[Peter Larsen]

Richard Crowley wrote:

Assuming also that you are running a hard drive format (also
undisclosed) that allows single files bigger than 2GB?

FAT32 allows wavefiles of their maximum possible size: 4 GB, that too is
the maximum editable file size no matter what file format in some
applications so it is somewhat unwise to make files that are larger.

A simple way of doubling possible recording time is to record two
mono-files rather than one stereo file.

Some recording software, audiograbber is one example, has the option of
starting new files whenever there is "silence".

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Peter Larsen]

hawk wrote:

I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

Audition.

I know there are a lot of reasons/workarounds for this problem, but
what I really want to know is, going forward, what is a good Windows
file format to record into for very, very large/long recordings.

..WAV

I'll be recording continuous sessions over 4 hours, and I'd
like to use a format that can handle this.

..WAV, save as two mono files instead of one stereo file in case you want
to use 24 bit or high samplerate. At 48-16 you will get some 5 hours
stereo, at 32-16 (great for classical FM) some 9 hours.

I can easily enough split up my current problem file into smaller
chunks, or convert to .raw, or whatever, but I'd like to find a more
acceptible file format for future recordings.

Any suggestions?

You omit the context and that makes it difficult to come up with
suggestions that are "to the point". Audiograbber is (also!) a nice
recorder. It is left undefined what "session" is for you, if "recording
session" it makes sense to use ones preferred audio software. Preferring
software that has a 2 GB file size limit seems strange to me.

Hawkeye Parker

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[hawk]

I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

I know there are a lot of reasons/workarounds for this problem, but
what I really want to know is, going forward, what is a good Windows
file format to record into for very, very large/long recordings. I'll
be recording continuous sessions over 4 hours, and I'd like to use a
format that can handle this.

I can easily enough split up my current problem file into smaller
chunks, or convert to .raw, or whatever, but I'd like to find a more
acceptible file format for future recordings.

Any suggestions?

Hawkeye Parker

[hawk]

Note: didn't mean I need a Windows proprietary format; far from it:
I want something as standard and non-proprietary as possible, only
that I'd like it to have common support on the Windows platforms....

[Richard Crowley]

"hawk" wrote ...
I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

I know there are a lot of reasons/workarounds for this problem, but
what I really want to know is, going forward, what is a good Windows
file format to record into for very, very large/long recordings. I'll
be recording continuous sessions over 4 hours, and I'd like to use a
format that can handle this.

I can easily enough split up my current problem file into smaller
chunks, or convert to .raw, or whatever, but I'd like to find a more
acceptible file format for future recordings.

Are you saying that you can live with some lossy compression
for your application (undisclosed)? MP3 or OGG, etc. would be
logical suggestions.

OTOH, if you are needing full uncompressed quality, then you are
not asking for a different file format, you are asking for different
application software to write/read the files. i.e. software that is
modern enough to have supersceded the old 2Gb file size limit.

Assuming also that you are running a hard drive format (also
undisclosed) that allows single files bigger than 2GB?

[Richard Crowley]

"Peter Larsen" wrote ...
FAT32 allows wavefiles of their maximum possible size: 4 GB, that too is
the maximum editable file size no matter what file format in some
applications so it is somewhat unwise to make files that are larger.

By "maximum editable" you are refering to the limitations of the
applications, not the file structure? I regularly edit video files in
the 10-20GB range.

[[email protected]]

On May 8, 3:41 pm, hawk wrote:
I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

I know there are a lot of reasons/workarounds for this problem, but
what I really want to know is, going forward, what is a good Windows
file format to record into for very, very large/long recordings. I'll
be recording continuous sessions over 4 hours, and I'd like to use a
format that can handle this.

I can easily enough split up my current problem file into smaller
chunks, or convert to .raw, or whatever, but I'd like to find a more
acceptible file format for future recordings.

Any suggestions?

The WAV format size limit is imposed by the fact that
internally it's represented as a single "chunk" itself
composed of smaller "chunks". At the head of each
are two important pieces of information: a 4-byte or
4 character ASCII chunk identifier, and a 4-byte 32-bit
chunk length, describing the number of bytes remaining
in the chunk. That overall chunk sets the limit: it, by convention,
is a 32-bit unsigned integer which SHOULD allow you to
have files up to 2^32 bytes, or 4 GBytes overall. If an application
is limited to 2 GB, it's because it's being viewed as a signed
32 bit integer, not an unsigend integer.

