Topic: New Sound Devices Firmware ***Coming Soon***

[mmedley.]

Oh yeah baby!!! Recording to FLAC. 

 Sound Devices is again pleased to exhibit at NAB. We invite you to be our guest at the show. Click on the NAB logo below for a no-charge guest pass to the exhibits. Make certain to register today; guest registration closes on April 06, 2007.

Link to Registration

Sound Devices is located in the North Hall, booth, N9314.
New 7-Series Firmware to Preview at NAB

Sound Devices will be previewing the next release of firmware for its 7-Series recorders. Included in this release are several powerful new functions.

Lossless Audio Compression

No matter how large a storage volume, data compression can be a useful tool. This is especially true when recording to CompactFlash storage cards. Sound Devices will be previewing its next revision of firmware containing lossless audio compression. Based on the Open Source FLAC encoding algorithm, 7-Series recorders (702, 702T, 722, and 744T) gain the ability to record data-compressed audio to local storage while maintaining all file metadata. A companion PC software utility will allow for extraction of files back to industry-standard Broadcast Wave files. Compression ratios are program-dependent, though rates between 2:1 and 3:1 compression are common.


MP2 and MP3 Compression

In addition to lossless compression, 7-Series recorders gain the ability to record to the audio-compressed MP2 and MP3 file formats at a wide range of compression ratios. These audio-compressed formats are perfect for transcription and scratch track recording.


Multi-Unit Linking Enhancements

7-Series recorders add enhancements to facilitate multi-unit linking. Stop by the booth for a preview!

[rowjimmy]

holy crap
If I start seeing/taping more shows i think the 7x series has become a no-brainer.

[fozzy]

now that I have the 120gig harddrive i probably won't be using this unless i can edit in native flac format but still a sweet addition and show that SD has their ear to the ground to enhance features.

[rowjimmy]

It's especially valuable, I'd think, to folks using the 702. Saves on compact flash media.

[fozzy]

It's especially valuable, I'd think, to folks using the 702. Saves on compact flash media.

i underestimated this impact since I don't use CF
basically doubles CF capacity, which makes  the 702 a little more practical factoring in the cost of media

[thegreatgumbino]

That's pretty damn slick.  Too bad they don't offer a 744 CF only version to save some dough.

[grayp]

that is pretty sweet.

[Brian Skalinder]

Encoding on-the-fly, while recording, makes me nervous - just one more opportunity for something to go wrong.

[Sanjay]

I like this since I rarely track out my stuff    Straight to my music server + HD for archival

[Brian]

holy blue fuck! YES! i also trust that SD engineers know what they're doing

[F.O.Bean]

holy blue fuck! YES! i also trust that SD engineers know what they're doing

agreed!

but one other thing. once recorded in flac, is it going to take longer to transfer/decode? if it takes longer to transfer, then use THEIR flac decoding(I prefer frontend) then open in an editing program, when in the same time I could just transfer/open in WL.......

still slick as hell and i'll probably use it now that I can do 24/96 at a festie on the stock INHDD

[baustin]

can't you hit a button on the 7xx units adding a seamless track split on the fly?

i like that, a show completely tracked and flac'd show as soon as you walk out of the show! 

[Shawn]

holy blue fuck! YES! i also trust that SD engineers know what they're doing

agreed!

but one other thing. once recorded in flac, is it going to take longer to transfer/decode? if it takes longer to transfer, then use THEIR flac decoding(I prefer frontend) then open in an editing program, when in the same time I could just transfer/open in WL.......

still slick as hell and i'll probably use it now that I can do 24/96 at a festie on the stock INHDD

a FLAC is a FLAC. you should be able to use any flac decoder (like frontend).

the question is... are than any tools to edit/track in flac format?

[MattD]

can't you hit a button on the 7xx units adding a seamless track split on the fly?

i like that, a show completely tracked and flac'd show as soon as you walk out of the show! 

Yup, the record button does that. I think it also has a "pre-roll" equal to the buffer setting, so you can hit it up to x seconds late.

[monochromic]

Lossless Audio Compression

useful feature for those running at festivals and/or cf cards. gotta love the continual development of the 7-series!

[F.O.Bean]

Lossless Audio Compression

useful feature for those running at festivals and/or cf cards. gotta love the continual development of the 7-series!

