audio -- some MIDI / Quicktime resources in Revolution

[Mark Swindell]

Xavier,

Here's a set of wonderings I posted a couple of days ago directed to 
Dan Shafer.   My current specific project involves a narrated eBook 
where text hiliting (line level) would essentially follow the recorded 
voice.  There would be multiple fields on any given card that would 
require real audio to be read in support of them.

Thanks,
Mark

> Questions that I have would involve:
>
> Audio formats:
> What's the best for working with Rev under different circumstances?  
> MP3, MP4, AIFF (huge files), M4B, etc.   What are the trade offs in 
> terms of fidelity, file size, ease of manipulation, compatibility.
>
> Benefits/drawbacks of the different formats:
> X-platform issues, standards that can succeed across them?  Example: 
> Books on tape use the m4b format which apparently includes striping of 
> some sort which allows a user to resume listening at a place he left 
> off.  It may not to be compatible with Rev; at least when I tried to 
> import such a file into a stack it was howlie garbage.
>
> Audio/text synchronization:
> How can I synchronize a longer audio file with real-time text hiliting 
> features?  Example: I want to have the narration/reading (real 
> recorded voice, not text-to-speech) of a book playing while 
> corresponding text is hilited on screen.  Not word by word, 
> necessarily, but at least paragraph by paragraph. How might the audio 
> drive the hilite feature in a text field (and vice versa)?  Can audio 
> files somehow be tagged so as to trigger corresponding text events, 
> call handlers that would import new text, scroll fields, etc.  Or 
> would this have to occur in reverse.  It would be nice if audio could 
> have markers that would be linked to text lines and trigger handlers.  
> But that may be fanstasy.
>
> Playback of multiple streams:  Can more than one audio event play back 
> at once?  Music synched with voiceover located in different files?
>
> Audio File Storage/retrieval/loading:
> How would one anticipate and pre-load audio audio files so that there 
> is seamless playback from file to file?  Where are the files kept, and 
> how can they be queued so that the user hears no gaps or clicks, etc.?
>
> Memory requirements:
> How much memory needs to be allocated to achieve a seamless 
> integration of on screen visuals and supplemental audio?  How would 
> this happen?
>
> These are just some ideas that pop up off the top of my head.  The m4b 
> format seems like it might have great benefits if Rev knew how to read 
> the files and somehow access the markers via script.
>
> All this said, I am fully aware of  being 99% ignorant of any of this, 
> and that's why I need help and education.


On Mar 1, 2005, at 6:20 AM, xbury.cs at clearstream.com wrote:


> Mark,
>
> Could you be more specifc?
>
> recorded audio knowledge (in FruityLoop talk) means anything!
>
> Purpose? Usage? Requirements?
> Space or bandwidth limits, user audio level...
>
> Just wondering what you want to hear (pun intended!)
>
> Xavier
>
> On 01.03.2005 14:48:31 use-revolution-bounces wrote:
>> Eric,
>> Do you know of any resources dealing with recorded audio implemention
>> (not midi)?  Midi could provide a great solution for certain stacks,
>> but I'm in need of some recorded audio knowledge.
>> Thanks,
>> Mark
>>
>> On Feb 28, 2005, at 10:30 PM, Erik Hansen wrote:
>>
>>> --- Dan Shafer <revdan at danshafer.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I've been doing a bit with sound lately
>>>> and there are a couple of serious experts
>>>> on this list. Maybe we can put something
>>>> together.
>>>
>>> MIDI in Revolution
>>>
>>> WINDOWS:
>>>
>>> http://flexiblelearning.com/xtalk.htm -- mci
>>> http://www.hyperactivesw.com/shakobox.html
>>>
>>> MAC:
>>>
>>> http://www.hyperactivesw.com/shakobox.html>
>>> http://homepage.mac.com/udi/
>>> Kurt Kaufman's SMF stack bundled with RunRev
>>>
>>> Erik Hansen