Rockbox Technical Forums

Support and General Use => Recording => Topic started by: mmccoo on September 10, 2010, 10:28:46 PM

Title: Recording conversations
Post by: mmccoo on September 10, 2010, 10:28:46 PM

Hey All,

I'm not yet a rockbox user, so I apologize if this is a dumb question.

I want to record conversations with folks like my grandmother. I have an ikey recorder (which I don't recommend) and a mic I'm happy with. The combination together works well for me (ikey is fine if you don't depend on the mic amp).

I just set it on the table and let it record everything. The problem is this yields a lot of boring segments.

The feature I'm looking for is the "hey, that was funny/interesting" button.

I just want to hit a button and have it set a bookmark or something similar that I can later access on my computer after I've downloaded the files.

Make sense? Will Rockbox help me do this? If so, which unit should I get?

Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: Chronon on September 10, 2010, 10:53:51 PM
It seems that you want a way to bookmark the current recording.  This can't be done currently and I'm not sure of whether or not technical hurdles stand in the way. 

If you want to do recording in Rockbox you should look for a player with a built-in microphone or an accessible line-in.
Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: mmccoo on September 11, 2010, 12:56:58 AM


hmm.. well, that's a bummer.

Thanks for the reply

Miles
Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: pixelma on September 11, 2010, 05:32:58 AM
Sounds like prerecording could be useful here which Rockbox provides - if I understand correctly what the original poster wants.

If you have a prerecording time set (up to 30 seconds is possible), Rockbox will "cache" the data and only saves it as soon as you actually hit the "record" button. In other words: up to the last 30 seconds of the conversation are available and you have some time to decide if you want to save it or not.


Edit: trying to clarify.


Edit2: more clarification I hope:

Using this feature is a bit different to what was proposed in the beginning. This way you wouldn't have the whole conversation available. It would be a way to just keep the interesting bits, which I thought could be an alternative to recording everything and bookmark these.
Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: JdGordon on September 11, 2010, 07:32:21 AM
if you are already recording the conversation, the obvious way to do this would have rockbox write a .cue file to go with the recording, each time you press some button a new mark will be set.
dead simple to implement.
Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: gevaerts on September 11, 2010, 07:36:56 AM
if you are already recording the conversation, the obvious way to do this would have rockbox write a .cue file to go with the recording, each time you press some button a new mark will be set.
dead simple to implement.

Either a cue file or a bookmark file. Both would work, but maybe the cue file is indeed better if you process the thing outside of rockbox.
Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: mmccoo on September 11, 2010, 11:39:56 AM
ah. well that sounds promising. The marks don't have to be part of the main output file.

Either a cue file or a bookmark file. Both would work, but maybe the cue file is indeed better if you process the thing outside of rockbox.

I'll have to look into the APIs.

Thanks
Miles
Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: nls on September 12, 2010, 04:26:21 PM
this can be done pretty easily by just splitting the recording to a new file. most devices should have a button for this, usually the same as starts the recording IIRC so if you split after an interesting part the previous file ends with that.
Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: JdGordon on September 12, 2010, 11:04:51 PM
indeed, but it seems to me that cuesheet would be better suited because by the time you realise "now would be a good time to split/mark" it could be 10s already so spltting then would actually be too far past the position you want. Obviously the cue would be pst that point also but then that is just a text file which can be easily fixed on a PC later.
Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: JdGordon on September 13, 2010, 11:05:30 AM
quick code scout suggests this would be stupidly simple to implement as a "filesplit" option which would make it "just work" with the existing trigger stuff and the split button.

just need to add some logic in rec_command() in the RECORDING_CMD_START_NEWFILE case. (but its now 1am so something for another day maybe)
Title: Re: Recording conversations
Post by: Datman on December 02, 2010, 06:58:45 PM
It should have a marker file .MRK, like in Wavelab. This is a typical one:

Markers
{
   Marker
   {
      Name=It's a wonderful sunny day today
      Pos=4165180
      Type=0
      Flags=0
      Extra=0
   }
   Marker1
   {
      Name=My grandmother talking about cheesecake
      Pos=12382443
      Type=0
      Flags=0
      Extra=0
   }
   Marker2
   {
      Name=My brother
      Pos=26224770
      Type=0
      Flags=0
      Extra=0
   }
   
}