Lot's of good stuff, a few thoughts
Time & Geo location seem to me vital to have, but I'm not aware any of any=
GPS capable recorders, nor Wi-Fi ones either. For sure all file based
recorders record the time but other than on expensive machines like those
from SD the time will be written when the file is saved & the RTC clocks ar=
e
far from good time keepers.
A possibility may be an app running on an PDA, tablet, small PC (possibly
www.fit-pc.com) with GPS. This would log place & time & there would be a
"now" key to log specific time points, possibly a few preloaded Keywords fo=
r
fast data entry would be handy.
To use; make sure the time on both the recorder & PDA are within say a
minute accuracy. For pro recorders with timecode output like the SD7xx a T/=
c
reader to "Jam" the pda to the recorder would be ideal.
BTW timecode as well as carrying the time within a 24hr period also has use=
r
bits, 8 hex char most commonly used to store the date + take/scene numbers=
from 00 till 99.
To get the data logged attached to the audio file is of course the tricky=
part.
1) A simple approach could be to do this after the field trip using a PC or=
Mac prog that:-
(a) reads RIFF data & if available bext info.
(b) reads the pda Log
(c) calc on a time basis what events go with which audio file (IE the link=
is date & time not the filename say)
(d) this could be extended to any video or still photos, tho clearly the
user may want to attach media not shot at the same time as the audio was
being recorded. And the probably very cryptic notes made whilst recording
will need augmenting.
which bring one to the desirability of embedding the data in the audio file=
& being able to read this data whilst auditioning as much of the data as
possible.
Well I recon it would be a bad idea to mess with any existing bext data and=
it can't store much more than links to an external database in any case.
iXML is a possibility, it would be far more practical to add private chunks=
to what may or may not exist.
About the only part that should be modified IMO is the "History" info.
To audition the material & add /modify the data one could use either a
database like Basehead http://www.baseheadinc.com/
or a DAW. Reaper I agree would likely be the best DAW to add the quite
considerable amount of extensions to do this. Poss Ardour may be a
possibility too.
John L
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