Sony Ericsson s700i - 4:19 pm

Using different technologies with Podcasting can we fun and can also save you time in many different manys. Today I was introduced to the Sony S700i by Bernie Goldbach. 10 Multimedia Developers gathered in the Sound Studio of the Tipperary Institute to discuss their project is a quick 20 second soundbyte.

Which focused on “What are you doing for your project”, we all had 2/3 minutes to jot down the main points of our project, inturn each Mutlimedia student sat down directly in front of me to speak about their projects. Each voice level was different from the last one so I needed to be on hand with the mobile moving it closer/futher from their mouth.

Once each item had be recorded as individual soundclips we exported them to a labtop. Unfortunately we discovered that the recording turn out to be .amr and not mp3 as we thought. This handed us a large problem which not even google could solve. We looked everywhere even purchased the latest Real Player to see if it could at least play it, this wasn’t the case, but luckily Michael Kiely (Video and Sound Expert) was on hand and solved the problem by sending a zip file of a program which allowed us to convert it to .wav. We placed each seperate clip in Soundforge and copied and pasted each one together. I edited down blank noise, gaps in sentances and other noises.

Nokia Communicator 9500 - 4:13 pm

I got the chance to test out the Nokia 9500 in the sound studio with 7 other Multimedia Students. We had an open discussion lead by Bernie Goldbach relating to Smart Mobs written by Howard Reingold. The opening sentences of each chapter were read out and we inserted our own opinions/views on what they actually meant and how they related to us.

I opened the Nokia Communicator on the desk which was the central feature of the room. I just had to hit the ‘my own’ button while I was on the main menu followed by record. Once the 30 minute session had ended I just had to click stop > menu and scroll down to save as and enter the file name. To take out the 512MB memory card I had to open the mobile from the back and
pop it out. I later used the Memorex card reader to upload to my college PC, the computer recognised it but it had no data. After thinking everything was deleted it was pointed out to me that the card was upside down, not very clear from the device as to what way to insert it.

The sound clips were in amr format meaning I needed to use a simple converter program and change the four files to wav so I could listen to the sound quality. I tried uploading them to the xdrive but the college computers had problems uploaded such
large files. When I got home Tuesday I tried from home, I selected the file to upload, it was uploading but gave no feedback as to if it was successful, unfortunately it never got there, so today at 7pm tonight I uploaded each one again. I know one of them appears on xdrive so at the moment I have just logged in to xdrive and I’m still waiting over 5 minutes to view my uploads to see if the rest made it.

Sony Stereo Microphone - 8:29 pm

This Sony Professional stereo microphone worked very well and projected a good sound across on Skype. We are yet to try it during recording times in the T.I but as it is Uni-Directional we would need to be passing it around for people to grab ahold of once they have something to say, which is a problem once it comes to editing as its very easy on this Microphone to pick up background noise.

Electret microphones are a variant of condenser microphones that mostly utilise a permanently charged diaphragm over a conductive metal back-plate. This model is Uni-Directional (stereo)

Sony MiniDisc Recorder - 9:22 pm

The Sony MZ-N10 was one of the first recorders I worked with. Before this I had never come into contact with a Mini Disc player. It’s a very easy device to pop out of the box and start Podcasting from.

Recording items is very quick and simple. Just gather a group around a table and shift the record bar to the right and begin your podcast. Once completed just hit the square stop button. If your holding the recording in your hand at this stage you should begin to hear it viabrate while it saves. To upload this .wav file connect your cable to your laptop and use any sound program e.g Soundforge.

Sony Microphone - 9:21 pm

The Sony Condenser Microphone was later used for a podcast dealing with Christmas in Ireland. There was 8 of us contributing our views on what sound we think of at Christmas and what gadget a girl would like for Christmas.

This item was ideal for this recording. Each of us were sitting and standing around a table so sound needed to be heard from a long distace. We placed the Microphone in the center of the table, connected it to the Mini Disc Recorder and began talking. It picked up the sound very well and has a useful connection wire of 60cm which can allow alot of people to Podcast in one room.

Sony Clie - 9:19 pm

Only recently used for our Podcasts. It’s a great piece of technology from Sony. It’s a touch screen devive with Flash, Movie Recorder and also a useful voice recorder.

This makes Podcasting so easy to record. To turn on the device slide the switch on the left hand side upwards. The main menu will appear with all available programs. In the bottom left hand corner touch the Voice Rec icon. The voice recorder application will now appear. Now when you’re ready to record touch the rec button and away you go. Once finished press stop and wait for it to save. You can now take out the Memory Stick and insert into our computer.