Animals &Tables

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Click on the 'Animals & Tables' tab, and click 'change animal':
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Here you can set new animals:
Setting Animals
Setting the animal: Before recording and processing you must make sure that animals are appropriatly identified by each channel. the Database module of SAP2011 provides you with the most complete set of tools to add animals to the database. You then only have to click "Change Bird" to switch. The recommended method is to set the animal for each channel using the Recorder, which also allows you to add new birds. Once done, just click "Update All" in this module so as to synchronize the Processing live with the Recorder. Note that if there is a que of waiting files waiting unprocessed from a  previous session, these data will be falsely added to the new bird table.

If you are processing several birds at the same time, it often happens that you change one bird "on the fly". In this case do not click "Update All" and instead click "Change Bird" in the appropriate channel.
Saving Tables
By default SAP2011 Sound Processing Live saves only the wave files that were "accepted" and all the  features that were calculated are discurded. Of course, you can always recalcualte them using the batch module, but you should decide of you want to save them in real time. There are many reasons to save, but keep those two issues in mind:
1. If you want to save the raw features, namely the continiuous feature vector, you are saving an record of 14 fields (about 200 bits) every millisecond of vocalization, which is quite a lot. For example, the raw wave files (your sound data) is about 700 bit / ms).  Taking other database issues into account, you are increasing the storage need by maybe 30-40%. Another consideration is that the database storage at this fast rate takes a toll on your memory and processor, which can be quite significant.
2. If you want to save the syllable table features, then both storage, memory and processing costs are neglegible. However, the syllable table is only as good as your segmentation is. This is why we often recalculate the syllable table off line using more careful choices of segmentation parameters. We also have Matlab routines that can explore different thresholds and optimize the segmentation. So, in most cases, you should consider the real time syllable table as a crude, and try to improve it off line.