Re: Open standard for digital EEG files?

[Tapio Jokinen <tapio@clinilab.fi>]

>Tapio, do you have any  opinion about the ASTM standard with respect
to the items where the EDF is weak? Also, how does your own file
format compere to the ASTM?

My personal experiences with ASTM are nonexistant. Our programmer has
the documentation and he said that he will implement it if it is
absolutely obligatory. This situation has not come up. According to
him ASTM tries to do everything that could ever be needed and is very
complicated because of that.
"Our" "format" is plain EDF with the few additions as ASCII so it is
very simple.
>
>
> > Several manufacturers will provide the transfer of data to this
> >format if consumers want this (see discussion in J Clin Neurophysiology
> >1993; 10:397, 534-39).

WHen officially asked many manufacturers tell you that their format
is available. When you try to get it in practice you will find out
that it is not. The willingness to do import-export properly seems to
have smething to do with the position of the manufacturer on the
market. If they are afraid of loosing users when releasing their
format or providing export-import capabilities, they will not do
that.

>
>
> Finally, does anyone know about any software converting files to TEXT or
> excel-formats from any specific EEG-file format (e.g. very useful for
> producing graphical illustrations of selected small sections of an EEG
> recording)?

Our Gateway program can do ASCII conversions from the formats it
supports..

Best regards
Tapio Jokinen, M.D.
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