Agreed! SD really knows where their priorities are. Which for once these days, is in their customers ears/eyes...Way to go SD! Other companies should take note and cater products to their customers needs like SD has set out to do. Just another reason why the 7x series are NO-JOKE recorders IMO! FLAC Encoding could have NEVER got implemented and I would think the 7x series are still DA BOMB! Now with FLAC Encoding, I see even more folks spending the $$ on a 7x series I also cant think of another recorder that encodes to FLAC on-the-fly Just one more thing for SD to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack They are truely WAY ahead of the pack now IMO. They already had the sound/sonics down on the 7x series, now they have the rest of the pack beat not only with quality sound/sonics, but now with the best/most user-friendly options available, its just one more reason why the 7x series are truely the best recorders on the market under 10k Glad I got mine last may when pricing was down to 2400, instead of the 2700 a 722 costs now......

[baustin]

the question is... are than any tools to edit/track in flac format?

you should be able to track in cdwav, correct?

the real question is, would i really record straight to flac format? honestly, the 7xx's have never let me down and i probably will after bugs get worked out.

[F.O.Bean]

the question is... are than any tools to edit/track in flac format?

you should be able to track in cdwav, correct?

the real question is, would i really record straight to flac format? honestly, the 7xx's have never let me down and i probably will after bugs get worked out.

true, you can track flac's in cdwave for windoze. my biggest thing since I have plenty of INHDD/CF Card space is:

is encoding to flac while recording going to save any time on the transfer/decode end If I can just record in WAV and transfer/open in WL 5.0 quicker than recording to FLAC, then decoding, then opening in WL 5.0, then I'm just going to continue to record to WAV files......But for festies I can actually have 16 hrs of space@24/48 on my 8GB CF Card, which alone, is a beautiful thing all by itself

Just really goes to show that SD is ON TOP of their game. they are quick to release firmware that fixes any bugs from the previous versions, and they do it QUICKLY especially if the bug is somewhat bad. once they realized that the 2.07 Firmware(I think) had a BAD bug, they had a new firmware up a couple days later. thats dedication to a product IMO. Which any GREAT company should do on a $2,500+ piece of equipment. And not only are they fixing bugs, but they are truely enhancing a product that I never thought could be enhanced more than it already was/is....It really does leave the door open for anything from SD now IMO. the possibilities are ENDLESS What a way to listen to and study their customers. I'm sure this isnt really bgeared toward the film market would it be ? do the film people even use flac? I have no clue.....the flac encoding almost seems like they're throwing the tapers a bone for once, even tho were such a small part of their sales. Never know tho, maybe thats our kickback for reporting the majority of the bugs PSYCHED to try it out and test it tho. It would be nice if it cajme out this weekend cause I could test it out since I am not doing any sidejobs this weekend.........

Anyway, cheers to Sound Devices and making me justify the $$ I spent on the 722 last year this time even more, it just keeps getting better and better

ACM 671 WHAT? HD-P2 WHAT? microcrapper WHAT? I cannot thi8nk of ANY other recorders that encode to FLAC, especially not a pro deck like the 7x series, anyone else know of any recorders that encode directly to flac? wonder if you can only do it real-time or you can do it after a set is recorded   and this would also make our 2GB splits@24/48 every 4 hrs instead of 2 hrs right? so i wonder if you record at 24/96 if the split is near the 1 hour mark, or if its at the 2 hour mark since its being encoded in flac at prolly a 2:1 ratio

[rdvdijk]

Based on the Open Source FLAC encoding algorithm, ...

'Based on'? What does that mean? Do they imply a different algorithm than FLAC here?

Roel

[JasonSobel]

anyone else know of any recorders that encode directly to flac?

Gordon Gidluck's Live2496 recording program for recording onto PDA's with core sounds PD-Audio can record directly to FLAC.  not that I'd put the PDA recording system anywhere near the level of teh SD boxes, but I just thought that I'd throw that out there.

[Brian]

so i thought about skalinder's post some more last night and have come to the conclusion that i think there should be no problems with "real time" encoding in this box.  Add this to tracking on the fly and transferring shows may have become much easier.

my only question is....is there a program that can convert 24/96 .flac files to 16/44.1?  it's early and i can't think of any off of the top of my head.

