akai Akai Professional DD1500/DL1500 Akai DD1500 V3.30_Manual_Addendum

DIGITAL AUDIO
RECORDER/EDITOR

Version 3.30 Addendum

Operator’s Manual

WARNING

To prevent fire or shock hazard, do not
expose this appliance to rain or moisture.

IMPORTANT NOTICE

The material in this document is copyright to AKAI Professional M.I. Corporation, and may not
be quoted or reproduced without prior written permission.

LIMITED SOFTWARE WARRANTY POLICY

All the software provided with, or purchased especially for, AKAI products has been tested
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reported software defects for future releases subject to technical practicability. AKAI
Professional M.I. Corporation makes no warranty or representation either expressed or
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In no event will AKAI Professional M.I. Corporation be liable for direct or indirect damages
arising from any defect in the software or its documentation. Further, AKAI Professional M.I.
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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................3

SUMMARY OF NEW FEATURES.........................................................................3

MACINTOSH.............................................................................................................4

PLAYBACK BUFFER OPTIONS..........................................................................4

PROJECT NOTES....................................................................................................5

ENTERING PROJECT NOTES..................................................................................5

VIEWING PROJECT NOTES.....................................................................................6

TIMECODE OPTIONS.............................................................................................7

25FPS-4% TIMECODE RATE..............................................................................7

TIMECODE OUTPUT...........................................................................................7

OTHER CHANGES...................................................................................................8

DD1500 V3.30 Addendum Page 2

SUMMARY

SUMMARY OF NEW FEATURES

Version 3.30 software for the DD1500/DL1500 offers the following new features in addition to
various bug fixes and improvements:

• Read only support added for Macintosh ‘Extended’ (HFS+) formatted disks.

• New function added to allow project notes to be created and saved with project.

• Additions to support 25fps-4% timecode chase and display options.

• New function to allow original recording time of cues to be output from LTC generator for
use in dailies screening applications.

• New function added to allow machine to stop playback automatically if any audio is
unavailable in its buffers for playback.

Trademarks:
All trademark, product and company names are the property of their respective owners.

DD1500 V3.30 Addendum Page 3

HFS+ SUPPORT / PLAYBACK BUFFER OPTIONS

MACINTOSH HFS+ (‘EXTENDED’) FORMAT DISK SUPPORT

The DD1500 now includes support for read-only access of Macintosh ‘Extended’ format drives
(sometimes referred to as HFS+). HFS+ was introduced in Mac OS8.6 to allow volumes greater
than 4Gb in size to be handled more efficiently. The support for HFS+ in the DD1500 is in
addition to the existing support for Macintosh ‘Standard’ format disks (referred to as HFS)
included in previous releases of software.

As modern drives have grown in capacity, the HFS+ format has become widely used to allow
efficient use of disk space. The new support for HFS+ format drives allows the DD1500 to load
and playback Protools sessions created on these disks.

NOTE: The support for Macintosh HFS+ (‘Extended’) format disks in the DD1500 is read-only.
This means that although files created on other systems (such as Protools) can be read from
these disks, they can not be used for writing or recording.

PLAYBACK BUFFER OPTIONS

A new function has been added to the DD1500 to control the action of the machine if a
playback buffer has insufficient audio to sustain full playback. This may occur if an attempt is
made to playback a heavily edited region of audio from a slower drive from which it is not
possible to read audio data at a sufficient rate.

A new ADVANCED PLAYBACK OPTIONS page has been added to allow this function to be
controlled. This page is accessed from the SYSTEM page by pressing SHIFT + I/O (F2):

The Buffer Recovery field is used to select:
NORMAL The machine acts in its usual way and any playback buffers with

insufficient data will automatically recover.

STOP ON ERROR If there is insufficient data in a playback buffer to sustain

full playback of all cues, the machine will stop and
show the message "Tracks are too busy in this area
to allow full playback".

When STOP ON ERROR is selected, the DD1500 will stop immediately if any audio data is not
available for playback. This can be useful during optical transfers or in other situations where it
is important to know that all audio cues have been played correctly.

