I'm working on a new audio show, one that will run weekly. For this program I want to hook in another person (a co-host). Radio programs use the telephone and use a device called a 'hybrid' to achieve this.
The hybrid does several important tasks, first of all it makes sure you can get an audio signal out of the phone and into the mixing board without blowing out the electronics with the 48 volts that can flow though a phone. Secondly it separates the receiver from the 'speaking' portion of the phone connection to eliminate audio feedback.
But most importantly, it sends a return signal to the person on the other end of the phone line so that they can follow along with the program as if they were listening to the radio.
For a show produced as I want to make it, I need similar capabilities, and the power of my laptop is more than sufficient to route these types of audio connections without the [expensive] external hardware. In short, I shouldn't even have to use a phone, this should be possible with VoIP. One of the big advantages should be quality of audio. No phone line sound, but a sound as if we are in the same room together.
The obvious place to look for this type of functionality is with an audio chat program. I like apple's iChatAV because it's quality is superb and it works with the AOL client for windows. There should be a 'record this call' button, which there isn't.
So far I've figured out that I can record the audio of the other person using wire-tap, which records any sound that is produced by your mac. And miraculously enough, my Mac allows me to use my regular microphone setup simultaneously with iChatAV! So now I can record both sides of the conversation, and any audio I play with a media player, but I still haven't figured out how to send the audio from the clips I play to the person on the other end of the iChat.
I'm not sure anyone will understand what I'm talking about here, but this is more of a memory dump for myself I guess. emucisian migh offer some help from the wold of instrument patching.
One thing's for sure, if the latency in the conversation is too big, then VoIP is still a long way from replacing the plain old telephone service.
At an address before the Outlook Club in Montclair NJ A.H Sigfried stated:
"The controlling motive and direct purpose of the average newspaper are financial profit. One is now and then founded, and conducted even at a loss, to serve party, social, religious or other ends, but where the primary intent is unselfish there remains hope for monetary gain."
The year was 1891
The Gutenberg Project has released the full address as part of a copyright free publication of the Scientific American of march 28 of that year.
Last night after reading this piece pointed to by Dave, I decided to check out my blog archive to see what I was writing at the time about the Bush 'switch' from searching for Osama Bin Laden to focusing our attention on Saddam and Iraq as the 'bad guys' and likely responsible for 9/11.
July 6th 2002 I wrote an entire essay about the topic, here's an excerpt:
"Since I can't get Osama's head on a stick, I call up my buddy Saddam Hussein and tell him I've got another walk-on part for him. I divert attention away from Afgahnistan in the opposite direction using some vague 'triangulation' verbage."
Check out your own archives and re-publish your thoughts when you first saw this switch act. It will help people remember these important events when they go to the polls in november, I'm sure of it.
By multiple request I've set up a mailinglist for iPodder developers. There's already lots of collaborative work happening that warrants some organization.
Andrew picked up on my plea from a recentSource Code, and has published his dir2rss scrpit for publsihing an rss feed with mp3 enclosures which in turn can be subscribed to with iPodder to automagically drop the new files/shows onto your iPod or mp3 player.
Currently, you need to have a webserver to do this, next step is integration of bittorrent, I can feel it....
Toen ik schoolbank.nl voor het eerst tegenkwam was ik meteen verkocht aan deze dienst. Erg leuk om oude schoolkontakten weer op te duiken. Een dienst waar ik zelfs voor zou willen betalen. Kon dat maar, waant ik ga me afmelden, na het lezen van dit verhaal en de algemene voorwaarden is het duidelijk dat schoolbank en haar moederschip The Rosetta Stone Consultancy B.V veel meer aan mij willen verdienen dan ik bereid ben aan ze te geven. Afmelden kan via service@schoolbank.nl
