Wave Editor (Audiofile Engineering) et les metadatas
Publié : 31 mars 2008, 22:32
Salut la foule,
Juste un petit message pour vous tenir au courant de mes échanges avec Audiofile Engineering, concernant le support des métadonnées (metadatas) avec leur éditeur phare, Wave Editor.
Au jour d'aujourd'hui, wave Editor gère les metadatas BWF en anglais uniquement, dés qu'il y a un caractère "étranger" (en gros un accent aigu ou grave) dans le champ Description ou autre, ça merde, et ces infos sont purement et simplement tronquées au moment de la sauvegarde... Ce qui est un peu chiant, voir très chiant (ça fout la merde)... C'est la même avec Sample Manager du même éditeur...
Je les ai contacté, et voilà leurs réponses à nos échanges (pas de secrets entre nous):
Juste un petit message pour vous tenir au courant de mes échanges avec Audiofile Engineering, concernant le support des métadonnées (metadatas) avec leur éditeur phare, Wave Editor.
Au jour d'aujourd'hui, wave Editor gère les metadatas BWF en anglais uniquement, dés qu'il y a un caractère "étranger" (en gros un accent aigu ou grave) dans le champ Description ou autre, ça merde, et ces infos sont purement et simplement tronquées au moment de la sauvegarde... Ce qui est un peu chiant, voir très chiant (ça fout la merde)... C'est la même avec Sample Manager du même éditeur...
Je les ai contacté, et voilà leurs réponses à nos échanges (pas de secrets entre nous):
Dorian a écrit :Hello Matthew,
Sure i would be glad to beta-test WE concerning the foreign language
metadatas issue. As soon as it works, i'm jumping in (250$ is fine, i
think, i'll just have to eat some spaghettis for some time).
I would be using WE mostly in conjunction with Soundminer and
AudioFinder, and from the Finder (OS X.4.9 here, under a Mac Pro).
And of course with Pro Tools 7.3 (HD and LE), Digital Performer 5, and
in a near future Nuendo 4.
We'll need a kind of Rewire support some day (using Optical digital
output from the Mac Pro routed inside any interface supporting it (digi
192 I/O for example) is fine right now, but Rewire would be simpler).
Let me know what you think about all this.
Audiofile Engineering a écrit :Dorian, unfortunately the BWF spec strictly forbids special characters. No extended or MacOS extended or Latin I or the like is allowed. Anything out of ASCII 0-127 is illegal.
Dorian, are you currently using applications that allow you to enter other characters?
Dorian a écrit :Yes, i'm using Soundminer 4, which works beautifully with foreign characters (even in the BWF fields). Also Pro Tools 7.
So it must be doable?
I will also check with Nuendo 4, but i'm pretty sure it'll work too, i'll let you know.
Audiofile Engineering a écrit :It is doable, it simply violates the specification. Thus, other apps that follow the spec as we do may not be able to handle those files gracefully either.
Dorian a écrit :Are you sure it's in the BWF Bext chunk specifications?
Well, then, Pro Tools 7, Nuendo 4, and Soundminer 3/4 proudly violate these specifications, as it works beautifully (just tested with Nuendo 4 Mac and its MediaBay)...
AFAIK, those 3 applications are one of the few dealing with BWF metadatas correctly, and are major tools in the post production industry... I'll ask tomorrow to Fairlight how they deal with BWF foreign metadatas though, i'll let you know too (even if it's for the Windows world)...
Honestly, i think you should review your choice, and, like them, go for breaking the rules
Audiofile Engineering a écrit :The BWF specs could not be more clear about this:</p><p>"ASCII string (maximum 256 characters) containing a free description of the sequence.
To help applications which only display a short description, it is recommended that a
resume of the description is contained in the first 64 characters, and the last 192 charac-
ters are use for details."</p><p>ASCII is specifically defined in the BWF docs as ISO 646 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_646).</p><p>The issue with breaking the rules is that it can cause issues when least desirable. If the other applications you mentioned are doing this, they should reconsider. Otherwise, they should push for an amended specification.</p><p>We will continue to do more research, but we always follow the specs to the letter as it is the right thing to do and prevents potential issues.</p><p>We just did contact the EBU for clarification on this matter. I will let you know when we hear back from them.
Dorian a écrit :Are you developing for your user base, or for the AES/EBU/ISO, whatever?
I'm just kidding, but you should really consider how other major actors in the business are dealing with this issue (ie. Digidesign, Steinberg, Fairlight, and Soundminer, dunno for the others which are inexistent in the game).
Actually, in your quote, i only see "recommandations", but no "obligations"...
ASCII is perfectly ok concerning foreign characters (at least french ones, maybe not others, i don't know).
I was just trying to help you improve your software (which i purchased, but which i tend not to use anymore because of this critical issue (foreign charcaters are purely squeezed of the metadatas fields, which is IMHO wrong, you should'nt touch these!), so the ball is in your camp
To be honest, i'm also in contact with another "OS X only" audio editor developer, and he has just implemented BWF support in 2 days, with foreign characters support...