LATEST NOTES AND TIPS FOR BWF-Widget
NOTES ON FILE PLAYBACK IN
BWFWIDGETAs is stated in the instructions, BWF-Widget supports file
playback with TC for 16bit 48khz and 44.1khz files directly with most PCs.
Since BWF-Widget uses Windows Media player for playback of audio, you must have
the latest drivers for your sound hardware and that sound hardware must support
the bit depth and sample rate of your files. If you have a sound-card that
supports 24 bit or 96khz and multiple channels (Dolby 5.1 or 7.1) you can
usually playback those files as well. The sound-blaster Live24 and Audigy2
sound cards and USB audio adaptors from Creative Labs support this. Windows
media-player automatically tries to find a codec-to play files that it doesn't
support in its native codec. It looks on the Internet by default if it can't
play the wave file it is presented with. This is why there is a checkbox in
Options menu of BWF-Widget to limit playback to 16bit 48khz files. Un-check
this box if your hardware supports 24 bit and you have the proper 24bit/96khz
sound drivers installed.
Another
alternative to 24 bit hardware.
If you don't have 24bit
hardware in your computer, there is an alternative way to playback higher
sample-rate and bit-depth files on your 16 bit soundcard. I have included a
Free Program called XMPlay from Un4seen software that does a great job of
playing back any type of wav file on your plain 16 bit sound hardware.
When you ran the Setup for BWF-Widget it should have placed a
copy of XM-Play in the "C:\Program Files\BWF Widget" folder. In the Options
Menu in BWF-Widget, check the box that says: "Use XMPlay for 24 bit and
Multi-track" Leave the checkbox "Only Play 16bit 48k files"
checked. That box only applies to
the Media Player portion of BWF-Widget. Once the settings are correct in the Options menu. Whenever you
double-click on a file in the list box or in the Data-Grid, it should Launch
XMPlay and play the file you double-clicked on. While you can hear the file,
the TC display will not track along, but show you only the Start Time code of
the file currently playing. This is because XMplay is a separate program and is
playing the file independently of BWF-Widget
The first time you launch
XMPlay you must work through a short install which just puts some data in your
registry. You must then change a couple of the default settings in XMPlay to
work properly from within BWF-Widget. Click on the little wrench to open the
settings panel for XMPlay.
Click on the
"Miscellaneous" tab and make sure the following items are set
properly. 1.
Uncheck the box labeled "Allow Multiple Instances" 2. Check the box labeled
"Always on top" Click on
the "Device" Tab and set the following: 1. Set the Sample
rate under Output to 48000 2. Set the resolution to 24 bit.
Make sure you apply these
settings by pressing the "APPLY" button
You
might want to shrink the player to it's mini-size by double clicking on the
title bar of XMPlay. Then place it over the top of the media player control in
BWF-Widget. It will always pop up there and play the file from then on.
If you pop up the Info Window
in XMPlay (the little i in the circle on the lower left corner of the player)
there is a nice spectrum display under Vis. Tab.
XMPlay is a very capable audio
player and I urge you to read its instructions and visit it's home site at
www.un4seen.com It can also rip CD's and burn audio CD's from your wave
files.
When you have the settings
correct, BWF-Widget should automatically use the Windows Media player for all
16 bit files (with moving TC display) and use XMPlay for all 24 bit or multi-channel
files. (more than 2 tracks)
SPEED UP
TIPS:
To speed up the loading of the Data-Grid
in BWF-Widget make sure the following are set in Windows Settings. From the control panel go to the System
Properties panel. Under the Advanced Tab, choose
the Settings button under the Performance area. Under the "Visual
Effects" tab click on the Custom Button and Make sure the item labeled
"Smooth-Scroll List Boxes" is UNCHECKED.
This will speed up somewhat the reading of the Data into the
Data-grid. Or you can just check
"adjust for best performance" and you will have the best
speed. You do loose some of the
Windows superfluous Eye candy though. Remember if you are loading the Data-Grid or playing back files
from the Optical CD/DVD drive, the disk must spin up to speed first before it
can read or play the files, so there may be a short delay until the disk gets
up to speed. This is normal. Just be patient.
BWF-Widget is a good tool to
use to check the validity of a just-burned Optical disk. Since it must access
and read data from each Wave File listed in its directory whenever it Builds
the Data-Grid, it is a good way to confirm that all the files have been written
to the disk and are readable with proper time-code and correct length. This
should only take about 30 seconds to check every file on the removable Disk and
load it's Meta-Data into the Data-Grid.
COPY FROM THE GRID A new feature allows you to
Select an area of data from the Data-Grid and Copy it to the Clipboard. You can
select a block of data or the whole grid then Right-Click inside your selection
and choose "Copy Selection to Clipboard". You can then go to any
application that supports Paste (Like Word or Excel) and paste the data
directly into a spreadsheet or a
word processing document. The headings are automatically taken with the data so
if you don't need them just delete that row of labels after you paste the
data.
VERSION
HISTORY: Ver. 1.09
Released June 7, 2005
Fixed bug in handling Non-BWF wave files.
Made more compatible with foreign language versions of
Windows.
Ver.
1.85
Speed
enhancement when scanning files for metadata.
|