But, beyond that, if your goal is to record for a long time,
is it necessary to do it at a high sample rate, high sample
length or multiple channels, all of which consume more
and more space?

For example, record stereo at 96 kHz/24 bits and you'll
be limited to 62 minutes for a 2GB limit, 124 minutes for
a 4 GB limit, or just over 1 hour/2 hours.

But drop that to 32 kHz/16 bit mono, and now you're up to
9 hours, 19 minutes for a 2GB limit, or 18 hours, 38 minutes
for a 4GB limit.

And as other have pointed out, compressed formats give
you a tremendous potential increase. Even a very modest
compression rate of 5.5:1 (256kb/s for CD stereo audio)
gives you 18 hours 38 minutes for a 2 GB limit, 37 hours
16 minutes for a 4 GB limit.

It all depends upon what you're recording, for what purpose
and what you intend to do with it later. If it's for simple recording
and archiving, then you can effectively record for weeks using
high-compression rate MPEG or similar, but at compromised
quality and you don't want to do much editing on it. If you're
recording the entire Wagner Ring Cycle for later masering and
commercial release in one session, it forces a very different set
of choices, Including different platform, different tool set
and everything else.

As an intermediate example, if you want to record an
overnight FM stereo broadcast, 32 kHz, 16 bit stereo
PCM is plenty good: it has the same bandwidth, exceeds
the dynamic range of the best transmitter/receiver chain
by a very comfortable margin, and will give you 4 hours
40 minutes for a 2 GB limit, 9 hours 20 minutes for a 4
GB limit.

But, if you find your tool limits you to 2 GB WAV files,
find one that doesn't.

[Geoff]

hawk wrote:
I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).


What's wrong with SF's W64 format ? There is even an option to switch to it
automatically for files that exceed the legal WAV size !

geoff

[Eeyore]

hawk wrote:

I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

It certainly *can't* if the drive is formatted as FAT32.

Is that the case ?

Graham

[hawk]

Thanks for all the feedback and answers. Clearly I should have been
more specific. Aplogies.

Recording live music, jam sessions. The continuity of the session is
crucial. Lossy is unacceptable. 16 bit stereo 44100 is fine (? maybe
I should look more closely, but 16/44 lossless still seems "better" to
me than high bitrate lossy. I am lossy paranoid). I'm recording onto
a portable Marantz PMD 670 with a 4gb flash card which gives me a max
of ~6hours in stereo wav. The mix is coming from a 16 channel analog
VLZ3. My computer is also a crucial instrument in the mix, so I'm
choosing not to record to hd on my computer; rather, record onto the
Marantz, then transfer to computer for editing/mastering. The
computer has a 700GB redundant raid array with about 400GB currently
available.

The Marantz appears to be writing any PCM recording only to .wav. I
need to look more closely at this. I was able to record a 2.5 GB wav
file with the Marantz, so clearly it's writing unsigned. I understand
fairly clearly about the 2GB/4GB problem, but it does sound to me like
a file format issue: there are certainly many ways to represent
larger groupings of 32bit data on a computer. I was assuming that by
now there would be another file format standard to support larger
audio files. SoundForge (sony) has their own .w64 format, and I've
found a few references to a proposed RF64 format, but it doesn't seem
to have garnered "a lot of" support yet.

I guess I was thinking that I should be able to record directly
to .raw, and that this could support a continuous recording as big as
my storage can handle. Does that make any sense? I don't think the
Marantz will do that anyhow, and so I'm probably stuck with the 4GB
limit for now....

Hopefully that gives you a better sense of where I'm at. Any advice
would still be appreciated.

Many thanks,

Hawkeye Parker

[hawk]

doh! NTFS. that's the file system.

[rustybx]

If lossy is truly unacceptable (my guess it isn't) you might look into
Meredian Lossless Packing. MLP is a lossless compression with bit-for-
bit accuracy. For 2 channels, 44.1kHz, 16-bit and typical compression
would give about 5 hours for 2GB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_Lossless_Packing

[Geoff]

rustybx wrote:
If lossy is truly unacceptable (my guess it isn't) you might look into
Meredian Lossless Packing. MLP is a lossless compression with
bit-for- bit accuracy. For 2 channels, 44.1kHz, 16-bit and typical
compression would give about 5 hours for 2GB.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_Lossless_Packing

Or if you want to squeeze, then SF's native PCA (similar) lossless streamed
file compression format..

