Audio recorder and player for KT

[idoit]

Yes there is no incorporated software to use microphone in Kindle Touch but that doesn't mean we can't use it!
I wrote a very simple audio recorder and player. It might help in case you want to record something and you don't have your cellphone handy! Well this has more applications ...

O start recording
[] stop recording
> start playback
|| stop playback

Prerequisites:
- usbnetwork
- GUI Launcher

Install procedure:
0. Do you have SSH access to your Kindle?! If not, read this: USBNetwork
1. extract zip file to /mnt/us/
2. execute 'restart framework' through SSH
3. Guess what? -> Done!

Karma and happiness to all of you wonderfulz!

Details:

Spoiler:

- In the menu.json, as I didn't know how many other launchers each user has, I just set priority to 20. Feel free to change it.
- I use alsa player to play the latest created wav file. Unfortunately MP3 Player can't play this record as it's not MP3 but you can play it by mplayer or converting it using lame.
[ NOTE that all in all the quality is alright but for some reason it has such a low volume when played on the device! The volume is good when recorded wav is played on a computer. Make sure to max the volume by alsamixer. ]

[yifanlu]

Multiple commands requires the use of a shell script.

[idoit]

Originally Posted by yifanlu

Multiple commands requires the use of a shell script.

Oh silly me! Well it's 5am so ... Updated accordingly!

Edit: Ahhh damn, not gonna stay up so late anymore. Geekmaster: I forgot to update the 1st post even more, so now I did.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by cscat

[ NOTE that all in all the quality is alright but because microphone is covered it has such a low volume. So make sure to max the volume by alsamixer.

Covered by what? The microphone is behind the little slot between the microUSB jack and the headphone jack.

[ixtab]

You can use these two commands to crank up the recording volume before actually running arecord:

/usr/bin/amixer sset 'MIXINL PGA',0 100% unmute cap
/usr/bin/amixer sset 'Capture',0 100%,100% unmute cap
# then arecord

I found the mixer name by trial and error, and I'm not sure if all the parameters are really required. Anyway, this works on my device, and probably should on yours, but you never know.

The resulting files are still not over-the-top quality, but it's usable for taking spoken notes. I'm attaching a sample (recorded from a computer sitting next to the Kindle, playing at "normal" volume).

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by ixtab

I found the mixer name by trial and error, and I'm not sure if all the parameters are really required. Anyway, this works on my device, and probably should on yours, but you never know.

So, you didn't find the "halt and catch fire" parameter settings yet?

But that microphone will come in handy when we get Skype running on these things, right?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

So, you didn't find the "halt and catch fire" parameter settings yet?

But that microphone will come in handy when we get Skype running on these things, right?

He may have to wait for v-5.2.0 for those.

[inameiname]

Can this be adapted for those non-touch Kindles, such as Kindle 4 and Kindle 3?

[idoit]

Originally Posted by inameiname

Can this be adapted for those non-touch Kindles, such as Kindle 4 and Kindle 3?

For Kindle 3 yes, but not for Kindle 4 as the latter lacks microphone. One can easily integrate arecord and aplay into launchpad (if not done yet! ). But I just have Touch, so ...

[ixtab]

Just a side note: how about updating the file attached in the first post for future readers?

[geekmaster]

I used aplay to play movie output piped from ffmpeg on my kindle. I will publish a script soon to play movies on with sound on your kindles (from local files or internet URLs) in various formats (including x264 for the faster kindles). The K3 is not fast enough to decode x264 in real-time, so it can only play XviD/DivX/MPEG, etc.

Thanks for pointing out this aplay program, or my tools would be stuck with only silent films.

The K4 can use aplay to output to a .WAV file, or to pipe it to another program. I think a sound server running on a host PC would be good for a K4. It could then play sound over wifi to a remote sound system (perhaps even to a wifi-enabled smart TV). The simple way would be to pipe aplay to netcat (nc), then on a host PC from netcat to a player program that can accept raw sound from netcat.

