Zero-Crossing Output Settings

For each Microphone Setting Profile, you can configure whether you want to save recorded audio in zero-crossing (ZC) format, with or without noise-removal.

ZC recordings use a file format roughly one thousand times smaller than equivalent WAV files. This format can only record a single frequency component at any point in time, which is sufficient for representing bat calls. However, ZC files are not suited for representing multiple, complex, overlapping sounds in a single recording.

Saving ZC files without saving full-spectrum files may be necessary when you need to severely conserve storage space or have limited bandwidth for data backups.

If you are configuring alarms for an acoustically triggered curtailment (ATC) system, you should save ZC files to use as sample data for alarm simulation. This is because real-time alarms work by analyzing the SMART System's ZC output, so you should use the same format during testing.

Enhanced ZC Processing

The SMART's default method of recording zero-crossing files, with enhanced ZC processing, is much more sophisticated than typical zero-crossing recorders. SMART uses advanced signal processing to isolate likely bat calls from the background noise before it converts the audio to ZC format. This results in much cleaner ZC files with less noise than could be produced by zero-crossing recorders without the same level of processing capabilities.

When Use Enhanced ZC Processing is disabled, the SMART produces files similarly to an analog zero-crossing recorder. Only a basic band-pass filter is applied before it calculates zero-crossing intervals. This produces messier files in which bat calls are much more likely to be obscured by noise.

Setting Recommended Value
Use Enhanced ZC Processing Enabled