DAT2WAV - version 1.3beta - Copyright 1999-2007 Computall Services Homepage: http://web.ncf.ca/aa571 DAT2WAV - What is it? ---------------------- DAT2WAV is a simple little command line program to dump the digital audio from a DAT tape to a wav file, and write audio data to a DAT tape. It runs only in a DOS window under Win95/98/Me/NT/2K/XP. It requires the ASPI drivers to be installed and running. This new version of DAT2WAV includes the ability to use MP3 source files when writing to tape. We had hoped to be able to include a fully licensed MP3 decoder to ship with the software, but it turned out that we had some problems getting the patent license from Thomson. These problems caused a very long delay in being able to release our software and even prevented us from completing our beta testing. For the actual MP3 decoding, we have no choice but to use the decoder that ships with Windows 98 and later. It also ships with Microsoft's Netmeeting and Direct X. This means that most users should already have the decoder installed. The driver file will be called l3codeca.acm, l3codecp.acm or l3codecx.acm and should be hiding somewhere in the windows directory or its subdirectories. If you can't find any of them on your machine, you can try to get l3codecx.acm from: http://soundamerica.com/codec.htm In order for this software to work you have to have the ARCHIVE or Sony DAT drives with the audio firmware. The software does check for the firmware, and will fail if it isn't there. See notes at end of this text file for more info on the drives. The version being distributed is limited to extracting or writing the audio for only 5 minutes of the tape. This should be enough for you to decide if the software will work for you before ordering it. The full registered version has no such limit. What's new in 1.3? ------------------ - added verbose information that is written to a log file - removed mp3 and wav related code to separate dll files - in theory someone could write a version of the dll files for other codecs and then they could be integrated into dat2wav - added ONEWAV option What's new in 1.2? ------------------ We've added a LOT of new features in 1.2. The biggest new feature is the ability to write DAT tapes. A summary of the new features: - WAV2DAT - write WAV and MP3 files to tape - DAT2DAT - use two drives to make an exact copy of a tape - DAT2IMG - make a copy of a tape to an image file - IMG2DAT - write an image file to tape - Media Recognition System (MRS) support - seek to specific points on tape before reading - force reading tape to physical end of tape - user settable lead-in, lead-out, intertrack silence gaps - repair most types of read errors - a whole lot more code to help diagnose problems What's new in 1.1? ------------------ DAT2WAV now supports DAT tapes that have 48KHz, 44.2KHz, 32KHz and 32KHz LP modes. It also has quite a lot more code to deal with all the strange things our customers were seeing at the early parts of a tape that have been recorded on a number of times before. We've made great improvements to the waveout functions so that they work very well on slower machines with slower drives. We've also spent a lot of time working with Sony to make sure the software fully supports their audio enabled DAT drive. How do I use this program? -------------------------- It uses a simple command line interface to specify all the parameters. You have to specify a mode (one of DAT2WAV, WAV2DAT, DAT2DAT, DAT2IMG, IMG2DAT), as well as the host adapter number and the scsi id of the tape drive. Mode types: /DAT2WAV FILENAME - the mode to extract the audio to wav files using the filename FILENAME as the base for each of the files written to disk. When using /STARTID, each file will be given a sequential name starting with 01. eg. FILENAME01.WAV /WAV2DAT CUEFILE - the mode to write a number of files to tape using the file called CUEFILE.CUE. The software will automatically add the .CUE to the file name so no file extension should be used. /DAT2IMG IMGFILE - the mode to copy an entire tape to disk as a single image file called IMGFILE /IMG2DAT IMGFILE - the mode to copy a single image file to tape using the file called IMGFILE /DAT2DAT - the mode to copy an entire tape directly to another tape when using two tape drives Tape drive specification: /INPUTID HostAdapter:TargetID - when using DAT2WAV, DAT2IMG, and DAT2DAT you have to define the ASPI host adapter