and Blue-Tooth. Has 6 CH audio and SPDIF I/O Comes with Vista Home Premium, MS Works, and other software. Some of them also have Built in WebCam and Microphones, JBL speakers (pretty good sounding) Whats the price of the nearest equivalent Mac Laptop? These are brand new HP laptops. Not refurbs or discontinued lines. You can get lesser known Laptop brands that are quite functional for under $500. ---Courtney

When doing a test by reading the timecode as the machine is recording. You might want to set the Time Code to a high hour number. (Greater than 12 hours). This will make any misinterpretation of the time stamp very evident and easy to spot by the verbal sync method described. If you are at 1 hour or less, the calculation error of the time stamp may be too close to the displayed time to denote a difference by simply reading the changing seconds. At that point the error would only be a few frames and you can't observe that without putting the interpreted time code and the intended time code (like the slate numbers) against each other in a freeze frame. Many slates have an offset of a couple of frames from decoding then display latency so it would be hard to gauge if the settings are being interpreted correctly at low hour counts. I am not sure what Take is talking about when he talks about "file Sample Rate" and the "hardware Sample Rate" Does this mean that boomrecorder allows you to record at a hardware sample rate of 48048 Hz and set the "file Sample Rate" to 48,000 Hz? (I guess that means the rate stored in the format chunk of the file will be 48,000. Not sure what he puts in the coding history or iXML chunk. This would effectively be the same as the "48048F" mode on the 744t or the Deva. This would also mean that the Time Code Generator should be running at 30.00fps and the file should be marked as "29.97" (or 23.976) I haven't played enough with Boom Recorder and Metacorder enough to be well versed in their inner workings. Maybe we will have more light shed on this tomorrow in the test setup we are doing. -----Courtney

I think you over-reacted a bit. Apple did not invent, was not the first, nor is it the Only provider of legal downloaded music as your statements seem to imply. There have been several other on-line music stores that offer MP3 and other forms of down-loadable music from major music publishing companies.. I never said Apple will Fail. I just said that they may have to re-negotiate their deal. And if you read the article you will discover that Universal Music's Contract (a 1 year extension of the original 2 year contract) did expire and they are now just operating month to month and have NO long term agreement and nothing that would prevent them from making an exclusive deal with any other download service. They have not pulled their music off iTunes, but that could happen if they don't come to a new agreement and they negotiate a more lucrative exclusive deal with another download service. ---Courtney

Jeff, While iTunes may be winning the growth race, it is not popular with music companies and they hold the keys to the kingdom currently with the licensing of their signed artists works. Universal Music just ended their contract with iTunes and they claim they are not going to renew it. Read more here: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article2015586.ece This is probably a strong arm technique to force Apple to re-negotiate their deal with the Publisher, which, knowing Jobs, may put the iTunes users in jeopardy of loosing access to a lot of music. -_Courtney

I had AT&T when they went to GSM and when they bought Cingular. I was told the reason I didn't get good service was because of the Sony Tri-Mode phone I had. So I bought a new Nokia that was supposed to be the best one to work with AT&t. It Sucked as well. I would see other people on the set talking on their phones and I had to go Outside to get any signal strong enough to make a call. I took the Nokia back and canceled my Service and switched to Verizon. I have not had any problems with coverage or connection with Verizon. I have been happy with them. but their customer service knows that they have the best service and they make no deals and treat you like dirt because they know you won't leave. Jeff, I think you have 14 days with AT&T to cancel the service and return the phone without any cancellation Fees. Keep your iPhone for about a week just to wow your friends, then when the novelty wears off and everyone is sick of hearing and seeing an iPhone you can take it back and continue to use your Verizon phone to stay in touch and use your iPod for music. ---Courtney

You are correct the Document is contradictory. You should be running at 29.97 ND not 30 ND for a 23.976 fps High Def shoot. And you should be at 48K not 48048 and there is no Pull-down. ---Courtney

