Tag: Pix-270i

New

• Metadata Screen – When recording audio files this new feature allows quick access to editing Scene, Notes, Take, and Circle status of Previous, Current, and Next WAV recordings. Press AUDIO + MENU or Ctrl + M from an attached keyboard to enter the Metadata Screen. Turn Select encoder to scroll vertically and REW and FF buttons to move horizontally. Press Select Encoder to make selections. Scrolling beyond the Notes field will access your predefined phrase list defined by the new Phrase List Manager.
• PIXNet Clips Tab Metadata Entry and File Details – This provides the same Medadata functionality as described above, but from a Web Browser via PIXNet. From the Clips tab, click on the gear icon to edit Next Take’s Scene, Take, and Notes. Edit Medadata for previous takes by clicking on the pencil icon of the take; this includes Scene, Take, Notes, and Circle status. This window also displays file details including Start Timecode stamp, Timecode Frames Per Second, User Bits, Duration, Codec, Audio Format. Click on the i icon of QuickTime files to display file details including Start Timecode stamp, Timecode Frames Per Second, User Bits, Duration, Codec, Audio Format.
• Phrase List – New menu item Menu>File Storage>Phrase List Manager allows a user to create a list of commonly used phrases that can used when updating the Notes field of recorded WAV files. The Phrase List is accessed in the File List>File Info window or from the new Metadata screen.
• Sound Reports – This new feature creates CSV files based on WAV file metadata. The Sound Report header information is managed in a new Menu option Menu>File Storage>Sound Report Info. To create a Sound Report, navigate to the File List and highlight the desired Reel folder in which the Sound Report is going to be generated, press and hold the encoder (or press right arrow from a keyboard) to enter the Folder Options menu, select Create Sound Report.
  Button shortcut AUDIO + FILES or pressing Ctrl+P on an attached USB Keyboard will create a Sound Report on the current folder for all applicable drives.
• User Bits Format – In previous versions of firmware, end users could customize the user bits with a four-field format, delineated by colons, such as UU:UU:UU:UU, where U represented a user-definable value. Often, the first three fields in the format would be manually reset daily using two-digit numerical values for the date, such as MM:DD:YY:UU. A new menu option in this version of firmware lets the user configure the unit to automatically populate the first three fields with values derived from the system’s date.
• Next Take Notes – Users can now enter notes for the next upcoming audio recording. Notes added to the Next Take’s Notes field will only be applied to the Next recording. The following Take’s Notes field is cleared. Next Take Notes can be entered from the File List or from the new Metadata Screen.
• Initial View – A new Setup Menu option Menu>System>Initial View, allows the user to select which screen appears after boot up. Three options are available Main View (Video), Audio View (Input Settings), or Audio View (Expanded Meters).
• Daily Folder Option – A new Setup Menu option Menu>FileStorage>Reel Format allows the user to select Custom (default) or Daily. The Custom option works as it has previously where the Reel can be edited with any alphanumeric value. Daily will automatically generate a value derived from the System Date. The Reel folder is named with the following format YYMMDD.
• MADI Equalizer Option – New Setup Menu option Menu>Audio>MADI Equalizer. In previous firmware revisions the Equalizer was always applied. Some MADI BNC sources with lower voltage-levels or long-cable runs would result in undesired noise. In these cases turn the MADI Equalizer off and the noise will be eliminated.
• Reel-Scene-Take_Track Name File Name Format – This version of firmware has a new file name format option called Reel-Scene-Take_Track Name. This option only applies when recording WAV mono files, and if selected, the files will be given names in the following format: <Reel>-<Scene>-<Take>_<Track #Track Name>. For example, if Reel=141001, Scene=101A, Take=001, Track=01, and the Track 1 Name=Boom, then the file’s name would be 141001-101A-001_01Boom.WAV.

Changes

• All PIXNet tabs, except Clips, remain open when going into record.
• The File Info screen uses a numerical spinner for editing the Take information instead of an on- screen, pop-up keyboard.
• Options for the Circled status is now Yes or No instead of True or False.
• While recording, track names can be edited from the Audio screen or from PIXNet.
• User bits are now entered in hex format instead of decimal values.
• Reverting to a previous used scene name will now only recall the next take if the previous scene was recorded into the current Reel folder.

Fixed

• Fixed incompatibility with some AVID workstations where AVID would report Hagrid Base Error when loading AMA Linked PIX 270i-generated DNxHD files.
• The PIX 270i is now more forgiving when mounting media with corruption. In some cases, depending on the level of corruption, the PIX would show drives as “No Fmt”. A common cause of this sort of corruption was termination of the data connection during a write cycle when the drive was connected to a computer. Drives with this sort of corruption will now mount correctly but the corrupted file(s) may not playback correctly or the PIX 270i may report them as corrupted.
• WAV Mono playback stopping prematurely.
• Reverting to a previously used Scene Name wouldn’t correctly increment the Take number when using Reel-Scene-Take filename format.
• Audio meter drawing issue where meters would freeze or display with gaps
• Audio Screen Gain and Delay value navigation was backwards when adjusting with attached USB Keyboard.
• Notes added to WAV files can now be deleted.
• PIXNet now displays a message when the connection to the PIX 270i Unit is terminated.
• PIXNet Gain Sliders now work correctly with computer’s keyboard arrow keys.
• PIXNet now properly displays Scene Increment changes when viewing File Storage Tab and Scene Increment is performed on the unit.
• Reverting to a previously used scene number would set take number incorrectly if the last take of the scene was Circled.
• QuickTime File Split Every no longer show as — when updating from previous version of firmware.
• Inconsistent pop up qwerty keyboard cursor method.
• Dante sources continue to display as / if the Audio Screen was displayed prior to network configuration.
• File List File Info screen can now be escaped with the left arrow of an attached keyboard.
• Notes containing the following characters inside the parenthesis (< > ‘ “ &) were stored incorrectly.
• Pressing Play when the loaded file is no longer available will now produce a pop up “File doesn’t exist. Please select another one.” This occurs when the loaded playback file has been deleted, drive was removed, or the file was renamed from a computer.
• Various improvements and system enhancements for stability and usability.

