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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: anr on December 16, 2011, 07:27:13 AM
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I've been asked to edit and, hopefully, improve the sound quality of the recording of a Coroner's Inquest (England). For those of you in God's Country, that's a Sheriff's Fatal Accident Inquiry.
It is recorded in (get this ) Quadraphonic, 16bit, 64kbps, 22kHz Wav. I believe they used FTR Reporter to record it. They will provide a codec for £200, which is beyond my means. The alternative, as far as I can see, is to play this in real time (in the freeware "The Record Player") and record it in my DAW software (in stereo). The inquest lasted 5 days, 8 hours a day, so.....
Anyone with any experience of this who could recommend a codec? I've tried everything that comes with dB PowerAmp, with no joy.
Many thanks.
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how large is the file? i could try to convert it for you if it's small enough to let me try to download it
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scb
Many many thanks for the offer but the nature of the material is confidential and I would not breach that confidence. That's why I said a little about the source.
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I know I've done this before*, but am wracking my brain trying to remember how I converted the 4ch x 1 WAV to mono x 4 WAV and/or stereo x 2 WAV. I vaguely recall I used a BWF converter of some kind. (BWF and WAV are essentially the same thing.) I didn't use this one, but one option found Googling for "BWF converter":
http://www.one-n.com/bwfsplitter.html
Edit to add: Pretty sure I used the Fostex BWF converter: http://www.fostexinternational.com/docs/tech_support/bwf_manager.shtml
*The R-4 supports 4ch x 1 WAV, and I used it at some point before switching to stereo x 2 WAV.
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maybe try one of these:
http://sounddevices.com/products/waveagent.htm
http://sounddevices.com/download/waveagent-1.htm
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maybe try one of these:
http://sounddevices.com/products/waveagent.htm
http://sounddevices.com/download/waveagent-1.htm
That was my first thought for splitting a multi-channel WAV into seperate stereo or mono tracks. The strange part I don't get is the portion of the file properties I've bolded below:
It is recorded in Quadraphonic, 16bit, 64kbps, 22kHz Wav.
WAV files are an uncompressed format, but 64kbps would seem to indicate a lossy compression data rate. Are you sure it's actually a WAV file and not a multichannel MP3 or some other lossy format? I would think lossy compression formats would be commonly used for court reporting to keep file sizes managable.
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They want you to do this (I presume not for free), but want to charge you for the codec needed? Seems weird to me.
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is this the Lady Di coroners tape?
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is there a way to load BWF files in Audacity? It would be quite simple to bump it down to a stereo mix in that way
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Reaper is a free multitrack program, maybe it can open the files:
http://www.reaper.fm/technical.php (http://www.reaper.fm/technical.php)
says it can work with bwf files
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Guys
Many thanks for all the suggestions and help.
In the end I simply played the files in The Record Player and recorded them in SoundForge.
In answer to questions,
1. Yes, in Wav format.
2. It was the family of a deceased who enlisted my help; the codec / conversion program is sold by the software house. Due to public service cutbacks, the Coroner did not have a court stenographer - they just recorded it with very poorly placed mics and there is no official transcript. An appalling state of affairs.
3. Not Lady Di. Far more important. 7 dead - 6 UK and 1 US Servicemen.
Merry Xmas all.
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Due to public service cutbacks, the Coroner did not have a court stenographer - they just recorded it with very poorly placed mics and there is no official transcript. An appalling state of affairs.
This is shocking. I do hope that this is an isolated situation.