Reels into Hard Drive

[YoungCaliHottie]

Does anyone know how to convert reel to reel shows to be on a hard drive? is this possible? what equipment would be needed? what changes would need to be made to the computer?

thanks!

[pizzacam]

Just a reel to reel player and a stand alone CD burner then just take the tracks from the CD and put them onto your hard drive. That's what I do at least...

[captslappy]

Do you mean with show signals? If so that's legal if you have a copy of each show you are copying if you are doing it and borrowing other shows that you don't own that's a different matter. Also, I'm assuming you mean RAE stuff and not PTT since we are on the RAE section.

[Billy Bob Brockali]

Well, if we want to get technical in here, even the distribution of the music on this website is an inherent copyright violation.

As for making a transfer, if you own an original piece of material, you have the right to transfer it to another format for your own convenience. People disagree about how far these "Fair Use" rights go though.

Even if CEI never copyrighted the reels - music, signals or both, there is an implied copyright on their original works. As for any derivative work (i.e. cover songs), assuming they had the BMI and/or ASCAP right to do the recordings in the first place, they have the same protection, which at the moment is 75 years after initial copyright (or the creation of the material if it was not officially copyrighted). I've heard conflicting stories regarding the fact of whether they got rights to do the covers or not.

I'm not really sure if ShowBiz locations also had to have licenses to play the music or not, my guess is yes, but I haven’t seen any concrete evidence of this.

Anyway, this all matters not if the copyright holder does not choose to enforce their rights; so far CEI (Aaron) has not seen any problem with the distribution of music from the Rock-Afire. The signals may be a different matter, but I don't know if he even offers them for sale anymore. Even if he doesn't he can choose to enforce those rights.

Also, I haven't heard of anyone distributing the signals yet anyway, it’s a little too much work for most people, and there aren't that many people with the need for them. When the time comes that it is easy to distribute 4 tracks, I'm sure people will want to, because everyone would love to own every show ever made. And when that time arrives, I'm sure Aaron will let us know what he chooses to do with his (CEI's) rights.

To hijack this thread even further, I wonder if we should get a thread going for a show of hands with those who own any Rock-Afire characters, working or not. If always thought if we spent more time talking about the control systems and that kind of thing, we could pool our resources to get a cheap control system going for these things. The technology is relatively cheap and the basic idea is easy to grasp. I think I have it about 80% down, and I'm not usually good with electronics. Anyway, I'd love to see some of us share our ideas on the technical side of this hobby more often. If we got together on this with the manpower that goes into stuff like CheeseVention, we could solve it.

/thread hijack over - sorry YC

[YoungCaliHottie]

yes, back to this topic, lol. even tho i am interested in ur idea too.

i am talking about the songs and the signals. and this is on original reels that are owned and not borrowed. would the signals copy over? and then how could they be played off of the hard drive to operate the stage? yes, this is for rae.

thanks.

[captslappy]

It is probably doable with a 4 track sound card if you wanted it to run characters. If you are interested in discussing the technical aspects of show controlers and such you might want to check out my Yahoo group called "Animatronics World". It deals with all aspects of animatronic characters including the Rock-afire Explosion and other shows as well as toys. We talk a lot about controllers and the technical things. Anyone is welcome to join. The only thing I want people to understand is this group is of a more technical nature and is not a general discussion of Chuck E. Cheese or Showbiz Pizza. Only stuff related to the shows and robots really fits in with what we discuss.

groups.yahoo.com/group/an...nicsworld/ (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/animatronicsworld/)

[VegaNova]

Ahh copyrights... this is a huge gray area no matter what laws you're looking at (and there are several - beleve me, I've checked into them). This whole site - being a fansite - is a huge ball of potentially copyright infringement. The reason it's such a gray area is mostly based on how intent a company is at protecting the use and display of it's trademarks and copyrights. It's more about the owners choices than the people who are copying.

But anywho Nick covered that topic pretty well with what he said in his post so I won't rehash it. Luckily I have Aaron's blessing as far as this site's relation to preserving the memory of the RAE. CECE though I have to be a little more touchy about which is why CEC media is very sparse on this website. It's not that it isn't out there or that I don't have access to it.

Back to the topic - yes it is possible. It's very possible, as I've watched a RAE perform right in front of me that was controlled by a 4-track audio stream run off a PC. Myself, I haven't looked very far into capturing a 4-track audio stream digitally. It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult with the proper setup though. I think the real trick though is shrinking the graybox computer down to a PCI card and some creative software. 8o

I can't talk too much on the subject simply because I don't know enough about it. It does interest me, as it always has - even more now that I own a show. For me it's all about preservation. I don't want this stuff to be lost. I know Aaron's been transferring old reels to new formats which is great. It's not audio on a PC, but at least old shows are being archived currently at CEI which is a comforting thought.