New

• All files are now recorded using a temporary, and highly recoverable, Sound Devices format. Video files have an .SDV extension and audio files have an .SDA extension. After each recording, files are “finalized”. Finalized files are standard Quicktime .MOV and .WAV files. If a drive is unintentionally removed prior to finalization or any time during recording, files can be recovered by reinserting the drive in the recorder. It will immediately finalize any unfinished files detected. If un-finalized .SDV or .SDA files are present on a drive and a Sound Devices PIX recorder is not available, a Mac and Windows software utility is available (FileSafe™) to finalize files and convert them to .MOV and .WAV, respectively.
• New Quicktime File Split options: 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours and 10 hours. Previous option of “Disabled” has been removed. Unit will now create a new split file when max-file-length is reached (10 hours).
• Group now displays how many units are connected to the assigned group. The number of total units is displayed inside parentheses after the Group number.
• New menu item Menu>Network>Grouping>Push Settings to Group. When selected, the unit’s settings are applied to all units in the assigned group. This is useful for ensuring all units in an assigned group are set up in the same configuration.
• New menu option Menu>Network>Grouping>Sync Audio Screen Settings. When this is enabled all Audio Screen settings (track arm, input source, track name, gain, and delay) are applied to all units in the group. This is useful when grouped units are used for redundant recording.
• Changes to metadata now apply to all connected drives.
• RS-422 remote protocol now supports a unique Sound Devices ID. RS-422 panels that make use of this new ID are able to select Next Clip and Previous Clip via the remote protocol. To take advantage of this new protocol set Menu>Remote Control>RS422 Interface Device ID to Sound Devices.
• Audio-Only Mode – when reverting to a previously used Scene Name, the Take automatically updates to the next chronological number based on previous recordings.

Changes

• Removed restriction that prevented the drive name to be used in the file name in Audio Mode.
• Keyboard shortcut for adding and deleting cue markers has changed. Use Ctrl+Q to add marker, use Shift+Ctrl+Q to delete marker.
• Multi-file Take Edit Window can now be accessed via the Right Arrow key from an attached USB Keyboard.
• Non-alphanumeric characters are blocked from use in PIX Name, DRIVE, REEL and SCENE.
• Simplification of the Timecode/Sync>Sync Out menu by removing non-standard drop frame and non-drop frame options.
• Sequential recording can be selected regardless of the Quicktime file split setting.
• File splits made by pressing the record button can be initiated at any time.
• Change to the Video>Up Conversion menu by removing the ‘Zoom Letterbox’ setting. The ‘Zoom Wide’ setting has the same effect.
• The RS-422 remote protocol now supports the full stop command during rewind and fast-forward.

Fixed

• Potential unknown errors and system lock up when editing metadata that changed the file name while recording.
• Unexpectedly high distortion as SDI, MADI or Dante audio input levels get close to the 0dBFS digital clipping point.
• A rare lockup when displaying eight audio meters per page.
• A possible lockup occurring after formatting or removing a drive and accessing any information remaining on the Clips Tab of PIXNet.
• Unacceptable level of noise on tracks 13-64 when recording 16-bit monophonic audio.
• Jumping to cue points in video files now outputs accurate timecode on the outputs.
• In Audio Mode the Pre-roll buffer will now reset when the sync source changes to prevent improperly sampled audio from being recorded.
• The approved HGST Travelstar 7K1000, 1TB 2.5 HDD now mount without delay.
• Correction to drive formatting – drives larger than 2 TB would format to an arbitrary size. PIX units do not address more than than 2 TB, drives larger than 2 TB format to 2 TB.
• Incorrect estimated record time for video files. Was calculated without accounting for the number of audio channels being recorded.
• If a drive was removed during recording, the timecode would be incorrect after file finalization.
• Overall improvement in speed and reliability when grouping units.
• Unacceptable levels of noise on embedded audio channels 1 and 2 at the SDI output when recording standard definition video.
• Cue Markers can now be added from the Audio Screen.
• Cue Markers are now visible during recording.
• Leading or trailing spaces in Reel names would make the folders invisible to Mac OS.
• Units set with static IP addresses over an Ethernet switch would sometimes prevent reliable connection with PIXNet.
• Numerous PIXNet fixes and improvements.
• Numerous system improvements and optimizations.
• Numerous Drive mounting improvements and optimizations.