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gil
Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18415
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wishus
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Posts: 777
Location: Northampton, East Midlands
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 Posted: Sun Oct 08, 06 6:44 pm Post subject: |
 
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Nice bit of France you live in HWH!
My family and I used to holiday near Perigord every year until very recently... now we tend to stay a bit further oop north in Poitou-Charente wher my sis has bought her house...(that reminds me, I've got to ask the French inhabitants a question for her, but I'll reserve that for a separate post).
Anyway, blogspot is pretty useable, and that's a good layout and mix of colours, I think.
I used to keep a blogspot (blogspot blogs are deemed 'proper' blogs by many in comparison to...), but now I keep a Livejournal, which I find so much handier to update and link up with friends than either blogspot or myspace (though myspace is good for the bulletins). On Livejournal, you could set up 'Bourrou' as a community to which anyone can post, and it will feed into the friends list of anyone who specifies it as a friend... actually, you can still keep the blogspot and do that because you could syndicate the site on Livejournal, so only one blog required and then LJers have a handy way of keeping up with latest entries too!
... just a thought. |
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hardworkinghippy
Joined: 01 Jan 2005
Posts: 1110
Location: Bourrou South West France
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pricey
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 6444
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@Calli
Joined: 03 Jul 2005
Posts: 1682
Location: Galway
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dougal
Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
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| Posted: Sun Oct 08, 06 7:49 pm Post subject: Re: Frenchies and French speakers, comments please. |
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| hardworkinghippy wrote: |
| ... I'm especially interested in using sound recording as a lot of the older folk can't read and write very well and as is usual in France folk don't like writing French because it's so bloomin' difficult. So I'd like to find out more about video or "radio" blogging and if it's possible to post sound from a mobile 'phone. |
Walk before running. 
Record onto a cassette.
Edit - any way you like.
You may want to record introductory, linking or explanatory material as well.
Digitise it into the computer.
You might want to digitise the lot and do all the editing on the computer. You might only want to digitise bits of what you've got. You might want to split long sessions into small chapters. Your call.
Convert to mp3 (so its something like 1/10 of the size).
Upload the file(s) to somewhere.
Put a link in the blog to each uploaded file. Then the files can be downloaded and played on a computer or mp3 player (iPod or similar).
After that you can start getting fancy. And refine things.
Like mp4's are smaller still, but not every player can handle them...
Video would mean *much* bigger files.
For editing, upload and download.
Wouldn't it make sense to put video on YouTube and just link to them? (I'm thinking about the cost of bandwidth and (less so) storage.
If you want things to be played 'in page' then you need to think about encoding the stuff appropriately and making assumptions about what web browser capability the page reader has (what browser, what plug-in).
Apple's Quicktime (player) is a free download and will play mp3's (and loads of other formats)
Here are notes on how to construct a webpage including a Quicktime Player.
Here's someone advocating using Flash as a means of playing mp3's within a page... https://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/playlist.html
OK, now there are iPod add-ons that will allow you to use an iPod as a very good (like cd quality) recorder
eg https://xtrememac.com/audio/earphones_recorders/micromemo.php
however, these add-ons do cost more than many tape recorders...
Note that newer iPods, particularly the current "video" ones, have faster processors - which enables higher quality recording. BUT it still hasn't got the muscle to compress stuff to mp3... (which actually leaves it in an easier format for editing!)
You can indeed record on many cheapo mp3 players. However, both the quality of recording and the duration are likely to be rather limited. And you may not be able to connect a decent external microphone, or two.
The same applies to recording on a phone. (Don't think they generally provide editing facilities.) I don't know of any *phone* service that you can call that will take the sound file and process and direct it for you to a web page.
I'm sure that a Blackberry-type phone could upload a sound file, but have you such a phone? And a data transmission contract with your phone company? Is instant reaction and "time to press" that important?
Maybe now is the point to mention that getting a good quality recording, with subdued background or wind noise, no frightful echo, no rustles and thumps as the microphone is handled, moved or hit... and a fairly steady sound level... possibly with more than one person talking (like interviewer/interviewee)... look, getting a decent quality (never mind "broadcast quality") recording ain't totally simple. It needs some attention to detail.
As regards a program for getting your sound from tape into the computer and particularly for editing it ... Audacity. It's available for many platforms, and does what's needed. And its free.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audacity |
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madmonk
Joined: 08 May 2006
Posts: 835
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dougal
Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
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pricey
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Posts: 6444
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chez
Joined: 13 Aug 2006
Posts: 35935
Location: The Hive of the Uberbee, Quantock Hills, Somerset
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tahir
Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45668
Location: Essex
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hardworkinghippy
Joined: 01 Jan 2005
Posts: 1110
Location: Bourrou South West France
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dougal
Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
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| Posted: Mon Oct 09, 06 11:58 am Post subject: |
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| hardworkinghippy wrote: |
... I'm going to buy a thing to do sound recording, carry photos and do everything (I'm assured that things like that do exist) then I can lend it out to folk.
When I'm ready, I'll ask in here about what I should buy. |
Dougal's IMHO:
The more functions an individual device has, the more complicated it is to use - and thus the less easily used on a casual basis by untrained (and I gather potentially elderly), and distinctly non-technical people.
Much better to keep it simple.
A simple camera.
A simple tape recorder.
A decent microphone setup.
It sounds to me as though paying extra for rugged simplicity (if you are going to pay anything) would make more sense than paying extra for integrated features.
Honestly, a simple (old) shoebox-sized cassette recorder - that you or a friend probably already have (or can find on eBay) is likely to be perfectly adequate. And user-friendly.
Give it a decent external microphone, a thorough clean, a new tape and a fresh set of rechargeable batteries, and you are off and running.
Again IMHO, an *external* microphone will take out the mechanical noise of the recorder and allow a cheap old thing to give you pretty good results, certainly *way* better than phone call quality.
And the 'convenient' built-in microphone is a major limitation on the quality achievable with "dictation" recorders...
The "difficult" bit is just going to be the cable between the tape machine's sound out socket and your computer's sound in socket. Crack that (so that you can get it into Audacity) and the rest is pretty trivial. It should be just a matter of getting the right cable for your computer's sound input socket. That is probably the only "barrier to entry" to the podcasting arena.
Once you've got earphone-type (earphone-level) sound, from an earphone-type socket (3.5mm jack plug), from *any* device into the computer, then you could plug in *any_other* sound playback device with a similar socket (ie that can work with the same set of earphones) and grab sound from it.
Use what you've got - and go for it! |
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dougal
Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent
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) I posted them to show people what was possible and how the layout would look because I'm a wee bit more advanced in my knowledge of the web, but soon I hope to help people to learn how to get photos on the web, how to sign in to the blog and change things themselves and we can be a team that can be a resource for the 157 people who live here.
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