Questions/Comments for Marc's uploading utility.

[classicalnut]

HELP When I burned a cd from my renderer files I have some major problems. 1. When I convert my file it says anywhere from 83 to 97 % converted never 100 percent is this a problem? My cd has alot of static on it. It won't play in my computer cd drive but will in my 15 year old cd deck. It skips like hell on other cd players. I tried a different cd in my computer and it played just fine. Did I maybe have a bad cd blank? Any help would be appreciated, Peace, classicalnut

[marcnet]

It never reaches 100% . It should, but it dosnt.

Its simply a bug in my percentage display. My program basically polls the current DirectShow position every 125ms or so. It then works out the percentage of each polled position in releation to the end of the file.

The reason it never shows 100% is because as soon the DirectShow render process finishes, the polling stuff is told to stop. So it will only report the last polled position at the end of rendering.

So yes. 100% of the file is processed and output to .WAV . Its just that the program dosnt tell you so. It'll be fixed in the next release.

[classicalnut]

Thanks for the reply. Have you or anyone else had the static problem? The cd I burned plays one track and the next one will skip and sometimes when I start the skipping track over it won't skip. Any clues?

[dex Otaku]

Try burning to CD at the slowest speed possible.

[classicalnut]

Thanks dex will try and see if that makes a difference. Have had no trouble burning others at the current speed I'm using but will try your suggestion.

[MZ-NH1]

I burnt a CD of the .wave files after using the Render program, 4 CD's infact, and there was no audio problems what so ever for me. Don't know if this will help at allbut, maybe convert the files to .mp3?

[?eter_]

What brand of Cd are you using? Some combinations of CD and player just don't work together,and they can be very specific. I can't explain why, but there are discs which will refuse to play in one player while playing perfectly in another,and you could use another disc which is the exact opposite. Also, it is not impossible for the disc to be faulty out of the box. to help cut down on that, I set Nero to do a data check after it has burnt the disc,that way I know straight away if there are problems.

?eter

[twine]

Is it possible to convert every oma file with Hi-MD Renderer whether it's in Sonic Stage or not.

So I can upload a oma file from Hi-MD to PC, afterwards move the oma file to the Hi-MD (without using Sonic Stage, but with windows explorer) for archiving.

Is it possible to convert it to wave sometime in the future (several times)?

Because Sony's wave converter only allows to convert oma files which are in Sonic Stage.

Does there appear any fragments or faults by using Hi-MD Renderer?

Is it better than Sonys tool?

Thanks for your help

[classicalnut]

Hey guys my problem with the static on cd's was the brand of cd's. Tried a different brand and now everything is great. Bet you guys can't guess which brand was giving me the problems? Starts with a S and ends with a Y. The one company we all love to hate.

[Rowan]

Is it possible to convert every oma file with Hi-MD Renderer whether it's in Sonic Stage or not.

So I can upload a oma file from Hi-MD to PC, afterwards move the oma file to the Hi-MD (without using Sonic Stage, but with windows explorer) for archiving.

Is it possible to convert it to wave sometime in the future (several times)?

Because Sony's wave converter only allows to convert oma files which are in Sonic Stage.

Does there appear any fragments or faults by using Hi-MD Renderer?

Is it better than Sonys tool?

Thanks for your help

You should be able to. This should also be a way for people to reclaim "orphand" oma's. :happy:

[dex Otaku]

You should be able to. This should also be a way for people to reclaim "orphand" oma's. :happy:

I believe you're wrong, actually. One of the things about marcnet's utility is that it doesn't actually circumvent [an OMA file's] DRM. Meaning - to decode something with HiMDRenderer, you have to be able to -play- it on your PC. The only way you can play a file is if you have the rights to do so.

Which means that moving an OMA from one computer to another won't work [same as playing it in SonicStage won't work]. Likewise with OMAs whose liscense has been lost [i.e. after reinstalling SonicStage without backing up the library first].

[dex Otaku]

Marc: A few minor "feature requests"...

For batch mode:

1) in the search path box at the bottom left - it would be cool to be able to go directly to -only- the SS libary's HI-MD folder, rather than the whole library.

2) Somewhere to specify a destination folder would be a definite plus [though not absolutely essential].

Also: I hadn't mentioned it before, but batch mode has done this consistently on my machine since you put it in..

If I try to render more than 30 tracks at a time, it will start reporting that it can't decode the 31st [click okay] the 32nd [click okay] until after a random number of aborted attempts HiMDRenderer simply crashes. It appears that the OMA renderer itself actually stops. Doing files in batches of 30 works fine.

Lastly: have you looked at the way options are laid out for FLAC in some programs? I look at the options you've listed and assume that things will be okay with the default, because they don't resemble what I've seen from foobar2000, FLAC Frontend, or basically anything else I've seen that uses FLAC.