DD1500 V3.30 Addendum Page 4

PROJECT NOTES INFORMATION

PROJECT NOTES

The DD1500 now allows short text notes to be stored with projects on Akai format drives. This
information is intended to allow easier identification of specific project files than can be
achieved using the 10 character filename.

NOTE: Project Notes can only be created or viewed when using projects on Akai format disks.

ENTERING PROJECT NOTES

To store new notes with the current project (or to edit any existing notes), first go to the SAVE
PROJECT page on the DL1500:

Then press the INFO (F5) key which will take you to the PROJECT NOTES page. Here, you
can view any notes currently saved with the project:

You can enter new information or edit the existing notes by pressing the EDIT NOTES (F5/F6)
key:

This allows you to enter project notes information up to 72 characters in length. When you
have finished entering your notes, press the EXECUTE key. If the AUTOSAVE function is
enabled on the connected machine, the project will automatically be saved with the new notes
you have entered. If the AUTOSAVE function is switched off, you will be shown a prompt
asking if you want to manually save the project with the new notes.

DD1500 V3.30 Addendum Page 5

PROJECT NOTES INFORMATION

VIEWING PROJECT NOTES

The notes information stored with any project can be viewed from the LOAD PROJECT page
of the DL1500.

First, move the cursor to select the project you are interested in. Then press the INFO (F3) key
and the notes information for the selected project will then be shown in a popup window:

NOTE: Project Notes information will be retained correctly even if a project is later loaded and
re-saved on an earlier version of software that does not support this feature.

DD1500 V3.30 Addendum Page 6

TIMECODE OPTIONS

TIMECODE OPTIONS

25FPS-4% TIMECODE RATE

The DD1500 now includes options to support a frame rate of 25fps-4%. This option is
intended for European applications where film shot at 24fps has been transferred frame-by­frame to 25fps video. During editing, the audio is referenced to the 25fps video so it is sped up
by 4.166%. During mixing (with all equipment locked to the 25fps timecode), the picture
source will often be a 24-speed source (such as an Avid system or the original film negative). In
this situation, the audio needs to be slowed down by 4% to sync correctly.

NOTE: When the DD1500 is setup to chase external timecode with the EBU 25FPS­4%.option selected, the audio playback will be interpolated so that it plays 4% slower than it
normally would. As a result, it is not possible to record when this option is selected.

TIMECODE OUTPUT

The DD1500 now includes a new function to allow the LTC generator to output timecode
based on the original time at which files were created. When this mode is enabled, the LTC
generator will output timecode based on the original timestamp of cues on track 1 (i.e. at the
start of each cue on track 1, the time at which it was originally recorded will be jammed into the
timecode generator). This is intended for screening applications where the DD1500 can be
used to replay audio directly off disk while synced to picture.

On the SYNC page, an LTC (F4) key will be available when an LTC option is selected for the
TIME GENERATOR:

When the LTC (F4) key is pressed, this will take you to the LTC GENERATOR page:

The MODE field can be used to select either:
NORMAL The LTC generator will function as normal and produce continuous timecode.
TIMESTAMP The LTC generator will output timecode based on the original timestamp of

cues on track 1.

DD1500 V3.30 Addendum Page 7

OTHER CHANGES

OTHER CHANGES

• Fix bug which caused hangup (GP error) if an attempt was made to load a Waveframe project
containing more than 16 tracks.

• Changes to automatically switch sample clock to internal during certain functions that require
transferring audio through the system’s wave memory (such as disk copy, backup etc). This
prevents any glitches or corruption of the audio being transferred if the sample clock is
disrupted (e.g. if an external clock source is removed).

• Fix bug on DL1500 which prevented correct calculation of footage display time on VGA

screen if the ZERO AT parameter was non-zero. Only the MARK time will now be used to
determine zero footage.

• Additions to OMF support to allow full decoding of nested track groups. This fixes problem

with certain Avid Media Composer files which loaded with missing clips and subsequent sync
errors on the DD1500. Additionally, if track groups contain an alternate precomputed effect
region (e.g a rendered EQ), this will now be played by the DD1500 instead of the original
source material.

DD1500 V3.30 Addendum Page 8