[Biosig-general] Biosig and proprietary data formats

[Alois S. <alo...@is...>]

Recently, I was asked from several people to include support for a 
proprietary data format. I contacted the company and asked for the 
specification. After several emails back and forth, they are basically 
saying that they are "not able to provide [the] format documentation to 
an open source development project".

So, the costumers of this company do not have full access to data 
recorded with a system they bought. Although, re-engineering might be a 
technical option, one might need to go through legal assessment with 
respect to DMCA and alike. And, I'm not too keen on going through all 
the hassles. If they want to keep it secret, its their choice, and I'm 
not going to change them.

My advice is, just stay away from proprietary products, and use some 
recording systems that provide data in a documented format, and

      Value the freedom provided by other products (*)!

If you are not sure whether the data format of some devices is 
documented, I suggest testing whether Biosig can read the data or not.
When you are in doubt, You can ask here on the list, or on personal 
e-mail whether the format is supported by Biosig or not.


   Alois


(*) Most vendors provide the data in a (more or less) well documented 
format, which is supported by Biosig and others. A rough overview of 
data formats supported by Biosig is available here:
http://pub.ist.ac.at/~schloegl/biosig/TESTED