[F.O.Bean]

so i thought about skalinder's post some more last night and have come to the conclusion that i think there should be no problems with "real time" encoding in this box.  Add this to tracking on the fly and transferring shows may have become much easier.

my only question is....is there a program that can convert 24/96 .flac files to 16/44.1?  it's early and i can't think of any off of the top of my head.

none I can think of Brian

[Brian]

yep and because of that....i don't see a reason to stop recording .wav files.  in the end, the transferring process won't be much faster if you still care about having .wav files for archival purposes.

however this could be great for other applications or less important recordings, for me.  and, as others have mentioned, it will be good for all day events and festivals.

[thegreatgumbino]

and this would also make our 2GB splits@24/48 every 4 hrs instead of 2 hrs right? so i wonder if you record at 24/96 if the split is near the 1 hour mark, or if its at the 2 hour mark since its being encoded in flac at prolly a 2:1 ratio

That would be sweet.

[willndmb]

how does the "auto tracking" work?
do you tell it to track every 5 mins or something?

[jmerin]

i would rather record to wave.  then flac later.  its just easier.  going from wave to flac is better than going flac>wave>flac

[Brian Skalinder]

have come to the conclusion that i think there should be no problems with "real time" encoding in this box.

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."
  --  Lawrence Peter Berra

Theoretically, you're right.  To clarify my previous statement a bit...

It's a plain fact:  adding real-time FLAC encoding introduces one more potential point of failure in the recording chain.  Have you never, ever had a FLAC encode/decode problem on your PC?  I know I have, plenty of times - and judging from past posts here, plenty of others have, as well.  It's a question of when, not if, real-time FLAC encoding will result in a botched a recording.  With all the other potentials for failure, I just don't see any value in encoding directly to FLAC - especially when (and this is key) HDD and CF media are so darn inexpensive.

[Brian]

flac encoding on a computer using xACT or flac frontend is not in real time.  if there is a way to do it, it would be interesting to test and look for errors.  that would be quite the tedious test though. 

nice quote though and good points as always.

Unless i want to record something at 16/44.1,  i don't see a need for me to use this feature.  It's still pretty cool that SD is continuing development with this product though.  Makes me feel that i made a good decision in buying a SD recorder.

[Brian Skalinder]

flac encoding on a computer using xACT or flac frontend is not in real time.

Exactly, which means it's easy to recover from errors or problems.  Not so in real time.  Anyway...starting to beat a dead horse.

It's still pretty cool that SD is continuing development with this product though.  Makes me feel that i made a good decision in buying a SD recorder.

Definitely.  I wish I had one!

[Brian]

Exactly, which means it's easy to recover from errors or problems. 

ahhhh yes.... something i overlooked. 

[RobertNC]

I did not see anywhere that said it is truly "on-the-fly" or "real time" encoding. 

What if the unit is in fact caching the raw wav on the media and then doing a lazy encoding/final write?  If it's doing that on the INHDD then your battery consumption is gonna take a hit, and those batteries are not cheap and not likely to become so. 

[Brian Skalinder]

I did not see anywhere that said it is truly "on-the-fly" or "real time" encoding.

Good point.  I think many of us assumed so (and we all know what assuming makes us) based on:  "gain the ability to record data-compressed audio to local storage while maintaining all file metadata."  But that's not nearly definitive enough a statement to know how they're implementing the feature.

Anyone on the SD support board seen any info on how this is implemented?

[F.O.Bean]

I did not see anywhere that said it is truly "on-the-fly" or "real time" encoding.

Good point.  I think many of us assumed so (and we all know what assuming makes us) based on:  "gain the ability to record data-compressed audio to local storage while maintaining all file metadata."  But that's not nearly definitive enough a statement to know how they're implementing the feature.

Anyone on the SD support board seen any info on how this is implemented?

im VERY curious myself.....

[it-goes-to-eleven]

I really like how SD continues to enhance the existing product rather than declaring it 'done' and moving on to the next model..

[Digital Quality]

IME, flac  compression for 24 bit signals is only about 0.7 vs about 0.5 for 16 bit data using compression level 6. On the fly will likely use an even lower compression level so don't expect this to double your 24 bit recording capacity.

[rowjimmy]

the question is... are than any tools to edit/track in flac format?

CDWave not only encodes in FLAC but it will open one and allow you to track it.

