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Thread: WANTED WAV to ILDA CONVERTER.

  1. #11
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    No. I never even thought about video. I was mainly thinking adat rips when I worked on it. Playing video would be interesting.

  2. #12
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    LaserBoy does an alright job of converting what I call unformatted waves into 24-bit color vector art.

    Since you can do so many useful things with waves in Audacity, I decided I did not need to reinvent all of that stuff. Open the waves in Audacity and in logical groups, select the galvo signals and normalize them, then select the color signals (all together) and normalize them, then do the same for the audio tracks. Once you have done all that, you can export all the waves together into a single 8 channel wave.

    If the laser show was recorded using an Aleses 24 channel hard disk recorder, a direct digital export from that machine is likely to be 24-bit waves. You can open these in Audacity, edit and normalize them first and then export them as 16-bit waves.

    The reason you might need to normalize the tracks is because the signals there, even though they might have come from a DAC will have been analog and probably some arbitrary level. The playback level of the digital device used to record them might be just fine for driving the laser projector, but in the pure digital domain, you have to have some sort of solid reference. So, if you want your colors to peak at full brightness when they should you need to normalize them to 0 dB (to the rail).

    If you need to do some really tricky stuff like converting a color signal that was made for some other kind of system (not the typical 0 to 5VDC) you can open that channel in GoldWAVE and use its expression evaluator to use some good math to manipulate every sample. Unfortunately GoldWAVE only works on mono or stereo waves, but it's all good stuff. A good example would be to do an invert and a DC offset all in one pass to convert an O-scope like intensity signal into something that would drive a standard color mod channel.

    LaserBoy can either chop up the waves into frames of a fixed point count or it can try to find the divisions between the frames by looking for the big floating blanking spot that can be found in some ADAT recordings of certain laser DAC outputs. This method is not fool-proof. There are some effects like moving the image in a frame off the visible screen. What actually happens is that the vectors in the image get smashed onto the side, top or bottom of the screen and when they get there they are set to blank. So big piles of blank vectors can confuse the code that is looking for the inter-frame blanking spot.

    LaserBoy lets you specify a sample shift per channel to realign the color signals with the galvo signals.

    Once you have a wave open and converted into 24-bit color vector art, you could save it as ILDA format 5 (24-bit color) or you can match every frame to a specified palette and save it as ILDA format 1 (2D). If you are lucky enough to have 3D wave sources, you could import that and save it as 3D.

    LaserBoy can also play waves on the monitor in real time.

    LaserBoy can split waves into mono tracks or logical groups. It can splice waves together. It can open (vectorize) and display ordinary stereo waves that just draw images with no color channels. It also lets you color them in many different ways.

    If you want to convert LaserBoy formatted waves into color vector art, just open them in LaserBoy! All of the frames will be perfectly intact. The colors will be full intensity and the repeated frames will be marked for easy elimination.

    James.
    Last edited by james; 07-05-2013 at 19:05.
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  3. #13
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    Laserboy did not do well on the task in question. The WAV file was created from a 1995 show tape digitized from ADAT via Lightpipe, on a State of the Art Mark of the Unicorn 828 digitizer, and mastered using the same Avid product used on Lord of the Rings. Laserboy added 15 seconds of stretch to the graphics track and sped up and slowed down the graphics throughout the song, on a five minute thirty second song, when rendered to ILDA. To rule out a OS or Platform error, two different versions of Laserboy were used on isolated machines. Laserboy added too many points for no reason at all. The track played back perfectly timed when played as a eight channel WAV on two different devices and when re-rendered to ADAT.

    The same ILDA output file was tested on both a QM2000 and a LSX setup with the same results.

    That is why I am paying some one to do the conversion software.

    Steve
    Last edited by mixedgas; 08-05-2013 at 03:08.
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  4. #14
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    I would also love to get a copy of this so I can import my ADAT shows into LD2k and output them back to ADAT with my trained color pallet for my projector

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by flecom View Post
    I would also love to get a copy of this so I can import my ADAT shows into LD2k and output them back to ADAT with my trained color pallet for my projector
    You can probably get a copy of LC Adat from Pangolin.

    The Programmer tells me its a month or so till completion of what I have asked for.


    Steve
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  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by mixedgas View Post
    Laserboy did not do well on the task in question. The WAV file was created from a 1995 show tape digitized from ADAT via Lightpipe, on a State of the Art Mark of the Unicorn 828 digitizer, and mastered using the same Avid product used on Lord of the Rings. Laserboy added 15 seconds of stretch to the graphics track and sped up and slowed down the graphics throughout the song, on a five minute thirty second song, when rendered to ILDA. To rule out a OS or Platform error, two different versions of Laserboy were used on isolated machines. Laserboy added too many points for no reason at all. The track played back perfectly timed when played as a eight channel WAV on two different devices and when re-rendered to ADAT.

    The same ILDA output file was tested on both a QM2000 and a LSX setup with the same results.

    That is why I am paying some one to do the conversion software.

    Steve
    You need to turn off the automatic optimization. If you get your vector art from an ADAT wave, it might very well have vectors in it that are longer than the setting would allow for a wave that is optimized for constant velocity in LaserBoy. So LaserBoy will add points to slow it down to your current settings. It will also strip out blanking points that were added to soak up time.

    If you import a wave into LaserBoy, what you see is what you get, as long as you don't ask LaserBoy to change it, it will output it as it is.

    As always, it's a good idea to ask me about it before you post something that is actually an operator error.

    James.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
    LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
    Download LaserBoy!
    YouTube Tutorials
    Ask me about my LaserBoy Correction Amp Kit for sale!
    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  7. #17
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    It was not "AN" operator error. There were two very skilled guys in the room besides me.
    We tried different settings.

    Steve
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  8. #18
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    I have a long history of being very willing to help people figure out how to do things with LaserBoy.

    If it doesn't do what you think it should, you should always consider asking me. It's quite likely I can make it work.

    Quite a few features have found their way into LaserBoy by exactly that process.

    Hopefully, your goal was not to prove that LaserBoy doesn't work.

    James.
    Creator of LaserBoy!
    LaserBoy is free and runs in Windows, MacOS and Linux (including Raspberry Pi!).
    Download LaserBoy!
    YouTube Tutorials
    Ask me about my LaserBoy Correction Amp Kit for sale!
    All software has a learning curve usually proportional to its capabilities and unique features. Pointing with a mouse is in no way easier than tapping a key.

  9. #19
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    is there a manual for laserboy?

    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    I have a long history of being very willing to help people figure out how to do things with LaserBoy.

    If it doesn't do what you think it should, you should always consider asking me. It's quite likely I can make it work.

    Quite a few features have found their way into LaserBoy by exactly that process.

    Hopefully, your goal was not to prove that LaserBoy doesn't work.

    James.
    suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp. Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation. No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.

  10. #20
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    No, our goal was to save a priceless (well to us) piece of Art. We have made three attempts to recover this tape.

    Steve
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