Were you recording Poly files? If you were, I would suggest not recording blank tracks. While it may take a little more attention in post to determine who is on what track, it speeds things up by a factor of 2 for every non real-time transfer of sound to a new media. People casually say, Hey disks are cheap or Hard drives are big now and have plenty of room. We forget that while it takes us the same amount of time to record a 10 minute 8 track file as it does to record a 10 minute 4 track file, the cost down the line is not taken into account. Those 4 blank tracks have to be dragged along throughout the rest of the entire post chain. It takes longer to copy them from disk to disk and they double the storage space. Remember even if you are only using a small 1 second chunk from one track of that 10 minute 8 track file in the final cut, in many non-linear edit systems they have to drag the entire file (all 10 minutes and all 8 tracks) through every post process. This is to allow for the flexibility to change the edit at any point down the line. So those blank tracks do have a large impact on work-flow but few take it into consideration. ---Courtney

Drive By Trojans are usually Java-script based viruses that execute whenever the page is displayed in your browser and you have java-script enabled. They can do a variety of things. Some can copy active-X or other programs to your hard drive to use your machine as a zombie spam server. They don't require you to click on anything on the page or download anything. Hence the name Drive-By Trojan. Just visiting the page can infect a computer. Some can be embedded in Animated Smiley faces or other seemingly innocuous pieces of fluff that teens will be encouraged to pass around via email signatures or attachments. This is why I have my email viewer set to "Ascii Text Only". The Trojan reported by my Virus software (JS/Uniz-B Trojan) from your linked page may have been a false positive. But I have the latest virus descriptions installed and it still trips the warning so I wouldn't want to take the chance that it is a real trojan. Pages that contain advertising sometimes have Java-script Ad servers that put pop-up windows on your machine to serve ads. Some of these are classified as trojans as they don't give you the opportunity to decline or turn them off. Anti-Virus software has to walk a fine line to try to determine when and advertising gimmick becomes so annoying or tenacious it is classified as viral. ----Courtney

To read about the cost of DRM in Windows Vista with High Quality Media output here is a great page that outlines all the problems. http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html#functionality No Virus or Trojans in the above link.... I checked it out. I would be willing to bet that Leopard will be forced to have some similar "protections" for playing HD content on a Mac. With all the secrecy and non-disclosure agreements out there we will not know for sure until it is actually released (Maybe in October). ----Courtney

WARNING: Thanks Jeff this link is to a page that contains a drive-By Trojan Virus. My virus software was quick enough to catch it. But you should remove that link immediately. Just clicking on the link can infect a PC with the Trojan virus if you don't have virus protection software running. Many provocative sites with articles about "The Truth about DRM" are honey-pots for Trojan virus spreaders. Many Mac users are guilty of spreading viruses because they don't have virus software installed that tells them that sites like the above mentioned one contain Trojan worms. I also am constantly getting MS Word files from Mac users that are infected with Macro Viruses. This is a real problem. ----Courtney

I am not familiar with any difference between different versions of Vista that support different Amounts of Memory. The differences in the retail versions all have to do mainly with bundled applications like the Media Center, Disk Burning Software and Remote Control or collaboration software. The basic OS is the same across all versions of the same processor. 32 bit is different from 64 bit versions. But within each bit depth version there is no difference in memory addressing. I believe the main reason many businesses are still running Windows 2000 and XP corporate is because they don't incorporate Microsoft's WGA product activation which puts extra demands or the corporate versions for Key management and support. You can't just take a Vista Corp version outside of the corporation (like to a trade show) without risking the possibility of it turning up brain dead if it thinks it has moved outside it's corporate license area. Windows 2000 and Windows XP corporate did not have product activation and did not insist on calling the mother ship every day or every time you booted. So it was easier for corporations to simply restore disks or fix motherboards without triggering a Re-Activation procedure. All this to try to enforce the copyright laws through technical means rather than legal means. i.e. Digital Rights Management (DRM) Windows Vista Corporate license requires a License server Key Management system on the corporate network in order for the copies to keep functioning. (translation: Big pain in the ass) ----Courtney