Now if only they had a high quality dither/resample component...

[JasonSobel]

IME, flac  compression for 24 bit signals is only about 0.7 vs about 0.5 for 16 bit data using compression level 6. On the fly will likely use an even lower compression level so don't expect this to double your 24 bit recording capacity.

I've had much better compression ratios for 24 bit audio with FLAC v1.1.4, relative to the older version.  v1.1.4 was just released a few months ago, so make the switch if you haven't already.  I wonder if SD is going to use the latest version of FLAC with the recorders...

[F.O.Bean]

IME, flac  compression for 24 bit signals is only about 0.7 vs about 0.5 for 16 bit data using compression level 6. On the fly will likely use an even lower compression level so don't expect this to double your 24 bit recording capacity.

I've had much better compression ratios for 24 bit audio with FLAC v1.1.4, relative to the older version.  v1.1.4 was just released a few months ago, so make the switch if you haven't already.  I wonder if SD is going to use the latest version of FLAC with the recorders...

1.1.4 isnt available for fronetend yet tho, so im holding off til it is

at the same time i would imagine SD uses the newest STABLE version of flac which is 1.1.4 hopefully

[OFOTD]

Say you're recording directly to FLAC at 24/96.  Let's also say that you'll double your recording capacity.  So now you record a set thats an hour and a half.   No errors or anything from the 7xx.  You get home to eq levels, add track splits, add fades, etc.

You still have to deal with the 2GB limit with most software.  So the only REAL benefit here is either for those using the 702 or those recording a festival with the stock drive in the 722/744.

So essentially FLAC support is just a space saver and not a time saver.  So with that thinking Bean's statement that it puts the 7xx boxes "WAY ahead of the pack" may be more of Bean's fluffing of his gear than SD being truly WAY ahead of the pack. 

I mean how many of you would even use that feature?  Its cool that they offer it but is it really a reason to "see even more folks spending the $$ on a 7x series"

I'm impressed that SD is listening to their customers but is this really a killer app for this box?  Will this make more people buy the box?

[F.O.Bean]

Say you're recording directly to FLAC at 24/96.  Let's also say that you'll double your recording capacity.  So now you record a set thats an hour and a half.   No errors or anything from the 7xx.  You get home to eq levels, add track splits, add fades, etc.

You still have to deal with the 2GB limit with most software.  So the only REAL benefit here is either for those using the 702 or those recording a festival with the stock drive in the 722/744.

So essentially FLAC support is just a space saver and not a time saver.  So with that thinking Bean's statement that it puts the 7xx boxes "WAY ahead of the pack" may be more of Bean's fluffing of his gear than SD being truly WAY ahead of the pack. 

I mean how many of you would even use that feature?  Its cool that they offer it but is it really a reason to "see even more folks spending the $$ on a 7x series"

I'm impressed that SD is listening to their customers but is this really a killer app for this box?  Will this make more people buy the box?

i wont be using it unless its quicker to record to flac/transfer/decode to WAV anyway....But for SD to be continually on top of their products firmware says alot about them IMO......this is just the icing on the cake IMO. I think it took them not even one week to realize they had a crappy/buggy firmware(2.09) and fix the problem on the QUICKNESS(2.10)

[OFOTD]

But for SD to be continually on top of their products firmware says alot about them IMO......this is just the icing on the cake IMO. I think it took them not even one week to realize they had a crappy/buggy firmware(2.09) and fix the problem on the QUICKNESS(2.10)

Agreed.

[fozzy]

I know that the mp3 recording feature that was initially introduced but was found to be faulty was really desired within the ENG field.  I think they re-coded their entire encoding feature set and it was a reatively easy and cheap to add flac support as well as re-implement mp3.  The comments from the SD engineers on their board see the biggest users/value add will be for customers using CF. 

For folks turning in dailies the production houses will not see flac as an acceptable delivery method for some time if at all. 

[live2496]

IME, flac  compression for 24 bit signals is only about 0.7 vs about 0.5 for 16 bit data using compression level 6. On the fly will likely use an even lower compression level so don't expect this to double your 24 bit recording capacity.