There you go, two answers that were right there under your F1 key the whole
time !

geoff

[Geoff]

Peter Larsen wrote:
hawk wrote:

I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

Audition.

The limitation is not SoundForge, it is the WAV file format.

Why would he want to fork out to buy Audition when he already has SoundForge
and there are several native methods of overcoming his dilemma, only a few
clicks away ?!!!

geoff

[Mr.T]

"Richard Crowley" wrote in message
...
"Peter Larsen" wrote ...
FAT32 allows wavefiles of their maximum possible size: 4 GB, that too is
the maximum editable file size no matter what file format in some
applications so it is somewhat unwise to make files that are larger.

By "maximum editable" you are refering to the limitations of the
applications, not the file structure? I regularly edit video files in
the 10-20GB range.

Not with FAT32, as Peter specified, you don't.
NTFS has no such limitation of course.

MrT.

[Richard Crowley]

"Geoff" wrote ...
Peter Larsen wrote:
hawk wrote:

I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

Audition.

The limitation is not SoundForge, it is the WAV file format.

Perhaps you missed the bigger limitation than that.
The OP is NOT recording on a computer, but on a
"Marantz PMD 670 with a 4gb flash card". Therefore
he has no choice of "software" or "codecs", except
what is hard-wired into the recorder.

[Peter Larsen]

Richard Crowley wrote:

"Peter Larsen" wrote ...
FAT32 allows wavefiles of their maximum possible size: 4 GB, that too is
the maximum editable file size no matter what file format in some
applications so it is somewhat unwise to make files that are larger.

By "maximum editable" you are refering to the limitations of the
applications, not the file structure? I regularly edit video files in
the 10-20GB range.

I write about audio specifying that what I write is based on my
experience with the Cool Edit derivatives that all have a max file size
of 4 GB and you follow up about video ... not really to the point
Richard, but indeed relevant in the overall context.


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Geoff]

Soundhaspriority wrote:
"hawk" wrote in message
ups.com...
I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

Upgrade to Sound Forge 9, which supports WAV64, which has a file
limit of 4 gigs.

No. SoundForge has had W64 for several versions (since 2003 ?). There is
*no* 4gig filesize limit.

geoff

[[email protected]]

On May 9, 7:27 pm, "Soundhaspriority" wrote:
"hawk" wrote in message

ups.com...I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

Upgrade to Sound Forge 9, which supports WAV64, which has a file
limit of 4 gigs.

Standard RIFF WAV files already get to 4 GB, the problem is many
applications treat the 32-bit chunk sizes as signed integers, leading
to a limit of 2^31 or 2GB, instead of as unsigned integers with
a limit of 2^32 or 4GB.

WAV64 uses 64-bit sizes for chunks, and thus, theoretically,
allows for 2^64 bytes of data, or some 18 exabyte files. At
CD sample rate and data size, that would allow for well
over 3 million years of continuous recording.

Unfortunately, WAV 64 is not yet widely supported. It's latest
incarnation is being pushed primarily by Sony Digital Pictures.
It's not clear whether it will become widely accepted or not.

[Geoff]

wrote:

Unfortunately, WAV 64 is not yet widely supported. It's latest
incarnation is being pushed primarily by Sony Digital Pictures.
It's not clear whether it will become widely accepted or not.

Probably not 'widely accepted', but didn't the OP say he was using SF anyway
?

BTW and FWIW SoSoFo (Sony-cum-SonicFoundry) is no longer Sony Digital
Pictures, but now Sony Creative Software Inc ( SCSI ?!!!).

geoff

[hawk]

WAV64 uses 64-bit sizes for chunks, and thus, theoretically,
allows for 2^64 bytes of data, or some 18 exabyte files. At
CD sample rate and data size, that would allow for well
over 3 million years of continuous recording.

That certainly makes sense. But, as Richard pointed out above, the
real limitation in my current setup is the PMD 670 which only writes
PCM data to .wav or .bwf. I'm not %100 sure, but my guess is that the
PMD also doesn't automatically create a new wav after 4GB. Apparently
some apps support a .wav, .w01, .w02, .... "convention", and can
maintain the illusion of a single file using this convention.