-VegaNova

[pizzacam]

Ahh, I think Youngcalihottie's just gonna use this shows for a personal RAE if anything...copyrights don't really matter unless you're gonna make money off of it then you risk exposure, but like any CD if you copy it at home for yourself...who's gonna call the fuzz? ;)

[YoungCaliHottie]

thanks for the info everyone!

[Snap]

I have been wanting to do this for years. I just need the money to do it. I have almost 90 percent of original stuff. I got rid of all of that show selector new programmed stuff. I should have one down the road. And it will be available. Keep you posted.

[YoungCaliHottie]

original stuff? what do u mean? u made rae content?

[looneybird78]

Original means... CEI programmed;)

Corporate took over later on and most of the stuff they programmed was lackluster.

But then again.. so was the show selector stuff... hummm :rollin

Well regardless NOTHING beats the good ole CLASSIC Showbiz stuff programmed by the good Kathy. :D

[captslappy]

Well there are several versions of RAE stuff. You have the original voices that were programmed by CEI. Then you have the stuff that the original voices recorded but the programming was done by Showbiz Pizza and not CEI. Then there is the stuff with the crappy corporate voices and corporate programming done by Showbiz. And finally there is the post-showbiz programming done by CEI for shows not in SHowbiz. The later stuff was the band lip syncing to original artist recordings instead of the band playing the music and singing the songs themselves like they originally did.

[YoungCaliHottie]

when were the "non-original" shows made? i dont see any listed in jaspers showtape review. the only corporate made show that i was aware of was the rolfe and earle show.

(well i also know about the latter stuff that rae pizza uses. :x )

[VegaNova]

Hmm... you're right. There should be at least one in there that I forgot to list. It was running on Radio ShowBiz back in August. It's 1987's Westerns/Movies/R&R (they were named generically just like the CEC tapes of that era).

It's horrible. Picture the RAE characters talking all super happy and friendly-like to one another with lots of horns in the music just like CEC shows. It's kinda funny to hear them try to mimic the RAE personalities - they make Dook out to be super stupid and even keep his stutters in his speech. Actually Dook's kinda funny in those shows I guess.

There's also a few variations of the Liberty Showtape that SPP made - they did their own version of Liberty (where they introduce the statue but it's a totally different and stupid show) along with a couple of filler songs that were also put on the tape. From what I know, most of the Liberty showtapes programmed by SPP included both their version and CEI's version.

There's also the Yogi show which nobody's found yet. And probably several other tapes made by SPP from 1985-1987 that just haven't surfaced yet.

-VegaNova

[YoungCaliHottie]

oh wow! thanks for the info vega!

and answer my email i sent u a week ago! lol

[RodHouTx]

I am not absolutely sure about this, but I know most modern-day sound cards have MIC-IN and LINE-IN (assuming MIC-IN is stereo), and there are also sound cards that have multiple LINE-IN's. My friend had a piece of software where he was able to record more than just two tracks, so the software is also out there. Hopefully the quality of the reels is good enough that the signals have not degraded too much.

[Snap]

Yes most of mine are excellent.

[Just4all]

yep that crappy stuff was done in the 87..era

[Just4all]

Yep Cali its pretty simple i explain ^^

[YoungCaliHottie]

thanks!!!

IM/email:

youngcalihottie@aol.com

[Manimatronic]

Hey Cali, I would approach it this way: play the audio tracks into the computer's sound card and record them onto the hard drive. At the same time, use a data acquisition card with a reasonably high sampling rate to read the signals directly at the MAC valves, and capture that information on the hard drive in real time. Now you have all the character movement data synced up with the audio. This would require a bit of custom hardware and software but I believe it would work well, and not be too expensive either. Anyone out there feel free to comment.

[Manimatronic]

Let me explain a little further. The data acquisition card would be constantly scanning each MAC valve to determine if it is on or off (either it picks up a voltage across the coil, or zero voltage). When a CHANGE in the state of one of the valves is detected, it sends a decimal value to the computer with the state of all of the valves at that point in time, which is recorded on the hard drive. Then the card goes back to scanning until another change is detected.

The most efficient way to express the on/off states of all the valves is using binary math. For the sake of simplicity, lets assume we only have 15 valves, and we will represent whether they are on or off using 1s and 0s.

The decimal equivelant of:
0000110000000000
is 3072, so the number 3072 is written to the hard drive.

