[LAU] large .wav file in Ardour - problems

[Robin Gareus]

On 10/11/10 22:58, Renato wrote:
> Hello, 
> I made a large recording in Ardour. The .wav file is 4.9 gb. I'm
> having problems with it and I don't understand if the file is faulty
> or if it's something related with the wav format, which seems to have
> some problems with large files (or am I wrong?).
> I suspect it could be faulty because the recording in Ardour
> actually went on untill there was no more disk space, at which point it
> obviously stopped. So maybe there could be something wrong in the
> header?
> 
> The symptoms are: in Ardour (2.8.11 BTW), with a "small" zoom (such
> that I can see all 5 hours of recording in one screen), I can see the
> contour of the waveform only to a certain point, at approx. 1h 30m, and
> thereafter only silence. 
> 
> Strange thing number one is, if I zoom in, at a certain point the
> waveform appears also for the second part.
> 
> Strange thing number two is whenever I move the transport bar to a part
> of the region in the "fake silence zone" and hit play, the transport starts moving from there, but the
> audio is actually playing *from the beggining* of the region (so more
> than 1h and 30m before). If I pause, move the transport bar and hit
> play, the audio now starts from where it had left... 
> 
> Strange thing number three is that strange thing number two stops
> happening if I put the transport before the 1h 30m point, hit play, and
> go through that point (after which I hear silence)
> 
> Do I have any chances of getting back the whole audio file?

yes.

http://lists.linuxaudio.org/pipermail/linux-audio-user/2010-April/068862.html

> BTW I tried opening the original .wav with mplayer,vlc,audacity and
> mhwaveedit and all see the file terminating at that critical point.
> 
> 
> Also, what precautions should I take in the future when I'll have to
> record such long sessions?

use .w64 format instead of .wav.

> thanks for any help,
> renato

HTH,
robn