[Penguicon-Concom] Audio recording.

[Rob Landley]

So I am now the proud owner of three little audio lecture recorder thingies, 
each of which is essentially a 256 meg flash stick with a built-in 
microphone.  They claim to be able to record 30 hours of audio, which means 
they could hold an entire weekend's panel track per device.  When they 
restock on thursday, I can get three more.

They seem to do fine in a quiet room with no background noise; beyond that, I 
have no idea.  They work on two AAA batteries, which are cheap enough and 
last a long time.  I got a microphone for one but A) this costs about as much 
as the recorder, B) the audio quality actually seems worse (although I'm 
probably using it wrong), C) I'm not sure how long the batteries will last 
powering a big microphone.

In theory if I write "property of Penguicon" on 'em and duct tape 'em to the 
tables, I should just be able to leave them there until the end of the day, 
then collect 'em and put fresh batteries in them.  They're too cheap to have 
a USB connector, so the only way to get audio out is to play it back.  This 
could probably be done overnight, but we'd need six computers to capture the 
audio, figure out where each panel startss and ends, and them mp3-ize it.  
(Anybody interested in handling that part of things?  I could do it, but not 
until well after the con.)

Rob
-- 
Penguicon 5.0 Apr 20-22, Linux Expo/SF Convention.  Bruce Schneier, Christine 
Peterson, Steve Jackson, Randy Milholland, Elizabeth Bear, Charlie Stross...