Step 6: Identifying Data Age
Tracking time is important in most batch operation. For example, knowing the hatching
date of a bird, and knowing the date of data collection, the batch can relate each data
record to the age of the bird and to the time of day, etc. All this information is then
inserted to the data records of each table.
If you do not care at all about relating your sound data to any data and time check the
and go to step 7 (the errors the will be ignored are, e.g., a negative age).
Otherwise, you will have to tell SAP2 how to detect the date & time of data in each wave file, and
there are 4 alternative methods for doing that:
Warning: incorrect setting of date & time stamp might result in errors and
data corruption
Get age from file age: this method uses the MS Windows FileAge() function.
This function detects the age of the data -- not the age of the file, which is what
we want. For example, say that you record a wave file on one day, and then copy
the file later on. The copy of the file still carries the same FileAge() as that of the
original file. In many cases, this option would work reasonably well, but this time
is only 2s accurate.
Get age from SAP2 recorder files: Use this option when processing files that
were created by the SAP2 recorder without any further processing (for files
processed by the Live mode, use the next option). These files are of the following
name format:
birdName_month_day_year_milliseconds.wav
FileAge() used to get age from file age has one significant disadvantage: the
actual accuracy of the date & time stamp is around 2 seconds (do not let the
numeric accuracy mislead you!). Therefore, if two files were created less than 2s
apart, getting age from file age might mix their order (something that caused us a
major headache!). To avoid this problem, the SAP2 recorder is equipped with a
accurate timer, which keeps track of the number of milliseconds elapsed since
midnight, saving it in the file name. SAP2 batch can then extract that number
from the file name and use it to improve the accuracy to the millisecond range.
Get age from SAP2 Live Processed files: Use this option when processing files
that were created by the SAP2 recorder and then further processed by the SAP2
Live (or Sound Live) modules). These files are of the following name format:
birdName_daysNumber_msNumber_month_day_hour_min_sec.wav, e.g.
R109_39152.86197671_3_11_23_56_37.wav
Get age from SAP1 files: This option is obsolete -- use "get age from file age"
instead.
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