Let's say the valves are scanned again, and the last valve has changed from off to on. Now it is
0000110000000001
which is written as 3073 and stored on the hard drive.

I know this may seem overly technical but when you're talking about the number of movements for a whole show, you can see that it is much more efficient to store data this way. So that is my proposed data acquisition scheme in a nutshell. If anybody wants to discuss it, feel free. Of course, the other part of the problem is converting the stored data back to electrical impulses again. I have a vague plan for that too, but I would like to make sure that it is backwards-compatible with the existing cards on the characters.

[RodHouTx]

I don't think he has an actual show to play it on....

If he DID have a show and could get the Mac Valves to activate, why not just record the original tracks with the audio control signals and be done with it :-)

[Manimatronic]

You're right, I think he just wants to record the audio control tracks onto hard drive and eliminate the tape player.

I'm talking about a custom control system to replace the existing controller altogether. There are people on this board who have 1 or 2 characters and would like to get them working, but don't have a Tascam and graybox. It would be great to have a way to run the show from a PC-based custom controller. I just don't know if there is any interest from the community in doing something like that but if there is, I believe that it is technically very feasible.

[RodHouTx]

I think anyone that can build any such controller is a GENIUS!
That type of thing is way over my head.

Did you see one of the videos where Aaron made a little controller to control Billy Bob without the grey-box computer?

[yorkmiss]

We made our own controller for our bots- and it was very easy.
The problem is that it wont work with your existing shows, you would have to reprogram each and every movement of the show, but it's kinda fun in a way.
We are very happy with our home made system, with the excpetion it doesn't run on its own like the "auto" systems do now.
Aaron once posted a "how to" memo on animatronics - stating that his system was basicly a tone-decoder. Does anyong know of this to be true? I can't imagine he built his own computer system... especially since most of his stuff (like the MAC valves, Cylinders etc) was made outside Creative, I would think someone out there could point to where those "grey box" computers came from.

[Manimatronic]

It can be done. Computer I/O cards are fairly cheap. The only thing is, there are 122 movements by my count, not including the lights and curtains. That's a lot of programming.8o

I haven't seen that video, but I would love to. Do you have it? I'm interested to see the mini controller.

[yorkmiss]

It's simple if you use a MIDI piano - they have about 64 keys, then buy two MIDI decoders from Sound Research
www.sound-research.net/midi_decoder.html (http://www.sound-research.net/midi_decoder.html)
And wa-la you have 128 relays.
Record the show movements using any midi software/music editing program. It's very simple - if I can do it!

[Manimatronic]

Thanks for sharing that link. I like the MIDI idea as a controller, its simple and cheap. But it would sure be nice to use Creative's actual programming for the movements.

It would take some collaboration with someone who has a complete RAE show, but one could easily capture the programming data then use a computer with a MIDI interface or I/O card to play it back.

As for the grey-box being a sound decoder, I think that's basically correct. I think its just a bunch of band-pass filters set to pick up specific audio frequencies from the tape. If they were building the show today, they would probably have used Gilderfluke but who knows.

[djsmurf]

Manimatronic, I have 1 or 2 short video's of the box Aaron made for Billy Bob & Looney Bird. The reason i have them is I'm the one he built it for. As a matter of fact, I should have my box here in about 3 weeks. He used what he called "Bit-strippers" to run them on original programing, but without the grey box. I would post these short video's for every one, but i don't know how. Maybe someone could tell me what to do to post it and I'll try.

[Manimatronic]

Outstanding! Thanks, and I look forward to seeing the videos. I'll be in Vegas until Friday so no rush. I think this is the direction that we should be headed; converting showtapes into a format that any PC can use to play back the movements, synced up with the audio. Anyone who has a character can then use their PC to animate it.

[YoungCaliHottie]

wow! this is all so awesome! i have some programming knowledge. so i could help create a program to run the shows/intermissions and make a show/intermission selector.

[Billy Bob Brockali]

Hi,

Just for everyone's knowledge, I think I have found some neat info that has unlocked one of the last mysteries for me on how the original show control system works, and have had some quick success in replicating the original programming signals with a MIDI interface. I'll be experimenting a little more this weekend, and will have some more information soon.

Anyone who has an actual character or show that wants to share info, feel free to email me at spppage@swbell.net

[RodHouTx]

By the way, there are a total of 192 bits to potential program for. The top drawer has 96 bits, and the bottom drawer has 96 bits. This includes everything from curtain open/close, lights, movements, dual pressure regulator activation, house lights, etc.

[yorkmiss]

Thanks Rod!
I've been trying to find out what the total number of different "switches" was. Looks like my home-made midi boad will work just fine... since each board has 64 relays - three would take care of all 192!

