The other day I blogged about how I’d like to see the OS support video (more specifically “enhanced” video) as a native data type to ease sharing and recording of desktop content directly. I’d also like to revisit another idea that I’ve blogged about before that’s also along these lines: I’d like to see direct audio recording supported on laptops, video cameras and mobile devices.
What do I mean by “direct audio recoding?” If I’m recording a talk and the speaker is using a wireless mic (in particular), I’d like to be able to record directly from the wireless mic to my device. Why record over the air in this electronic world when a simple electronic solution is practical and would produce much better results? How many times have you tried listening to a recording that some one’s made in a large class or at a conference and instead of hearing the speaker you hear those around the recording device whispering, adjusting their chair, typing, and the like?
Seems to me with wireless recording of audio every college student, conference goer, and reporter should have an appropriately equipped device. These are all three very attractive customers for OS vendors because they include influentials and new buyers. Kind of seems like a great differentiating “feature” for a company, doesn’t it? Imagine if Apple supported a standard like this? Imagine how much additional market they’d capture? Would we see reporters on TV holding up their iPhones all recording directly to their phone? Would we see even more college students using MacBooks?
How might this work? There are a couple possibilities.
One is to have a “sound server” that the speaker can plug into which digitizes the stream and broadcasts it in a stream over the network (WiFi/Internet) so it can be directly recorded locally. This might be a good way to go because it only requires a single hardware change on the broadcast side–at least for laptops. And, of course, it would require WiFi support in the recording devices, which is a reasonable assumption going forward for many devices.
There would need to be some additions on the device end, however. For laptops, Tablet PCs, and the like we’d need a way to record the live audio stream. Lots of possibilities here. An OS built in feature would make sense to me, but it could be an extension.
A downside to this approach is that it would place more stress on the network–particularly WiFi where there could be many users such as at an industry tech conference. WiFi at settings like this are already overloaded.
Another approach would be to add circuitry on each device that could record the audio. Unfortunately, it’s probably not practical to record from the mic itself. It may be of a proprietary format. Some of the companies that make the wireless technology aren’t going to want to make their technology cheaper and more accessible to the vast number of digital devices. They’re all focused on the high end, which makes sense. They have to be focused on quality for professional productions. Providing mass-market access is another game.
One solution might be to add an FM-based repeater in the network and integrate FM-recorders on each device. This might be better in the sense that it would not load up WiFi networks and it’s more broadcast oriented than connection based. It wouldn’t matter how many people are recording. It could be 10 it could be 1000. There are some USB FM digitizers on the market which hint at how much this might cost each supporting device. (I’m not sure if an FM-digitizer would consume less than a comparable WiFi-based one. That’s a question for the double Es.) I did try a simple experiment where I took an ultra-small FM radio and wired up its audio out to my Tablet’s audio in and then recorded some test broadcasting I did from a wireless mic. It worked OK although the range wouldn’t support large-hall uses.
So if this is such a good idea, why doesn’t it exist already? Well, essentially it does exist, in pieces at least. But the reason is simple and a couple fold: First, this is something that mobile devices really need. If you’re primarily using a tethered desktop, you’re unlikely to be anywhere that you might want to record “over the air.” That being said, we’ve all probably wanted to record audio/video streams over the network at some time. Unfortunately, this technology has been held back for various reasons in order to prevent people from recording online music or broadcasts. Silly though. This should not be a high-end feature. It should be made accessible to everyone and everywhere.
And I don’t just mean laptops, Tablets, MIDS. Video cameras should support features like this. While you’re video recording let’s say Bill Gates at a presentation, you should be able to switch the audio feed to come directly from the WiFi network or possibly some radio (FM) frequency. If the videographer wants crowd noise they’d turn off direct recording and use the device’s mic. If they want to focus on the speaker, they’d switch to the direct recording “channel.” Sure would make for more professional audio recordings.