Backing Up Live Hi-sp Recordings To Cd Unconverted

[ozpeter]

Note to readers : This thread started before SonicStage 3.4 was released. That version makes most of what is discussed in the first 8 posts here obsolete. If you are using an earlier version of SonicStage, you may find the whole discussion useful/interesting. If you are using SonicStage 3.4 and above, I'd suggest that you skip straight down to post number 9 below where we start discussing how to back up recordings to CD or other removable media using SS3.4.

Here's the scenario which triggered this line of thought:-

I recorded a classical concert with a lot of announcements and other stuff which I didn't want in the final production version. But down the track, someone may suddenly ask for it. I don't want it sitting on my hard drive, I want to re-use the 1GB MD, and as it's a long concert it won't fit neatly on one CD. In essence, I want what is on the MD on a CD exactly as is.

Wouldn't it be nice if one could just copy the MD to a CD? But of course that's not possible. So, inevitably one has to start with SonicStage (version 3.0 here).

First thing I've recently belatedly realised is that when transferring MD to PC, the stuff always ends up in the same album - maybe I was asked for a default album name at some point? Can't remember now. Anyway, when you've done a transfer, rename the album to something meaningful to the content. Next time you transfer, the default album will be used and you can do the same thing again. Beats renaming the album title of each track before transfer, which seems to be the alternative technique.

Next thing is naming tracks before transfer, as advised in the excellent FAQ here. That helps keep tracks in the right order if you use a numbering scheme. But if you don't, SS3.x will use the date and time of the transfer as a track name instead. That's handy and saves a whole lot of typing, but there's a bug such that tracks which should have a (0) in the filename - to match logically those with (1) and (2) etc - don't have one, so they don't sort correctly.

My solution for that problem is http://www.1-4a.com/rename/ - a neat renaming program, which can do a whole lot of handy things, including putting in the (0) where necessary so that the transferred files sort correctly.

So - going through the procedure in order, transfer the material from MD to PC in the usual way, and then rename the album to something relevant. In Windows, create a new directory where you want to put the .oma files prior to renaming them and burning to CD. In SonicStage, click on "My Library" to get the single-pane library display, highlight all the files in the album, right click and choose "Move File". In the ensuing dialog, specify the destination folder you just created and click OK.

Now run the file renaming program I suggested above. In that program, press F2 to get the "expert" screen. You'll see an obvious place near the top right for navigating to the folder where the .oma files are now sited. The individual filenames will be displayed in the right half of the screen.

Again near the top left you'll see a tickbox next to the text "no file contains" - tick it, and enter the "(" character in the box marked "in name". You'll see that all the filenames will disappear except for those which don't have a (1) or (2) etc in them. Those remaining are the ones which should be renamed to include (0). To do that, in the brown area of the screen, tick the box marked "Insert/append" and in the box beneath it, enter "(0)" - but don't use the quotes. Change the "Pos" figure beneath that to zero, so that the insertion happens at the end of the filename. You can see what will be happen to the filename by looking in the "New Name (Preview)" column across to the right. You should see all the filenames which did not have any (1) or whatever before have now got a (0) at the end of them. If it looks correct, click on the red "start" button and the files will be renamed. You should now find that the files sort by filename correctly in "as recorded" order.

Now exit out of everything, and burn all the the .oma files in the recently created folder to CD using your favourite burning program (you're burning them as data not audio). If you are happy that the burn is ok - in Nero and perhaps others you might want to use the "verify" function - you can now use SonicStage to delete the files from "My Library" and from the drive. You might as well delete the folder you created too.

If you want to use the files in the future, you'll simply need to use the SonicStage "import" option to import them back from the CD, and then you can convert them to wave or whatever is necessary.

Can anyone see any errors in this procedure? If trying it yourself, use something unimportant to test it out on the first time. Written out like this it all looks pretty complicated but actually it's not much of a big deal in practice.

Edited February 13, 2006 by ozpeter

[dex Otaku]

The error: you can't import an OMA file like that if the database has been erased.

Another way of putting it: you can only re-import files while they are currently listed in SS's database. This makes OMA files basically impossible to back up one at a time [the SS backup tool does work for the whole library, though] because the rights info doesn't get transferred with them.

[ozpeter]

Works here.... maybe you've misread my over-long post - I've tested it right through the cycle, including deleting the original (SS entries and actual files) and re-importing from CD, playing back the .oma files from CD, converting the .oma files direct from CD to wave format, and copying the files back to the MD (after I formatted it).

So passing over the file renaming stuff, which is in a way incidental to the matter but a great timesaver when you've got 70+ tracks to deal with, the route is...

Record live using Hi-SP

Use SS 3.x to transfer to PC in Hi-SP format

Save as a unique album (by renaming the original destination album)

Move .oma files to their own folder for ease of identification using SS option

[use the file renaming program at this point if desired to ensure correct track order]

Burn those .oma files to a CD as data using 3rd party program eg Nero

Delete SS entries (by deleting the album),and delete .oma files from hard drive when prompted using the tickbox.

then you can...

Re-import the album and its track listings (but not the files themselves unless you want to) into the SS database from CD - if you just want the database entries, answer 'no' when asked about the files

and if you want

Play them in SS (you'll see the CD start up if you didn't ask for the files to go back on your hard drive)

and if you want

Convert them using SS to wave in the usual way

and if you want

Transfer them back to MD.

What you can't do is to then delete the album again and re-import from the MD. But you've still got the original .oma files on the CD, safe from Sony's clutches.

It works repeatedly too, not just once or some silly Sony thing like that.

