DATman(1) DATman(1) NAME datman - play and record audio tapes in DAT drive datman -cd - play audio CD in CD-ROM drive through audio hardware SYNOPSIS datman [-alert soundfile] [-cd] [-dev device] [-dbcdir dir] [-dbpath dir,dir,...] DESCRIPTION DATman is a program for playing audio tapes and CDs. When called as datman it works as a tape recorder. When the -cd option is specified, DATman works as a CD player. DATman -cd DATman -cd plays audio CDs that are loaded in the CD-ROM drive. The audio data is read from the CD via the SCSI bus and is played through the 16-bit audio hardware of recent IRIS systems. DATman -cd can also copy audio data into disc files.* DATman -cd is different from cdheadphones(2) which operates the CD-ROM drive as a CD player, playing the audio through the headphone and line- out jacks of the CD-ROM drive. DATman DATman plays and records digital audio tapes on the 4mm DAT drive. The tapes are compatible with those used in commercial DAT recorders. The audio data is read from the DAT via the SCSI bus and is played through the 16-bit audio hardware of recent IRIS systems. DATman can also copy audio data to disc files and can record audio data from disc files.* * Subject to copyright laws. OPTIONS -alert soundfile specifies an alternate sound to use as the alert when error dialogue boxes are popped up. The file must be an AIFF or AIFF-C file. DATman searches for the file in the directory /usr/share/data/sounds/prosonus. To specify a file somewhere else you must give the full path name. -dbcdir dir specifies the directory in which to write new music catalog entries. It defaults to ~/.cddb. -dbpath dir,dir,... specifies a set of directories to search for music catalog information. It defaults to ~/.cddb. -dev device specifies the particular CD-ROM or DAT device to use, for example: /dev/scsi/sc0d3l0 or /dev/mt/tps0d2nsv. -sm displays only the transport control section of the window. -nofork causes DATman to not fork itself into the background. -noframes causes DATman to start up with timecode frame display disabled. -frames causes DATman to start up with timecode frame display enabled. OPERATION DATman operates like many commercial CD and DAT players. Most operations are straight forward. See the on-line help for full information. A few operations need explanation. The Prev Prog button moves the current location to the start of the current program. If play is within 2 seconds (on the CD, on DAT it is within approximately 10 seconds) of the start of the program, the Prev Prog button moves the current location to the start of the previous program. Random searchs may be accomplished using the Cue button. To search for a specific program number, type the program number into the program number field of the display and press the Enter key or click the left mouse button over the Cue button. Searches to particular locations in timecode may be made in a similar manner by typing the desired location into one of the timecode fields. TIME CODES DATman has three timecode displays. The type of timecode shown in each display can be selected using the option button below the display. CD CDs have two time codes stored on them: absolute time and program time. Timecodes are stored as three values: minutes, seconds and frames. Absolute time is a continuously incrementing time code starting from zero at the start of the disc. Program time is time code that increments from 0 at the start of each program (aka track) on the CD. DATman -cd can also compute and display the remaining time. That is the time left to play. DAT DATs can have as many as three time codes recorded on them: absolute time, program time and running time. It is permissible and probable that no time codes will be recorded on the tape. Timecodes are stored as four values: hours, minutes, seconds and frames. Absolute time is a continuously incrementing time code starting from zero at the start of the tape. Program time is time code that increments from 0 at the start of each program (aka track) on the tape. Running time is a continuously incrementing time code starting from some arbitrary value at the start of the tape. A variation of running time is used to record SMPTE time code. RECORDING CD/DAT TO DISK To record to a file from CD or DAT, select Open "Record To" file from the file menu. This will bring up a small recording control window, with buttons to turn file recording on and off ("file record" and "file stop"). When the CD or DAT is playing while "file record" is pressed, DATman will be writing to the current file. Multiple "clips" of sound may be appended into the same file by going back and forth between the "file record" and "file stop" modes. Select Close file when done. The popup window will ask you to confirm that you wish to close the file. Once the file has been closed, nothing more can be appended to it. RECORDING ONTO DAT DATman can make recordings compatible with commercial DAT recorders. DAT supports three sample rates: 48kHz, 44.1kHz and 32 kHz. DATman will not record at any other sample rate. DATman can record from either