Sound Devices 744T and EBU BWF Audio

Got a job coming in with audio recorded on a Sound Devices 744T machine in Broadcast Wave Format at 24Bit/48Khz. There will be four tracks of audio (BWF-Poly) included in the audio files. Timecode is Rec-Run off a HDX400E Varicam.

Question: can I bring this file format in as multiple track and edit with it, or do I need ask the audio dept. to do conversions? Haven't used it previously and am thus not at all versed in how to work with multitrack.

tia for any help. Can't find anything in the manual on how to deal with this.

Best,
Clay

As I understand it, you will need to convert BCWave to Wave for use in FCP. I read somewhere on the internet about a conversion tool, but can't remember.

You can use the FOSTEX BWF file manager to convert the polyphonic file to monophonic files and then use Sebsky Tools to turn the mono BWF files into wav files with metedata.

Note that you can use polyphoinic files in FCP 5 - it sees them as individual mono files, but I don't know if Pro Tools can handle poly files - only an issue for audio post if you are going to turn over the sound to a sound editor.

Mitch,

Brilliant. Thanx muchly for that info. I downloaded the Fostex and Sebsky tools, will repost to this thread once I get some BWF files to work with (week after next). Don't need omf's, doing the mix here in SoundtrackPro.

Anything I need to know about the conversion workflow i.e. can you steer me in the direction of a tutorial or whatever to shorten the learning curve? Or is it just a matter of running the files first through the Fostex converter to get monophonic files and then through Sebsky to generate QuickTimes?

Again, much appreciated.


Clay

It's pretty straightfoward - run the BWF files through BWF Manager and then run the mono files through Sebsky.

BWF manager is a pain in the butt because you can't batch process - you have to manually select one file at a time - takes hours if you have 50 BWF files and you have to sit there and wait for each one to finish.

With Sebsky, you can batch a whole bunch of files. Much nicer.

If Soundtrack Pro can use the polyfiles, you can just skip the entire process of BWF manager.

In fact, if you don't need to access the metadata in the BWF file, you can skip Sebsky tools as well. Even though FCP 5 does not officially support BWF files, it actually does support the files and ou can just import them wothout any conversion - you just lose the metadata.

Mitch

Mitch,

received some sample files today from the audio dept. I did two tests:

1. imported about 200 MB of BWF audio directly into FCP. It pops open in the viewer and shows all 4 tracks. Dragged the audio icon into the timeline, all 4 tracks are displayed. With timeline set at 16 or 24Bit, no rendering required. Timecode in the viewer however starts at 00:00:00:00.

2. imported the same BWF audio file into Sebsky Tools and converted to QT. The conversion goes very fast. Imported that into FCP. It opens in the viewer and with the original TC. Drags into the timeline aok too.

This would be a great tutorial subject or tip/trick of the week, because there is no mention of the BWF format in the FCP documentation. It is certainly far superior to camera audio, and leaps and bounds ahead of DAT.

Thanks again for your help. Up and running here with BWF audio.

Clay