664 inboard sound report vs wave agent report.

[pvanstry]

I ran into a little thing yesterday.  I have a project coming up and post is asking for a sound report.  We will run double system and will have different number of wireless running at different time.  I usually switch off any input and tracks that are not in use for a shot ( old habit from the 788 days ).

 

Now when i do an internal sound report from my 664 here is what i get, notice that when there is no name on the track collum, it is because that input is switch off:

 

 

But when i do the same report in Wave agent, here is what i get:

 

 

Notice that wave agent is not displaying empty ( switch off ) tracks.  When i open these files in Protools, i am seing what Wave Agent is telling me, basically the exact same amount of tracks as the amount of opened input, no empty tracks like the internal Report is telling me.

 

Yes, i called Sound Devices but the office are not yet open.  Will call later to talk to them.  And yes i did read the manual and no mention of this.

 

Just taught i would point this out and keep you guys updated on this.

 

Pascal

[MT Groove]

I'm glad the topic is being brought up. I have noticed the same thing. The .CSV report seems a bit confusing to an editor as the track number doesn't correspond to the wav file. I would think the report from Wav Agent would make the most sense. FWIW, Zaxcom exports their .CSV reports in a similar fashion.

[Matias U]

Also why would all your take durations(length) be off by 1 second... except for take 1?

[pvanstry]

Matias, interesting.

 

Just got off the phone with Von at Sound devices support.  They are aware of this.  At this point, no idea of a possible fix.  Wave Agent is still the way to go for now.

 

Thanks

[Philip Perkins]

so to be clear, in this test you turned off track 4 on the 664?  And on it's sound report it shifted the track names over to the right by one slot, which was inaccurate-- the WA report is correct?   So in this group of takes there should be no audio on track 4 for "CHAR L", and track 5 should be "CHAR R", right?  This kind of sucks.....

 

philp

[jason porter]

It appears that a placeholder is needed in the .CSV file for unused tracks. I bet that could be added.

so to be clear. in this test you turned off track 4 on the 664? And on it's sound report it shifted the track names over to the right by one slot, which was inaccurate-- the WA report is correct? So in this group of takes there shjould be no audio on track 4 for "CHAR L", and track 5 should be "CHAR R", right? This kind of sucks.....

philp

[gpiegari]

I wonder if it's a format issue.

When I've tried the internally generated reports,

I just let them open the way they want in numbers or xl.

Perhaps a database template could be built to handle

the data and display it better?

 

Glen

[jason porter]

I built something in Filemaker that displays a little nicer, I will post a pic when I can.

I wonder if it's a format issue.

When I've tried the internally generated reports,

I just let them open the way they want in numbers or xl.

Perhaps a database template could be built to handle

the data and display it better?

Glen

[MT Groove]

The whole point in generating a .CSV sound report is to just create and save the sound report into the CF card, and hand in immediately after wrap. If you need to convert in another software then you might as well just use Wave Agent?

[pvanstry]

Philip, every time there is a track name, there is audio. The problem is that an editor will get confused reading the csv generated report and question if he is missing some tracks. A polyfile only contains the amount of recorded and armed tracks but by turning off the tracks, they are not recorded. But the CSV generated report still has a collum for every tracks regardless if it is armed or not. So an editor will see a report that says that there should be 9 tracks but have a file that has only 7 tracks. Can you imagine the phone call ??

[Philip Perkins]

Philip, every time there is a track name, there is audio. The problem is that an editor will get confused reading the csv generated report and question if he is missing some tracks. A polyfile only contains the amount of recorded and armed tracks but by turning off the tracks, they are not recorded. But the CSV generated report still has a collum for every tracks regardless if it is armed or not. So an editor will see a report that says that there should be 9 tracks but have a file that has only 7 tracks. Can you imagine the phone call ??

I see the confusion I think.  The CSV report is more like the report for an analog multitrack--where a track may be empty but it still exists, where as in digital MT if you turn a track off there is no file for it--so the editor wonders why there are 8 files and not 9?   What does the metadata for the channels above 4 say about their track number--ie in the metadata is "CHAR L" track 4 or track 5?   To me it is a little weird that WA changes the track number of the recorded tracks--I'd rather have them stay consistent and skip the numbers of the non-recorded tracks.

 

philp

[mikewest]

Yep I have asked SD why only a 10 comment availability.

 

I have a list of 40 common comments that I make about takes

 

Also another sound person said why only poly files as she has been asked for mono file delivery

 

mike

[pverrando]

I notice that the wave agent report has a column for track count, which the .csv report does not. 

[Mark LeBlanc]

My guess is generating the csv uses no logic. Ie, read all files, dumb "These" rows raw. Where as the program can use logic to search For blank columns and not show them.

[studiomprd]

" csv uses no logic. "

csv uses different logic.

[James Arnold]

Hmmm, does Nomad do this too?

 

I'm not sure which I prefer for post - that track numbers should remain correspondent to the CSV and/or hand written audio report, or that editors are not confused by 'empty' tracks.

[MT Groove]

The Zaxcom Fusion exports the CSV sound reports pretty much the same way. No very logical either IMO (or a different type of logic).

[Mark LeBlanc]

To clarify. By logic I mean it doesn't appear to be running any iF/Then loops when exporting. Ex: Open and Examine every file one at a time, if column X for Row X is empty for given file then set some sort of flag. The repeat for every file, then check for flags, if all rows have a null flag for a given column, then don't include in the csv export. Then calculate which column(s) have been removed then rename remaining headers appropriately.