And the K3 has aplay built in too. You can test it with:

aplay /dev/urandom

cat /dev/urandom|aplay

To play "s16le" formatted output from ffmpeg, you need to add a "-f cd" to aplay:

ffmpeg ... -|aplay -f cd

I will post ffmpeg with I have scripts that set all the parameters to sync the video and sound reliably for various movie format. Just like sound is delivered to aplay here, the video is delivered to gmplay used in the current "kindle video" thread. These audio and video programs naturally belong together.

[geekmaster]

I just tested, and you can still play audio files the old way too (including piped-in network streams). For example, with wifi on, this will play BBC on a K3 or a K5:

wget -O - http://mp32.bbc.streamuk.com | gst-launch playbin uri=fd://0

[inameiname]

Originally Posted by cscat

For Kindle 3 yes, but not for Kindle 4 as the latter lacks microphone. One can easily integrate arecord and aplay into launchpad (if not done yet! ). But I just have Touch, so ...

Ah, thanks for the info. I don't have a Kindle 4, and forgot it lacked a microphone. So on a Kindle 3 you can run/install it the same way as on the KT?

And there are indeed Launchpad shortcuts already to record on the Kindle 3. Actually, the very same commands are also in a Kindlet called K3MusicManager. They are a few variations to the following that use arecord, but these seem to be the best:

audio_recorder.ini

[Actions]

; Audio Recorder (stored in 'audio' folder, and playable as audiobook)
A E = !kill -15 `pidof arecord`; dbus-send --system /default com.lab126.powerd.resuming int32:1 &
A S = !RECDIR=audible; [ -d "/mnt/us/$RECDIR" ] || mkdir -p "/mnt/us/$RECDIR"; arecord -qN /mnt/us/$RECDIR/_record_$(date +'%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S').wav!.mp3 &

[inameiname]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

I used aplay to play movie output piped from ffmpeg on my kindle. I will publish a script soon to play movies on with sound on your kindles (from local files or internet URLs) in various formats (including x264 for the faster kindles). The K3 is not fast enough to decode x264 in real-time, so it can only play XviD/DivX/MPEG, etc.

Already seeing those threads that have samples of videos that can play on the Kindle, this would be awesome if you can run XviD/DivX/MPEG/etc files directly on it. Look forward to seeing what you come up with. You are definitely one of the best originators of stuff on this site! Thanks!

Originally Posted by geekmaster

I just tested, and you can still play audio files the old way too (including piped-in network streams). For example, with wifi on, this will play BBC on a K3 or a K5:

wget -O - http://mp32.bbc.streamuk.com | gst-launch playbin uri=fd://0

I'll have to try that way you mentioned about how to play streaming audio. This is the usual way I do so (I'm guessing it does the same thing, just a different way):

; play streaming radio - http://www.radioio.com - VOCAL JAZZ
K R F = !cd /mnt/us/music ; ../system/kinamp http://76.76.18.101:8010 -quiet -framedrop -vo aa:reverse:contrast=50 -vf rotate=1 -monitoraspect 0.7  2>/dev/null

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by inameiname

I'll have to try that way you mentioned about how to play streaming audio. This is the usual way I do so (I'm guessing it does the same thing, just a different way):

; play streaming radio - http://www.radioio.com - VOCAL JAZZ
K R F = !cd /mnt/us/music ; ../system/kinamp http://76.76.18.101:8010 -quiet -framedrop -vo aa:reverse:contrast=50 -vf rotate=1 -monitoraspect 0.7  2>/dev/null

The difference is that kinamp is an add-on program, while the way I showed only uses built-in programs.

Your kinamp parameters look like the ones I posted many months ago for using with the optware mplayer, to play streaming VIDEO using "ascii art" mode in the myts terminal. Why do you use those VIDEO parameters with kinamp? Does kinamp support video now too? If so, we should be able to pipe that to my raw2gmv and gmplay programs (using different "better" video parameters). If not, then why are those video parameters on your command line?