As is stated in the
instructions, BWF-Widget supports file playback with TC for 16bit 48khz and 44.1khz files directly with most PCs. Since
BWF-Widget uses Windows Media player for playback of audio, you must have the
latest drivers for your sound hardware and that sound hardware must support the
bit depth and sample rate of your files. If you have a sound-card that supports
24 bit or 96khz and multiple channels (Dolby 5.1 or
7.1) you can usually playback those files as well. The sound-blaster Live24 and
Audigy2 sound cards and USB audio adaptors from Creative Labs support this.
Windows media-player automatically tries to find a codec-to play files that it
doesn't support in its native codec. It looks on the Internet by default if it
can't play the wave file it is presented with. This is why there is a checkbox
in Options menu of BWF-Widget to limit playback to 16bit 48khz
files. Un-check this box if your hardware supports 24 bit and you have the
proper 24bit/96khz sound drivers installed.
Another alternative to 24 bit hardware.
If you don't have 24bit hardware in your computer, there is an alternative way
to playback higher sample-rate and bit-depth files on your 16 bit soundcard. I
have included a Free Program called XMPlay from Un4seen software that does a
great job of playing back any type of wav file on your plain 16 bit sound
hardware.
When you ran the Setup for BWF-Widget it
should have placed a copy of XM-Play in the "C:\Program Files\BWF
Widget" folder. In the Options Menu in BWF-Widget, check the box that
says: "Use XMPlay for 24 bit and Multi-track" Leave the checkbox
"Only Play 16bit 48k files" checked. That box only applies to the
Media Player portion of BWF-Widget.
Once
the settings are correct in the Options menu. Whenever you double-click on a file in the
list box or in the Data-Grid, it should Launch XMPlay and play
the file you double-clicked on. While you can hear the file, the TC display
will not track along, but show you only the Start Time code of the file
currently playing. This is because XMplay is a separate program and is playing
the file independently of BWF-Widget
The first time you launch XMPlay you must work through
a short install which just puts some data in your registry. You must then
change a couple of the default settings in XMPlay to work properly from within
BWF-Widget. Click on the little wrench to open the settings panel for XMPlay.
Click on the "Miscellaneous" tab and make sure the following items
are set properly.
1. Uncheck the box labeled "Allow
Multiple Instances"
2. Check the box labeled "Always on
top"
Click on the
"Device" Tab and set the following:
1. Set the Sample rate under Output to 48000
2. Set the
resolution to 24 bit.
Make sure you apply these settings by pressing the "APPLY" button
You might want to shrink the player to it's mini-size
by double clicking on the title bar of XMPlay. Then place it over the top of
the media player control in BWF-Widget. It will always pop up there and play
the file from then on.
If you pop up the Info Window in XMPlay (the little i in the circle on the
lower left corner of the player) there is a nice spectrum display under Vis.
Tab.
XMPlay is a very capable audio player and I urge you to read its instructions
and visit it's home site at www.un4seen.com It can also rip CD's and burn audio
CD's from your wave files.
When you have the settings correct, BWF-Widget should automatically use the
Windows Media player for all 16 bit files (with moving TC display) and use
XMPlay for all 24 bit or multi-channel files. (more
than 2 tracks)
SPEED UP TIPS:
To speed up the loading of the Data-Grid in
BWF-Widget make sure the following are set in Windows Settings. From the
control panel go to the System Properties panel.
Under the Advanced Tab, choose the Settings
button under the Performance area.
Under the "Visual Effects" tab
click on the Custom Button and Make sure the item labeled "Smooth-Scroll
List Boxes" is UNCHECKED. This will speed up somewhat the reading of the
Data into the Data-grid. Or you can just check "adjust for best
performance" and you will have the best speed. You do loose some of the
Windows superfluous Eye candy though.
Remember
if you are loading the Data-Grid or playing back files from the Optical CD/DVD
drive, the disk must spin up to speed first before it can read or play the
files, so there may be a short delay until the disk gets up to speed. This is
normal. Just be patient.
BWF-Widget is a good tool to use to check the validity of a just-burned Optical
disk. Since it must access and read data from each Wave File listed in its
directory whenever it Builds the Data-Grid, it is a
good way to confirm that all the files have been written to the disk and are
readable with proper time-code and correct length. This should only take about
30 seconds to check every file on the removable Disk and load it's Meta-Data into the Data-Grid.
COPY FROM THE GRID
A new feature allows you to Select an area
of data from the Data-Grid and Copy it to the Clipboard. You can select a block
of data or the whole grid then Right-Click inside your selection and choose
"Copy Selection to Clipboard". You can then go to any application
that supports Paste (Like Word or Excel) and paste the data directly into a
spreadsheet or a word processing document. The headings are automatically taken
with the data so if you don't need them just delete that row of labels after
you paste the data.
VERSION HISTORY:
Ver.
1.09 Released June 7, 2005
Fixed bug in handling Non-BWF wave files. Made more compatible with foreign language versions of
Windows.
Ver. 1.85
Speed enhancement when scanning files for metadata.