I've had much better compression ratios for 24 bit audio with FLAC v1.1.4, relative to the older version.  v1.1.4 was just released a few months ago, so make the switch if you haven't already.  I wonder if SD is going to use the latest version of FLAC with the recorders...

libFLAC still has some problem handling some types of 24-bit data as has been noticed by some of the developers using FLAC. I have seen some posts here by tapers indicating that also. I'm going to include Josh Coalson's recent post on this subject. Josh is the lead developer on the FLAC project.

I think that it's great that SoundDevices is moving in this direction. And it sounds like this issue is going to have a published fix available soon anyway.

Subject: Re: [Flac-dev] FLAC 24 bit test results
   From: Josh Coalson <xflac@yahoo.com>
   Date: Sun, 8 Apr 2007 15:29:40 -0700 (PDT)
     To: flac-dev@xiph.org

>sorry about the delay in responding.  Miroslav basically described
>the problem correctly, 24-bit samples with a lot of noise will
>require a rice parameter larger than FLAC supports, so it will punt
>and use VERBATIM subframes.  the escape parameter will help a bit
>but is not a good long term solution.
>
>the proper fix is to increase the possible size of the rice parameter
>in a backward-compatible way and I have already done this months ago,
>but I am still working with all the hardware vendors to ensure there
>are no problems for users because it requires a change to the decoder.
>the next flac release will have the change in the decoder but I am
>holding off the encoder release until hardware makers are up to date.
>this should not be too long as very few support 24bps.
>
>so, short answer, the fix is in progress.
>
>Josh

[sleepypedro]

friggin' rice parameter will get you every time 

[live2496]

friggin' rice parameter will get you every time 

Just to be clear on this so that no one gets the wrong impression...

FLAC is lossless. And it works perfectly in 24-bit mode. You get out of it what you put into it bit for bit.
However, the issue is how much compression do you get with 24-bit data. In some cases the compression is very little. Sometimes you can get a file that is larger than the original by a small margin. I would assume that this is because of the verbatim encoding mentioned by Josh. If the entire file is encoded "verbatim", you have original pcm samples, plus FLAC framing information, plus the index points and any metadata added.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

FLAC is lossless. And it works perfectly in 24-bit mode. You get out of it what you put into it bit for bit.

Actually, it sometimes doesn't.

If you flac a 1GB file (for example) with a header that specifies the length as 100 bytes, flac stores just the 100 bytes and discards everything else.  That doesn't apply so much to this realtime case but I think the issue is important to reguarly repeat (especially when flac is being described as working 'perfectly').

[live2496]

In looking into this a bit and thinking about it....

These files have binary zeroes in the riff header and data chunk. These files will not play in some media players and officially they contain errors because the data chunk counter does not match how many bytes are in the data chunk.

However, I agree that FLAC should be modified to detect and to handle this condition. Some of the better audio players like Winamp and Foobar2000 don't care about this and handle files like this without incident.

I doubt that Sound Devices will be processing files offline. It doesn't make sense to stop recording, recoup as much space as you can off of a media and then continue to record. It makes more sense to encode while recording. This is the main benefit of FLAC. That said, Sound Devices should not have the aforementioned file problem because they are not processing input files. They will have an encoder instance, and process files being provided from the converter.

That is not to say that there couldn't be problems due to power failure or whatever. I think that you should be able to decode through errors after the fact and get your data back. Yes, it's just one more thing that could go wrong, but users will have to weigh the benefits vs any additional problems it might possibly cause them. 

I see it as a good move on their part.

[mhibbs]

So essentially FLAC support is just a space saver and not a time saver.  So with that thinking Bean's statement that it puts the 7xx boxes "WAY ahead of the pack" may be more of Bean's fluffing of his gear than SD being truly WAY ahead of the pack. 

I mean how many of you would even use that feature?  Its cool that they offer it but is it really a reason to "see even more folks spending the $$ on a 7x series"

I'm impressed that SD is listening to their customers but is this really a killer app for this box?  Will this make more people buy the box?

Great for festivals or multi-run trips where you don't want to pack something to dump to.  I do see it as a time saver (although it's relative...we're talking some min, not a revolution).  The firewire transfer still isn't exactly blazing fast.  If you reduce the file size by 1/2, you cut the time to dump from the 722 to the computer in half.  Decoding flac on my computer is definitely faster than 1/2 the time it takes to transfer a wav from the 722 to my computer.


mitch