Question regarding .wav files in PT/NT

[Disco_Doctor]

If I understood the posts I've read (and I may not have!), you end up with .wav files when you record audio in PT/NT? Is that right? Does that not make it a bit of a hassle later on if I wanted to open an NT session on a Mac? Is there a reason for not implementing AIFF and/or SDII files in PT/NT? Would all of those .wav files have to be "imported" (which ends up duplicating files) into a Mac PT session?

How exactly could I open a session that was created entirely within the NT system on my Mac? I understand that NT will read Mac volumes...so, if I put a Mac formatted drive on the NT system or on the NT's network and copied the NT session straight over to the Mac volume, and then pop the drive back onto the Mac PT system, would that be all that was necessary? Just double click the session file and go?

Will it be absolutely necessary to copy the session from the NT drives to a Mac volume? Will PT/NT users be required to use SCSI drives or be allowed to use IDE/ATA drives on their systems also? If the latter is true, does anyone know what the easiest solution to simply moving an IDE/ATA drive to the Mac is? Digi, is there a Mac PCI IDE/ATA card available that will be compatible with d24 playback requirements?

If any of these questions are dumb, forgive me...I have never had a deep desire to be an NT expert. For now, I just want to know enough about NT and PC hardware as it pertains to Pro Tools to understand the issues that will exist when moving between the two platforms on a project. Before I know it, I'm sure I'll be running into this issue. Joy!

I guess the basic summation question for Digi is this - is it a main priority of Digidesign to ensure that users will have a very straightforward set of choices and practical procedures when it comes to moving projects between the two systems?

Thanks!

[This message has been edited by Disco_Doctor (edited 10-30-98).]

[DigiTechSupt]

Disco-

I'm not an NT expert either so I'll answer what I can and get somebody else to do the rest....

"you end up with .wav files when you record audio in PT/NT? Is that right?"

->When you first create a session on NT Pro Tools will ask you which format (WAV or SD2) you want to use. If you pick WAV and later want to use the session on the mac you will need to convert the files somehow (much better to just pick sd2 from the beginning).

"How exactly could I open a session that was created entirely within the NT system on my Mac?"

-> NT will mount a Mac (HFS) volume if you use a utility called MacOpener. A demo of this is included with the Pro Tools NT CD. So yes, you copy the session onto the Mac volume and then move the drive to the mac. Your other choice would be to take the NT SCSI drive to the mac. Any Mac running Mac OS 8.0 or higher should have no problem mounting the drive with no special help. It will show up on your desktop with "PC" on the icon. If you do it this way you will need to copy the session to an HFS formatted volume. Once the session is copied over it's just click and go like normal.

"Will it be absolutely necessary to copy the session from the NT drives to a Mac volume? Will PT/NT users be required to use SCSI drives or be allowed to use IDE/ATA drives on their systems also?"

->Yes, NT users will be required to use SCSI drives. The setup is identical to the Mac as far as dual drive for track count etc etc.

"Is it a main priority of Digidesign to ensure that users will have a very straightforward set of choices?"

->I think somebody from marketing could give you a better answer but I would say that given how well it works now (with the initial release no less!) that this is a priority. This is just the sort of functionality that I would have expected to be "added in later" but instead we got it on the first release.

-bm-

[Tim Walters]

A couple of clarifications:

First of all, NT-style sessions can only be created on FAT drives, and Mac-style sessions only on HFS drives. Mac PT cannot open NT-style sessions.

So if you are creating a session on a PC, and you want to use it on a Mac without converting it first, you have to create it on an HFS drive. HFS drives can be mounted on NT by using MacOpener, as described above. As long as a session is in Mac format on an HFS drive, it can be moved back and forth between NT and Mac with no copying or conversion--just move the drive back and forth.

Mac files (SDII and PT session) can't be supported directly on FAT, since they have resource forks, which are only supported on HFS. Hence the use of .WAV files and the NT session format.

If you do need to convert between the two formats, it's a one-step operation using "Save Session Copy In...". You have to do it on NT, though.

[Disco_Doctor]

So let me get this straight...NT users can setup one of their hard drives as an HFS volume, and create and work on a session on an HFS formatted drive using NT. So, if the NT user knows he may need to move the session to the Mac eventually, he should definitely work this way for maximum speed and ease...right?

I'm asking because - if this is how an NT user can work, then I'm going to tell any new users I know who buy a Pro Tools NT system to work this way so they can easily move the drives to the Mac if it becomes necessary...

Right?

I'm very intrigued by this stuff...so I'm goin to ask a lot of redundant questions probably! Sorry!!

[Disco_Doctor]

I just want to clarify my focal point in the second sentence of that last post: "...if an NT user can create and <b>work</b>..." - keyword being "work", on the session while it resides on an HFS volume...

Also, would an NT user be limited in some other way by choosing to work this way? Does an NT user have an added benefit to using this FAT disk system?

It just seems like it would be such a drag to have to copy and/or convert session between the two operating systems...that makes it so much more difficult to synchronize your work when two or more people are working on the same project.

Thanks!

[Disco_Doctor]

Hey?!! What happened to being able to use HTML? How do we turn that back on?!!

[Steve Rosenthal]

>Also, would an NT user be limited in some other way by choosing to work this way? Does an NT user have an added benefit to using this FAT disk system?<

At this point, the biggest advantage to working in the FAT system is that PT disk performance is fully optimzed for FAT. There is more overhead currently associated with working on HFS volumes.

Rest assured, though, you can do quite a bit with HFS on PTNT!

--Steve Rosenthal, Digidesign ETS

[Geoff Waddington]

Steve, I'm surprised you optimized for FAT on NT when NTFS is available. As I'm sure you know FAT is a very kludgy, risky proposition, and altough I'm no file system expert, I think NTFS is a lot closer to HFS (Btrees, inodes, etc.) whereas FAT is a very simple one way linked list. I'm intrigued, could you enlighten me as to why this route was chosen, as there surely must be a good reason that I'm missing -- Thanks - Geoff W

[Digi Engineering]

We have had a very difficult time getting the binary format of the NTFS disk format to do the optimizations that Steve is talking about. We're working on it but can't promise anything yet.
-Mike Rockwell

[DigiTechSupt]

>>"So let me get this straight...NT users can setup one of their hard drives as an HFS volume, and create and work on a session on an HFS formatted drive using NT"

You cannot format an HFS volume on an NT platform (at least not from disk administrator). The key (for the NT engineer) is to configure the system for cross platform operation from the out set. *If* a session is going to be created and the user/engineer knows that it's going to move to a mac system, he/she must start with an HFS volume (probably initialized on a mac), create the session on the HFS volume and choose SDII file format. I know and you know that there are going to be situations where the session and the format will be native to FAT/NT. The call will come in : how do I convert this to
a mac session ? Answer : It can be done, but it's not all that elegant. It involves converting file and session formats (duplcating all source audio files). Possible, but risky enough. If everything were backed up proberly, that would minimize the risk factor.

Tom S.