MacDive conflicts with SuuntoDM4

[nick]

Like what? There's always the chance if you asked, I could add them.

[weppos]

Like what? There's always the chance if you asked, I could add them.

Nick, I still need to verify them, but I noticed a few differences in the parser. One is the dive I already sent you, but it's not extremely important. However, I noticed in some cases the dive time is different of a few minutes, in other cases the difference is really noticeable. I bet it has to do with the way the suunto calculates the surface interval.

I'm currently busy in my summer season and I'm downloading the dives once every few weeks, as soon as I have some time to dig on it I will send you more details and some feature suggestions.

[nick]

It is probably just the difference between bottom time vs total time. MacDive usually tries to be consistent and use total time, as bottom time is not available from all devices. That's much nicer when you're downloading the same dive from two different computers, for example. I'd have to double check what the suunto importer does (it has the bottom time available, but I may have changed it to use total).

Total time is preferable for consistency. Is your issue just that you prefer using bottom time? Or is your issue more that you think MacDive is recording it incorrectly?

One solution is to record both, of course. I'm not sure how many people would want to have both. At least in the case of some devices it would always be the same, but from certain devices it would definitely show a difference.

[weppos]

I had a Mares computer before the Suunto, and what I noticed in both cases is that the dives appeared a few minutes longer in MacDive compared to the value on the computer.

From a wild guess, it seems that both computers substract the 3 minutes surface interval (aka, if you descend again within 3 minutes the dive is not counted as a new dive, otherwise it will be a new dive) whereas MacDive displays the total time including the 3 minutes surface interval.

Does it make sense what I'm writing?

[nick]

Yes it does, and as above, it's total duration vs bottom time.

Is this difference important to you for those dives is what I'm asking. Ie, it's consistent internally in MacDive and it's actually correct for what MacDive is displaying (the total duration of a dive). But it wouldn't be difficult to add a new field called bottom time that could read that value if available.

Basically I'm asking whether you just think it's incorrect, or whether you specifically want the bottom time rather than the total duration. The biggest difference you will see is when you surface partway through a dive as you suggest, as this is no longer counted towards bottom time. But there are plenty of devices that don't record a bottom time, just the total duration.

[jeroenda]

The only way I could get MacDive to work after using DM4 was to uninstall DM4, reboot laptop and then MacDive worked perfectly. As Nick says, DM4 "Hogs" the device.

Hi, I had the problem in the past, so I tested this morning. I can use DMS after using MacDive without problems, but have to reboot my mac after having used DM4 to be able to download to MacDive .. hence I use MacDive every week and DM4 only every few months (MacDive is for my true dives, in DM4 I keep my swimmingpool / equipment testing exercises as well).
DM4 is clearly the troublemaker ..

[resnick]

Resurrecting an old thread, but I'm a new user and just encountered this

...it's total duration vs bottom time.

Is this difference important to you for those dives is what I'm asking. Ie, it's consistent internally in MacDive and it's actually correct for what MacDive is displaying (the total duration of a dive). But it wouldn't be difficult to add a new field called bottom time that could read that value if available.

Basically I'm asking whether you just think it's incorrect, or whether you specifically want the bottom time rather than the total duration. The biggest difference you will see is when you surface partway through a dive as you suggest, as this is no longer counted towards bottom time. But there are plenty of devices that don't record a bottom time, just the total duration.

I could really use a Bottom Time field, and I'd hope that Bottom Time was used to calculate the Total Bottom Time for the diver, even if that was simply an option. All of my calculations to date have used bottom time rather than total duration, and I'd like to keep that the same. Possible?

[nick]

As above, it is possible. I will look in to it when I get a chance, I have some other priorities right now that I am working through.