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Does Anyone Use XRI?


MikeRivers

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I didn't know what it was either, so of course I looked it up on the WWW and, of course, there's a Wikipedia page for it. It seems like a good idea, but it also seems like it's defunct. eXtendable Resource Identifier could be (or could have been) a means to embed ownership information in an audio file. Providing that there's a way to read it, if someone steals your work, at least they could find out who they've stolen from.

 

The reason why I looked it up is that the latest firmware update for the TASCAM DR-44WL recorder includes a setup selection to add XRI data to the file. In the case of the recorder, there's a way to read it from a menu. But the information that it embeds in the file is taken from the settings used when making the recording such as the source (internal or external mics or line), gain setting, low cut filter, limiter or other level control, or reverb engaged. If you have the wireless remote active with a device with a GPS, it'll even put in the latitude and longitude coordinates if you want.

 

This is all pretty useless stuff unless you're going back to the same place to record the same thing. What would be really useful (and I've already submitted this as a suggestion) is if you could create a text file identifying who made the recording (and therefore who owns the copyright, for what that's worth), and have that attached to the file. But then the question would be who would be able to read it, and how?

 

I know you can tag an MP3 file with just about anything, and there are editors for the metadata in an broadcast wave file (which is what the DR44 records if you want it), so I'm wondering whether this is a big deal or not.

 

The firmware update isn't for naught, though. There's an improvement in the smoothness of the record gain control, which was one of my complaints with the original version.

 

 

 

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Broadcast wave file metadata has fields for identifying the content originator' date=' though I don't know of any programs that read or use that data...[/quote']

 

There are quite a few. Here's a free one, Guh'm'ent approved, too: BWF_MetaEdit

 

PS:

This just reminded me - I was going to enter the GPS coordinates shown in the XRI section of the DR-44WL manual addendum. It's in Tokyo. The nearest place to the coordinates is a Kentucky Fried Chicken, about 90 meters away.

 

DR-44WL. It's finger-lickin' good.

 

 

 

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