[RodHouTx]

By the way, if you were able to find someone with a grey-box computer, couldn't you just build another one? There is not that much to them and the parts are all available from electronics parts supplies - i.e. the long driver boards are all identical and simple. The hardest part would probably be the tape-playback board. Then you could use the data from the original reels. Mind you, if you built another one it could probably not be used for commercial purposes. But if you already bought a character, who knows?

[Manimatronic]

Thanks for the info, that's a lot of relays. Sure, you could build another grey-box computer but wouldn't it be easier to use a PC? This reminds me of some friends of mine that showed me their 1928 Wurlitzer pipe organ. Originally there was a huge relay cabinet the size of a living room to control all the pipes, but they replaced it all with a small computer made by Devtronix that does the same job.

I noticed that the company that sells those MIDI decoders also sells MIDI encoders... it may be a way to capture the CEI programming off of the showtapes. There must be a way to feed the audio into a computer, and also send the on/off info for all the switches to the MIDI encoder at the same time.

[RodHouTx]

I know that we've been talking about "Reels" so far, but what about cyberstar tapes? The signals are completely different, and may actually be easier since they are "movement on, movement off" signals in a FSK/modem format? rather than frames.

[Billy Bob Brockali]

Since I just got my gray box working, I'm learning more about it. I think that's the problem with the cyberstar stuff. It's so hard to get a hold of it, or even information about it - that no one has been able to figure the differences between the two.

We would probably need someone from inside the company to donate some scans of manuals and such to really begin work on that end. I'm sure it will come about someday, but we need some kind of foundation to build on.

[RodHouTx]

Well, I meant for those who don't have a grey-box computer and are trying to build some kind of controller from the ground-up - in my opinion its easier to decipher a single cyberstar audio track and convert it to a new system than it is to convert a reel, especially if you have the "diagnostic" tape that has each signal isolated (i.e. mouth open, mouth close). I'm sure there is some more stuff in the data too (what to put on the LCD display, etc), but that could be ignored. Its much simpler/cleaner data and is already computer-ready.

Not that I'm saying anyone has rockAfire cyberstar tapes :-)

[Manimatronic]

That's why I want to record the impulses directly from the valves, and send them to the midi encoder or other data acquisition device. You don't have to know how the Cyber Star system works, you just let your computer record the movements along with the audio tracks while the show is running. Then it should be able to play it back.

[RockafireGuy]

Yorkmiss... Aaron was stating a fact that it was a tone decoder system. Back in those days; that was still pretty much the only technology used for programing animatronics...although Disney was already working on getting away from that method.
I DO know about Disney's programing when they started doing more complicated Animatronics in the 60's.

Disney used Analog and digital tones.

An analog tone is a constant tone that is always changing in frequency. This caused,very smooth, agile movements in the figures. So; for example;using this old/outdated..but still brilliant system..... a character's head in the "FRP" or final resting position may be all the way to the left side. When you turn the signal on to it's lowest frequency, the head moves maybe a quarter of an inch. As you gradually increase signal.. the head keeps moving toward the right. You tget the signal at about the medium frequency.. the head is centered the the character looks straight ahead. You turn the signal higher and the character's head starts to turn all the way to the right. The analog signals were used for large body movements like hip joint movement, arms, head,... and anything else of that nature. The result was a very fluent motion with no jerks... but it was a little slow.

The Digital tones are tones that are either on or off. I can recall Aaron telling me one time that ALL digital tone programing was used in the old days of the RAE.. which explains the explosive/quick and realistic movements and it also explains why all you had to do was touch a button for a second to program a movement. Disney used digital signals for the character eye movements, mouth movements, ears, eyebrows... whatever else. Pnuematics were used in small movements while hyrdaulics were used for larger ones also.
The reason they used analog signals for the hydraulic movements is because when a digital signal was used in them; it was causing movements to be too powerful and too quick for the hydraulics to stand it... therefore... the first Abe Lincoln bot had horrible mechanical fits and was torn up on several occations before they managed to get their hands on an anolog coding and decoding system (which was top secret technology de-classified from Nasa that Walt Disney went and purchased) Old honest Abe even sent one poor, unsusspecting imagineer to the emergency room with a fractured arm...LOL!