the audio hardware or from an AIFC file on hard disc. When the input source is the audio hardware, the actual source and sample rate are set via the Audio Control Panel (see apanel(1)). When the source is a disc file, the file content determines the sample rate. To record from a file, select Open "Record From" file from the file menu. All recordings made with the file open will start from the beginning of the file, and proceed until either the entire file is recorded to DAT, or "Stop" is pressed. When done, select Close "Record From" file from the File menu. At present DATman has only limited support for recording subcodes. It records absolute time code, program numbers and start-IDs. When the record button is pressed DATman determines the current location in absolute time code and current program number. It increments the program number and records the new program number and the start-id bit for the first 300 frames. It increments absolute time every frame and records it. If the tape is at the beginning, DATman records a program number of one and resets absolute time to zero. When DATman detects more than 2 seconds of silence during recording, it automatically increments the program number. MUSIC CATALOG The music catalog stores titles, artists and program information for CD and DAT tapes. When a CD or DAT is inserted in the drive, DATman searches the music catalog for an entry containing catalog information for that recording. If it finds one, it displays the information in its large display panel. Data from the recording's table of contents is used as the key for searching the music catalog. Very few DATs (even pre- recorded ones) have a table of contents so DATman will only rarely be able to match a tape. New information is added to the catalog simply by typing it into the appropriate fields of DATman's display. The catalog currently holds the title of the recording, the artist's name and a title for each program on the recording. DATman allows you to enter a different artist name for each program. The artist name for program one becomes the artist name for the whole recording. It will be displayed for all programs without a per-program artist name. If an artist name is entered for any program other than one, it will be displayed only while that program is played. The format of the music catalog is different from that previously used by cdplayer(1) in order to facilitate creation of shared, distributed music catalogs. Existing catalogs can be converted to the new format using the command cddbcvt(1). When looking for a catalog entry, DATman searches a list of directories. The default list is the single directory ~/.cddb. An alternate list can be specified by either a command line option, an X resource or the shell environment variable CDDB_PATH. The command line overrides the X resource which overrides the environment variable. All of these methods take as their value, a string which is a comma-separated list of directories. When DATman needs to create a new music catalog entry, it has to pick a single directory. The default directory is ~/.cddb. An alternate directory can be specified by either a command line option, an X resource or the shell environment variable CDDB_WRITE_DIR. The command line overrides the X resource which overrides the environment variable. X RESOURCES All the command line options can also be set via X resources. A command line option will override the corresponding X resource setting. The class name is DATman. The instance name is the program name so it's either datman or cdman. DATman recognizes the following resources. alert takes a string specifying the name of the sound file to use as the alert tone. The default is instr/drm_clave.aiff. autoFork is a boolean specifying whether DATman should fork itself into the background. The default is True. cdplayer is a boolean specifying whether DATman should work as a CD player. The default is False. databaseCDir takes a string which is the path name of the directory in which to create new music catalog entries. databasePath takes a string which is a comma-separated list of directories to search for music catalog entries. device is the device to use. As a DAT player the default is /dev/nrtape. As a CD player the default is NULL. This default makes DATman -cd use the first CD-ROM drive found by getinvent(2). smallDisplay is a boolean specifying whether the window should show just the small transport control section or the full DATman display. The default is False. frames is a boolean specifying whether the application should display frames by default. The default is False. FILES ~/.cddb default music catalog BUGS The music catalog feature is not yet implemented for tapes. DATman does not yet make the necessary corrections to the frame number when displaying SMPTE time code recorded in the running time field. SEE ALSO cddbcvt(1), cdplayer(1), CDintro(3A), DTintro(3A) AUTHOR Mark Callow ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author is indebted to Doug Cook and Erik Fortune for their enormous contributions to DATman. Page 5