Unfortunately, WAV 64 is not yet widely supported.

This is my sense as well, and it gets to the heart of my original
question (or at least the one I wanted to ask), which was: is there a
common/standard file format which pro audio people use to record/edit
PCM audio larger than 4GB. I assumed there would be a simple answer
to this question: the price of storage just keeps going down, and I
think there are otherwise at least *some* advantages to recording/
editing in a lossless, uncompressed format. I assumed a file format
standard must have emerged around this idea by now, but after a
cursory search of the web and a few forums (this one included) nothing
jumped out at me, so I thought I'd ask.

Practically speaking, it's easy enough for me to handle my own
recording issues. I can and do split big wav files with shntool.
But, if I had the choice, I'd be recording my orginal master stereo
mix into a format that my editor could open : ) Regarding this issue,
I am frustrated with Sound Forge; to me, it's a bug, and one that's
been in that app for a long time.

Thanks one and all for your patience and helpful suggestions.

hawkeye parker

[Geoff]

hawk wrote:
WAV64 uses 64-bit sizes for chunks, and thus, theoretically,
allows for 2^64 bytes of data, or some 18 exabyte files. At
CD sample rate and data size, that would allow for well
over 3 million years of continuous recording.

That certainly makes sense. But, as Richard pointed out above, the
real limitation in my current setup is the PMD 670 which only writes
PCM data to .wav or .bwf. I'm not %100 sure, but my guess is that the
PMD also doesn't automatically create a new wav after 4GB.

What does the manual say ? The PMD670 was designed when CF cards maxed out
at around a gig, so maybe auto-splitting files greater than 4GB was not
considered a factor.


Apparently
some apps support a .wav, .w01, .w02, .... "convention", and can
maintain the illusion of a single file using this convention.

A local workaround. Certainly not a standard, and changing file-type names
should not be encouraged ! better filename-01.wav. filename-02.wav, etc.

Unfortunately, WAV 64 is not yet widely supported.

From somewhere on Google:

2.4 WAVE 64
A couple of years ago a closely related format to RF64, called WAVE64 [6],
was introduced in the following products:


1.. . SADiE


2.. . Sony Media Softwa SoundForge, Vegas, ACID Pro


3.. . Steinberg: Nuendo, Cubase, (Wavelab soon)


4.. . VCS: Audio Tool Set (ATS), including StarTrack and Orion.

The developers of this format will hopefully join forces with the RF64
developers in meetings in the AES and EBU file format panels, to take the
best out of the two mechanisms. Perhaps it would be possible to harmonize
the two initiatives.



geoff

[hawk]

On May 9, 7:45 pm, "Geoff" wrote:

hawk wrote:
That certainly makes sense. But, as Richard pointed out above, the
real limitation in my current setup is the PMD 670 which only writes
PCM data to .wav or .bwf. I'm not %100 sure, but my guess is that the
PMD also doesn't automatically create a new wav after 4GB.

What does the manual say ? The PMD670 was designed when CF cards maxed out
at around a gig, so maybe auto-splitting files greater than 4GB was not
considered a factor.

Yeah, the recording time charts (in the manual) all end at 1GB. I
can't find anywhere else in the manual that discusses longer/bigger
files, or anything about the 4GB limit on wav files. Been meaning to
give them a call and just ask. It definitely handles 2GB, thank
goodness. Should say: I'm incredibly satisfied with the PMD670, in
general.

"Perhaps it would be possible to harmonize
the two initiatives."

Couldn't we just make it a law? (j/k)

"hawk" wrote in message
ups.com...
I recently ran into the problem of 2GB wav files. SoundForge will
not open a wav file bigger than 2GB (certainly tell me if you have a
work around).

I know there are a lot of reasons/workarounds for this problem, but
what I really want to know is, going forward, what is a good Windows
file format to record into for very, very large/long recordings. I'll
be recording continuous sessions over 4 hours, and I'd like to use a
format that can handle this.

I can easily enough split up my current problem file into smaller
chunks, or convert to .raw, or whatever, but I'd like to find a more
acceptible file format for future recordings.

I had exactly that problem not long ago. Occasional music, but mostly
speech and illustrations on the piano. I recorded it using variable bit
rate wma. It was a stereo recording, and used 15MB/hour.

Norm Strong