number and SCSI target ID /OUTPUTID HostAdapter:TargetID - when using WAV2DAT, IMG2DAT, and DAT2DAT you have to define the ASPI host adapter number and SCSI target ID The host adapter number is the one assigned by the ASPI drivers. The target id is the actual SCSI id of the tape drive. If you don't know what these values are for your system, you may be helped by getting the program ID.EXE from www.grc.com. Optional settings: /WAVEOUT - specify to send the audio to the soundcard instead of a wave file /REWIND - specify if you want the tape to be rewound before starting. /STARTID - specify if you want the wav files created to be split when start id's are found on the tape - not specifying this option will only change wav files when a new sample rate is found /MRSOFF - the Archive 4326/8000 drives have a feature to detect if a tape is audio vs DDS and will prevent writing to audio tapes without setting the MRS mode to off. This is done by the software automatically, but can be ignored if necessary /STOPEOT - the software normally uses the end of tape markers to identify when to stop reading. Some times there are all kinds of wierd things written to the tape that can confuse the software. One case is when a tape has been recorded a whole bunch of times. By using the /STOPEOT option the software will only stop reading when the physical end of tape is reached. /SEEK - allows seeking to a specific point on the tape before writing. The position can be defined by: Program number (PROGNUM) Absolute time (ABSTIME) Running time (RUNTIME) Program time (PROGTIME) The PROGNUM is just the integer number of the program number The other times are defined in the form of HH:MM:SS:FF /ERRORCORRECT - this turns on error correction of read errors from the tape. The errors are only corrected when the drive reports that it has encountered problems with a particular frame. There tend to be many more errors at the points in the tape where the DAT recorder has been either paused or stopped. /ONEWAV - this forces the code to output everything to a single wav file instead of breaking it into parts every time there is a sample rate change or a startid. Here's a whole bunch of examples of how to use the varous options DAT2WAV /dat2wav dataud /inputid 1:5 this will dump from tape drive at 1:5 to wav files called dataud1.wav, dataud2.wav, dataud3.wav etc, only changing wav files when a new sample rate is found DAT2WAV /dat2wav dataud /inputid 1:5 /rewind this will dump from tape drive at 1:5 to wav files called dataud1.wav, dataud2.wav, dataud3.wav etc - this will rewind the tape before extracting the audio - will change wav files only when a new sample rate is found DAT2WAV /dat2wav /inputid 1:5 /waveout this will play the audio to the sound card instead of writing to disk DAT2WAV /dat2wav dataud /inputid 1:5 /startid this will dump from tape drive at 1:5 to wav files called dataud1.wav, dataud2.wav, dataud3.wav etc - it will change wav files when either a new sample rate or a start id is found DAT2WAV /wav2dat CUEFILE /outputid 1:5 /rewind this will write to tape a number of files based on the cuefile.cue file. It will also rewind the tape prior to writing DAT2WAV /dat2dat /inputid 1:5 /outputid 1:6 this will copy a tape from 1:5 to 1:6 DAT2WAV /dat2img IMGFILE /inputid 1:5 /rewind this will copy an entire tape from 1:5 to a file called IMGFILE DAT2WAV /img2dat IMGFILE /outputid 1:5 /rewind this will copy to tape 1:5 from a tape image file called IMGFILE DAT2WAV /dat2wav dataud /inputid 1:5 /startid /seek PROGNUM 4 this will dump from tape drive at 1:5 to wav files called dataud1.wav, dataud2.wav, dataud3.wav etc - it will change wav files when either a new sample rate or a start id is found - it will seek to the start of Program Number 4 before starting to read data DAT2WAV /dat2wav dataud /inputid 1:5 /startid /seek ABSTIME 02:15:22:07 this will dump from tape drive at 1:5 to wav files called dataud1.wav, dataud2.wav, dataud3.wav etc - it will change wav files when either a new sample rate or a start id is found - it will seek to the Absolute time 2h15m22s07f DAT2WAV /dat2wav dataud /inputid 1:5 /startid /seek RUNTIME 02:15:22:07 this will dump from tape drive at 1:5 to wav files called dataud1.wav, dataud2.wav, dataud3.wav etc - it will change wav files when either a new sample rate or a start id is found - it will seek to the Running time 2h15m22s07f DAT2WAV /dat2wav dataud /inputid 1:5 /startid /seek PROGTIME 02:15:22:07 this will dump from tape drive at 1:5 to wav files called dataud1.wav, dataud2.wav, dataud3.wav etc - it will change wav files when either a new sample rate or a start id is found - it will seek to the Program time 2h15m22s07f DAT2WAV /wav2dat CUEFILE /outputid 1:5 /rewind /mrsoff this will write to tape a number of files based on the cuefile.cue file - it will rewind the tape prior to writing - it will not turn off the Media Recognition System on 4326/8000 drives when real audio DAT tapes are used (normally MRS is configured in the drive automatically by DAT2WAV) DAT2WAV /dat2wav dataud /inputid 1:5 /startid /stopeot this will dump from tape drive at 1:5 to wav files called dataud1.wav, dataud2.wav, dataud3.wav etc - it will change wav files when either a new sample rate or a start id is found - it will read from the tape until the physical end of tape is reached instead of stopping at the logical end of tape Cuefile structure ----------------- The cuefile is comprised of two parts, the configuration section and the track list section. SCMS - this allows setting what SCMS bits should be written to the tape 00 - copy permit 01 - one copy remaining 10 - copy prohibit 11 - reserved STARTID - ON/OFF - write start ids for each track ABS_TIME - ON/OFF - write the Absolute Time (ABSTIME) to the tape PROGRAM_NUMBER - ON/OFF - write the program numbers for each track 32KHZ_LP = ON/OFF - write the 32khz tracks in long play mode - the software will not do the sample rate conversion from either 44.1khz or 48khz LEADIN_SILENCE - write x number of seconds to the start of the tape LEADOUT_SILENCE - write x number of seconds to the end of the tape INTERTRACK_SILENCE - write x number of seconds between the tracks of the tape (written as silence at the end of each track) FILE - this identifies each of the file names to be written to the tape each entry needs to identify the track number and needs to be 3 characters used for each number eg. FILE_001, FILE_002, FILE_003 each file can be any of the following types: - 32khz 16bit stereo WAV - 44.1khz 16bit stereo WAV - 48khz 16bit stereo WAV - 32khz 16bit stereo MP3 - 44.1khz 16bit stereo MP3 - 48khz 16bit stereo MP3 Here's an example of the contents of a good cuefile: [CONFIG] SCMS=00 STARTID=ON ABS_TIME=ON PROGRAM_NUMBER=ON 32KHZ_LP=OFF LEADIN_SILENCE=10 LEADOUT_SILENCE=10 INTERTRACK_SILENCE=10 [FILES] FILE_001=d:\music\All you need is love.mp3 FILE_002=d:\music\A hard day's night.mp3 FILE_003=d:\music\track03.wav What drives work with it? ------------------------- So far the list of drive/firmware combinations that apparently work are: labeled Archive 4320NT: ARCHIVE Python 25601-XXX2.63 (we've tested one) ARCHIVE Python 25601-XXX2.75 (we've tested one) labeled Archive 4330: ARCHIVE Python 25601-XXX2.63 (we've tested one) labeled Conner/Seagate CTD-8000/4326NT: ARCHIVE Python 01931-XXX5AC (we've tested one) ARCHIVE Python 01931-XXX5.56 (haven't actually had one in hand) ARCHIVE Python 01931-XXX5.63 (haven't actually had one in hand) labeled Conner 4530: ARCHIVE Python 25501-XXX (haven't actually had one in hand) labeled Sony SDT-9000: SONY SDT-9000 1.11 (haven't actually had one in hand) SONY SDT-9000 1.13 (we've tested one) (SGI sells the Sony drives under the part numbers: P9-DAT12-INT (internal) and P9-DAT7-EXT (external) ) A lot of useful information is available from our DAT FAQ web page: http://web.ncf.ca/aa571/datfaq.htm Copying and Registration (does this mean it costs $$$?) ------------------------------------------------------- We are allowing full freedom to copy this program. There is no longer a registration fee. This is a demo version, but the registration files to make it full version are available from our web site. There will never be an another update. The zip file may be freely redistributed, only as long as all the files are kept together and unchanged in the archive and no additional files are placed in the archive. How to get hold of us for help. ------------------------------- Computall is no longer in business. Do not bother sending messages to any of our old email addresses you may find on the internet. None of the addresses still work and your message will likely be lost without you receiving a bounce message. We may occasionally check messages that are sent via the support web page: http://web.ncf.ca/aa571/support.htm Known problems -------------- - none at the moment