The cool thing about the Rock-afire is... it's made to move very quickly. That's the reason the system is completely pneumatic.. plus pnuematics are cheaper. Since the system was designed for quick movement... it needed a programing system that was made for such things.... therefore.. Digital tones were the answer at the time. Anyone who tells you the RAE shouldn't be running at full speed really doesn't understand the whole concept of the thing... but that's another topic entirely.... Pnuematics are used for quick/efficient movements. That's why you see robots in car assembly plants that are almost all pnuematic and running at very high air pressure speeds. The RAE was designed using the same principal... I believe... DON'T QUOTE ME THERE!! That's why the MMBB shows look so crummy with their movements... they're really not made to move at such slow speeds. It's totally in-efficient. Pnuematics are designed to move effinciently and at their best rate of speed using high air pressure. That's why the shows should be running at full speed. Hydraulics on the other hand.. relying on air AND hydraulic fluid... well.. they're an entirely different animal.

Don't ask me what kind of programing system Disney uses now.... I have NO idea... LOL! I found an interesting article one time on Disney's early Audio Animatronics days.... I'll try to find it and post the link in the off-topic section.

[RockafireGuy]

One correction to make here.... I forgot....
All hydraulics were used in early figures of any size...... pneumatics weren't combined with hydraulics until much later....

[Snap]

I am about to start the process of putting all my reels to hard drive. A couple people have came up with a couple of grand for me to do this. I am still waiting on one more for me to start. This includes about 10 hours of music nothing but old programming...the good stuff.

[RockafireGuy]

Sounds like a great collection! Ever think about dubbing the audio from those shows and making music mix CDs? I would love to get together with some people and make a CD of the RAE. call it...
"The Essential Rock-afire Explosion"

or some thing like that..lol....

[Manimatronic]

Hey Rock-Afire Guy,

I'd like to add one thing to what you said about pneumatic vs hydraulics and Disney's early animatronics... one of the main reasons why Disney uses hydraulics instead of air is because hydraulics run at much higher pressures, therefore you can use a smaller sized cylinder to produce the same amount of force: Force = psi X (3.14 X piston radius^2). The higher the pressure, the smaller the cylinder bore needs to be. Thus, you can cram more cylinders into a character running at higher pressure, and get more movements. If you wanted to do that with just air, you'd need larger cylinders and you would have to scale up the whole figure.

Personally I think its amazing that the RAE uses all digital movements and air, and looks just as good if not better than Disney's shows that use the much more expensive analog movements and hydraulics. It just goes to show that a little creativity is more important than spending tons of money.

[RockafireGuy]

You are SO right. You're also pretty swift on robotics knowledge... very nice explaination!

[looneybird78]

I have just got my PC Control system functional... It works pretty good considering the PC I am using... (I've gotta upgrade the RAM) The Audio quality is whats so amazing... Its just so unbelievable crisp compared to the pops hisses and crackles I had when trying to use a reel or tape.... Plus no glitches in the data ... For anyone using reels get them transferred this is the way to go!!!! HAHA!

If anyone wants to see the PC...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZKU1jtqEHE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZKU1jtqEHE)

If anyone wants to see the show being run off of it..
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ta4m6e14G4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ta4m6e14G4)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7LU1WQQsp0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7LU1WQQsp0)

[Billy Bob Brockali]

I don't think a well kept Reel-to-Reel shouldn't have any pops or hiss, especially on the DBX encoded reels. But I agree that people with reels should start digitizing them. It really doesn't take any special software, pretty much all the audio editing software can handle it. (It looks like your using Adobe Audition) and a 4 track sound card can be aquired for $200 or less.

[looneybird78]

Thats a good eye you got there Nick... Yes Audition is the program I am using... But I have found the problem is NOT in the playback... its in the recording... those data streams are tricky to get right... If the data doesn't get transferred correctly then it is pretty much pointless to do the transfer because the show won't run properly without the data being top notch!

I've been on the Digital Bandwagon for a while now thou... I belive it is going to be the BEST way to preserve these shows. There is going to come a time (soon rather than later) when those reels deteriorate to badly to play... not to mention the Reel to Reels parts are getting harder and harder to find... Just get a good digitized show... then back up to DVD-r! :)

[Billy Bob Brockali]

If the data is not in great shape, which it usually isn't coming from a tape-based source. There are easy ways to clean up the data once it is captured. There are quite a few "off-the-shelf" products that can do this if you are familiar with the encoding format of the data. If anyone needs more info about the data, we should start another thread.

[RockafireGuy]

I agree Let's start one!!!!!

[looneybird78]

Hey Nick... Just an update...

Got my 5.1 Surrond Sound Audio Card installed. Took a little "tinkering" with the setup but I now have my show playing via WinAMP! Its easy to use and allows for playlists to be setup.

Took a little bit to figure out what ports on the card were spitting out the sound and data... It was funny watching the show when I had the data cables backwards!! You talk about spazing out hahahaha...