Sorry if these seem like harsh criticisms. They're not meant to be. Your efforts are sincerely appreciated by many here.

edit:

Hmmmmmm...

FLAC has provisions for metadata.

mp3 has id3 v1 and v2.

OGG Vorbis has provisions for metadata.

and..

SonicStage has a database of track names, numbers, &c. [i have no idea whether the OMA files as kept in its library still hold the info internally].

This is a long shot as I see it, but shouldn't it be possible to pass SS's metadata on tracks directly to whatever format [excluding WAV since it causes more problems than it solves, usually] a file is being exported to?

This way if people are titling their own recorded tracks, that info would get embedded into the files they export to, making them a heck of a lot easier to manage than filename alone allows.

Side-point: the lame and FLAC codecs, and I'm sure Vorbis as well, have parameters for passing tag info to them at time-of-encode. Do they not?

It's a thought.

I sincerely wish I were still a programmer.

edit 2:

Correction - After doing 30 files, I have to close and restart the renderer as it will not decode anything past that.

edit 3:

After checking your message board I see that you're already aware of this. Heeee.

[marcnet]

Hmmm indeed

The API of the various encoders probably have the ability to set tag information and such things.

The trickier part would be extracting the tag data from the oma/omg file.

Next release will be a bugfix release only, but ill look into it.

[sschweg]

Hi,

What a great help this program is. I am using the command line version just fine. I can get the GUI version to ope, select my files, see the options.

I am willing to admit to being stupid if someone will take pity on me and tell me why I can't find the button that actually executes the conversion from within the GUI. :grin:

TIA

Steve

[?eter_]

Hi Marc.

this is a great little utility you've put together,it literally rescued HiMD as a format for me,I wasn't going to buy when I figured out how Sony had managed to cripple the format. I'd like to show my appreciation,but I went over to your site and it appears that I can't use Paypal or NoChex because my country is not supported by either of these services. any ideas about other ways I might get some money to you from South Africa?

thanks.

[linzq]

Hi,

I am willing to admit to being stupid if someone will take pity on me and tell me why I can't find the button that actually executes the conversion from within the GUI.  :grin:  

Steve

It's the one named "GO RENDER!"

[sschweg]

It's the one named "GO RENDER!"

Thanks for the reply. As you can see from the pic, I don't have the button????

[MZ-NH1]

Marc just wondering, when you click 'Latest Version', it comes up telling you what the latest version is, and then saying... go to the web site to download it. Just wondering maybe have that web site linked, in case people don't have your site bookmarked in their Favourites, so that instead of typing half the address, then going back to your program to copy the rest, maybe have it so people can just click straight away on the web site.

Just a thought

[Harper]

Hey guys my problem with the static on cd's was the brand of cd's.  Tried a different brand and now everything is great.  Bet you guys can't guess which brand was giving me the problems?  Starts with a S and ends with a Y.  The one company we all love to hate.

I had a similar problem EXCEPT I solved mine by Buying Sony CDRs. I have LESS problems with them. I also use a CDrom Cleaner Disk in my tray when problems start. :grin:

[A440]

sschweg--

There's a whole other line below what your screen shows, with Find, Batch Mode and GO RENDER. Is all of the window on your screen? Maybe it's a display problem, try moving the window around.

[jadeclaw]

I'm wondering a bit about the size of the window titlebar.

Could it be, that this pushes the last line below the window frame?

[1kyle]

Great work BTW thanks

However the crunch a lot of people will have is in this one -- Nr 3 from your instructions.

Or if you're a command-line fan:

-----

2) Extract the HIMDRENDER.exe program from the HIMDRENDER.zip file. Make sure you unzip it to somewhere you can remember. The root of c: is usually a nice and easy place to find.

3) Upload your tracks from your HI-MD to your PC using SonicStage.

If someone gives me an MD where the tracks have already been uploaded from this disc to a computer I'm up that proverbial street without the paddle as I won't be able to get the Minidisc tracks into my computer.

Now if your program could rip the minidisc directly -- that would be FANTASTIC and I'm sure a lot of people would happily pay for such a program.

Thanks

-K

[jadeclaw]

But that is currently not possible, as that would mean recreating and reengineering the codecs.

And that would pose some real legal problems.

But there is always realtime upload:

Play it back through SonicStage and record it with Totalrecorder or a similar software.

A Howto is somewhere on this forum.

[sschweg]

I'm wondering a bit about the size of the window titlebar.

Could it be, that this pushes the last line below the window frame?

OK, Jadeclaw, you jogged my paradyme just enough. I am an old guy and thus had my font size set to extra large. When I moved it back to Normal, I have all of the buttons.