Edited May 17, 2005 by ozpeter

[Von Recklinhausen]

Ozpeter:

Well done¡ I've tried your idea and it has worked perfectly. This is a great contribution to all us interested in live recording: the possibility to keep our original recordings and to transfer them to PC more than once in a lifetime. That is quite more than Sony's software allows us.

One more time, thanks to all you in this forum for sharing your Knowledge.

[dex Otaku]

Yes.. I didn't deny that it would work with an existing install of SS that has the rights info for those files, however -

As long as you maintain the same database that the tracks originated from, they will work.

If you do a clean install of SS with a fresh DRM database, you can't restore the tracks.

This is exactly the same as installing on a second machine and trying to restore the files to that db. It simply won't work.

So - as far as being a backup, this method is unreliable unless you maintain the same db on your install of SS. Maintaining that db through a full re-installation means using the SS backup tool, which already backs up the tracks, though they can't be restored individually.

[ozpeter]

Good points - I tried to restore the .oma files onto another PC and indeed, it doesn't work (well, it does, except it won't let you do anything with the tracks!) . However, when it comes down to it, anything stored in .omg format is inherently at risk however it is stored, even if you use the backup tool. (I've just tried a backup/restore cycle, and I get the "failed to restore..." message with error code %x - if there's any risk of that happening, the backup tool is useless anyway).

So, I guess one just has to decide on whether keeping the material in .omg format to save space is worth the risk inherent in .oma format. If you want a one-item-of-media backup, I guess a DVD is still cheaper than an MD, and if it won't fit on that in wave format, then use wavpack or other lossless compression scheme.

In any event, the recommendation concerning inserting (0) strings into SonicStage-generated filenames where necessary remains a handy tip.

Edited May 18, 2005 by ozpeter

[ozpeter]

BTW a manual restore of the files in the backup (by importing) did work, as the database still existed. But if the database didn't exist, presumably the backup wouldn't be restorable with that error message.

[dex Otaku]

I back up all my original and edit copies using FLAC and DVD-R.

I also back up the distro copies using FLAC and DAO cuesheets for quick CD burns.

FLAC is free, multi-platform, can stream, is frame-accurate for positioning [most lossless formats aren't], and compresses at least as good as and often better than Monkey's Audio, which admittedly has a much nicer interface included with it.

I'm a nerd, though.

[ozpeter]

It's late at night here, and I'm eight months older than when I last posted on this matter - which made sense at the time - so I can't right now get my head around it fully - but I'm wondering whether the advent of SS3.4 would make the method that I suggested for backing up to CD fully workable now? In other words, does the catch pointed out by dex still apply? I guess the answer might be to try it myself and see.... might do so tomorrow if I awake feeling intelligent.

[dex Otaku]

It's late at night here, and I'm eight months older than when I last posted on this matter - which made sense at the time - so I can't right now get my head around it fully - but I'm wondering whether the advent of SS3.4 would make the method that I suggested for backing up to CD fully workable now? In other words, does the catch pointed out by dex still apply? I guess the answer might be to try it myself and see.... might do so tomorrow if I awake feeling intelligent.

Yes, things have changed. As recently pointed out in another thread [not by myself] you can select uploaded tracks in your SS library, right-click, and choose "Convert" from the context menu. If you choose the same bitrate as the file was originally in, and uncheck the box to "add copy protection", SS will create duplicates of the tracks without DRM on them, and without transcoding them [no further loss]. The files will show up in a folder inside the main SS library folder called "optimized files".

You can copy the files from that location and name them as you wish, by utility or not. These should be safe to copy to CD- or DVD-R and can be copied to and used by any installation of SS.

Cheers.

[ozpeter]

Thanks for that. In the welter of posts following the introduction of 3.4 I'd not taken that one on board. I'll give it a try later.

[ozpeter]

I've given that procedure some testing using a thumb drive to transfer tracks from SS3.4 on one Pc to SS3.4 on another, and apart from being slightly cumbersome it seems to work well. However, if you delete the entries from the Library and tick the box that causes the original files to be deleted, the copies in the "optimised files" folder are deleted as well as the originals. The long arm of Sony strikes again. Just something to be aware of (if not already) in one's workflow.

[dex Otaku]

ozpeter:

Since your original post title is apt and easily searchable, I'd suggest editing the original entry to reflect this change in SS 3.4 so users who come to this thread can read the working method right off the bat. Just a suggestion, mind you.

[ozpeter]

Funny, I was thinking just that while walking the dogs in the park this afternoon! Really most of what I have posted has been completely overtaken by events, though someone insisting on using an earlier version might still find something useful in our earlier exchange.

I'll put in a note at the beginning pointing people to the later part if using 3.4+ - for instance, the new naming scheme in 3.4 (I never tried 3.3 so maybe it was there too) deals with the track order sorting problem mentioned in the first post too, so even that aspect has been overtaken by events. (Shame that the year in the date part of the filename gets garbled though, or at least it does here).

[dex Otaku]

(Shame that the year in he date part of the filename gets garbled though, or at least it does here).

It doesn't here .. but the time does..

In fact, having just checked recent uploads, another of my wishlist items has been half-fulilled:

New naming scheme is thus:

001-2006-02-08 05_45_20.oma

002-2006-02-08 05_45_20.oma

&c.

So the sorting &c. is fixed, though the times are really superfluous to the filenames/track titles unless the unit being uploaded from is an NH1 [with time/date stamping].

[fishstyc]

...select uploaded tracks in your SS library, right-click, and choose "Convert" from the context menu. If you choose the same bitrate...

BTW this works since version 3.2 (the 1st version where you could choose not to "add copy protection")