Another mystery exposed to be a fraud, you can't really make buttons disappear, you can only hide them...

THanks for the help guys!

Steve

[streaml1ne]

Was using HiMDRender more tonight to dump wavs for some more spectrographs and I noticed it holds a lock on the input file. I couldn't delete the source wav while HiMDRender was open. No big deal, just thought I'd mention it.

[jadeclaw]

Could be a Windows problem.

Windows is too dumb to release files, despite the fact, that the application properly closes the file.

Sometimes it is so bad, that it is necessary to restart the Computer only to release an USB-drive.

Btw, a simple umount -l <mountpoint> solves that one in Linux. Without a restart... :smile:

[streaml1ne]

I thought it was SonicStage at first, but it turns out it was HiMDRender. Like I said no big deal, just close HiMDRender.

[Denominator7]

I was just wondering if anyone else has looked at a spectral graph of a "Hi-MD Rendered" wav file ? The ones I have made all seem to have everything above 15,000 cycles clipped off. Just an observation, maybe I have a wrong setting somewhere. However I uploaded a recording into SS 2.3 ... no problem, then I analog recorded this upload into Cooledit, and the graph looked normal all the way to 20K hz . Then I rendered the uploaded file to a WAV and loaded into cool edit, and that version of the file had the high end (above 15K hz) attenuated from approx -90 db to -120 db (from the same spot in recording, ambient room noise) If I knew how to save and upload a screen shot I'd post it.

Anyone else noticed anything like this happening to your rendered WAV files?

[Latexxx]

A 15 kHz lowpass sounds pretty normal. It is likely that analog transfer adds noise etc. to your recordings and thus produces content to upper frequencies.

[Denominator7]

Both the analog transfer and the digital upload frequency graph look the same, a slightly curved, sloping line,extending up a bit past 20,000 cycles, measured at the same time point in each file. The rendered version of the uploaded file has a huge dip in it just past 15,000 cycles, huge being approx 30 db drop, not additional content to upper frequencies... I guess no one has noticed this, or has this happening with their files. Anyone with cool edit or a wav editor with a frequency graph, check it out, see if your rendered files show this drop off also. Thanks

[Denominator7]

Ok, here's the scoop, for those interested:

After some extensive test recordings etc etc, I think I have figured out what was happening with the 15K and up being clipped out of "rendered" wav files... I found that it is dependent upon the mode used to record the file you want to render to a wav file, which is good news for all, because I had somehow started using Hi-LP recordings to try out the renderer program, and hopefully no one will be using Hi-LP to make Live recordings, I tested 3 file types, PCM, Hi-SP, and Hi-LP. I recorded these files into Cool Edit, and observed the resulting frequency graph of each, selecting an "ambient room noise" portion of each that should be consistent with each other. I found that the Hi-LP file lost the most , being clipped of frequencies 15,000 cycles and above, (about 30 db worth)....the Hi-SP mode recording lost a tad, about 19,000 and up clipped down( again about 30 db worth) and finally, the PCM file had no noticeable frequencies clipped off.

So for what it is worth, those are my findings, I do have photos of the graphs, and I will attempt to upload a few after this post.

bye for now,

[indeego]

marc, is it possible for you to write a plug-in for winamp to play oma/omg-files? I think I read that you can use some part of a sonicStage-modul for converting ...

I hope this question was not asked before, but I didnt want to read nearly 19 pages (forum-search wasnt successful)

[Michael Payne]

I am trying to use HimRender to convert atrac files that I have downloaded from another computer on to my NWHD3. This program worked the first time I tried it, but now every time it comes up with the error message {Failed to *directly* connect sourcefilter (omg_src) to dest filter (omg transform)}. Is there any way to get around this problem. The program is a great idea and kudos for creating it, but I cannot get it to work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[fishstyc]

marc, is it possible for you to write a plug-in for winamp to play oma/omg-files? I think I read that you can use some part of a sonicStage-modul for converting ...

I hope this question was not asked before, but I didnt want to read nearly 19 pages (forum-search wasnt successful)

←

OMA files play in Wiamp if you add oma to the list of extensions rendered by the DirectSound plugin. Only FF and RW don't work well...

fish

[A440]

Fishstyc--

Thank you! I think you may mean DirectShow.

In my Winamp I have DirectShow as an input plugin (and DirectSound as an output). I enabled .oma by going to Options/Preferences/Plugins-Input and highlighting NullsoftDirectShow, clicked Configure and added ;OMA to the list of extensions. It works!

Funny thing is, sometimes the Winamp skin changes. But I don't care--not having to look at SonicStage (or wait for it to load and cover my desktop) is a pleasure.