Sound/audio/voice recorders

It was two and a half years ago that I’ve reviewed the initial version of LivePVR.

Up until now, very few smartphone platforms allowed for recording calls: most notably, Symbian S60 (but not UIQ). Windows Mobile (WinMo), apart from some models (HTC s310 / Oxygen, x7500 / Athena etc.) didn’t allow this. The BlackBerry platform and the iPhone don’t allow this either. (Albeit, with the release of iPhone OS 3.0 and the voice recorder coming with it, it’s not guaranteed the situation will remain the same.)

OK, let’s see what novelties and new announcements MWC had for us, music / radio streaming buffs. You may already know I’m pretty much into audio encoding; see for example my HE-AAC v2-related remarks in my Radio Stream Transcoding Bible.

Fraunhofer Society

The, for the MP3 format, well-known Fraunhofer Society demoed HD-AAC, their latest-and-greatest losless format, which is compatible with any AAC-LC players; that is, even old(er) iPod’s (and, of course, Pocket PC’s with an AAC-LC-compliant player). The new format has been announced (and, first, was demoed) this year at CES.

While some people predict (see for example THIS) the new format will quickly die or won’t be implemented by anyone (like the fate of MP3 Pro), I think the new format has a lot of potential. After all,

1. a LOT of Windows Mobile (or, for that matter, generic mobile - for example, Symbian or iPhone) users listen to other kinds of losless music (most importantly, FLAC). That is, a full implementation for Windows Mobile (Symbian, mobile incarnations of Linux, Blackberry etc.) can make a lot of people switch to the new format from, say, using FLAC.

2. it is fully (!!!) backwards compatible with 128 kbps AAC-LC – that is, the native format of iPods, iTunes etc. This means a HD-AAC tune can be played back on any AAC-LC player – without the quality enhancements, of course. But, at least, you won’t encounter any quality problem. Unlike with, say, only HE-AAC- but not HE-AAC v2-compliant players playing back HE-AAC v2 contents, resulting in severely reduced audio quality and mono sound. The only problem you’ll face with playing back HD-AAC clips on a mobile device are the (in cases, far) bigger storage requirements. However, the fact that you can use exactly the same sound file on your desktop and (even simple, old) mobiles for playback can be a lifesaver in many cases. That is, you don’t need to create a separate FLAC and a separate AAC-LC version of your CD if you prefer having the original in as good quality as possible, without using any lossy codec. Again, it’s only the differece in the file size that may cause you problems on a memory-constrained mobile device (and, probably, the higher CPU / power usage – I’m not sure about this.)

The new format is based on the MPEG-4 SLS (Scalable to Lossless) standard.

Also see for example THIS (in addition to the above-linked Wiki pages) for more info.

SRS (Sound Retrieval System)

The SRS Labs folks also demoed their SRS.

Anyone into serious (!) audio and/or automatic phone call recording on Windows Mobile (Pocket PC only – Smartphones are NOT supported, unfortunately) knows Resco Audio Recorder, probably the best recorder application, only - in MP3 recording - matched by VITO AudioNotes (see review HERE).

The developer of this excellent application has been continuously releasing beta versions of his forthcoming version 4. I’ve published several articles on these versions; the last is HERE. The reader is strongly asked to check out these reviews to see how for example the brand new call recording functionality works. In the current review, I only elaborate the changes.

The official “what’s new†is as follows:

1. New codec pack with high quality MP3 and AAC recording for higher ARM processors
2. Optimized version for Intel XScale devices
3. Automatic display off
4. Bookmarks visible on track bar
5. Bookmarks with optional text note
6. Automatic phone call recording works after soft reset
7. Gain control fixed
8. Bugs fixed

Yes, as can be seen, the MP3 encoder quality (which has always been the most problematic aspect of Resco Audio Recorder) has been dramatically enhanced and a brand new AAC encoder plug-in has been added, allowing for using even lower encoding bit speeds with approximately the same quality (and, for that matter, somewhat lower CPU usage, meaning better battery life).

This means using this recorder is, from now on, recommended when you want to record into MP3 - unlike with previous versions.

TekSoft, one of the most excellent newcomers to the Windows Mobile developer scene but already being Bluetooth experts (see for example their excellent BlueMouse and BlueMusic applications), have just announced in THIS thread that it's, unfortunately, not possible to "hack" the Microsoft Bluetooth implementation of Windows Mobile to "capture" speech packets and record them:

"We had another attempt of making PhoneREC possible - by intercepting the voice flowing through the BT driver when a Bluetooth headset is connected:

1) when a call is established, the software would have enabled voice routing to Bluetooth headset
2) if a headset was not present, it would have been emulated (to be able to use the device without headsets with phonerec too)
3) voice data over Bluetooth would have been in the form of SCO packets
4) our software would have intercepted the SCO packets, extract the voice data, record it to a file, and play it on the device's speaker (so no need of using the headset to hear the other party in the call)

Unfortunately this failed too, as the SCO packets are handled in the hardware, so we found no way of capturing those from a software program.

The only remaining option is to use a custom made wired headset with PhoneREC. This works and assures high fidelity sound for both parties, but the phoneREC user can only record the phone call by using the special wired headset."

This is certainly very bad news for anyone not having a call recording-capable model.

For the time being, you have only few choices if you want to record your phone conversations. These are as follows:

I’ve reviewed ViTO SoundExplorer, the big brother (and, to some degree, a predecessor) of VITO Technology’s new title in the Windows Mobile Audio Recording Bible, the definite resource of EVERYTHING audio recording-related. In the meantime, ViTO has also come out a specialized version of SoundExplorer, targetting the folks that would prefer making quick voice notes (or, for that matter, record any kind of audio at high quality) and / or record phone calls.

While most Windows Mobile-based Pocket PC Phone Edition (in the new, WM6 parlance, “Windows Mobile Professionalâ€; from now on, I refer to them as “PPC PE†devices) models aren’t capable of making quality phone call recordings, some (not very common) PPC PE models have no problems at recording.

With the “little brotherâ€, the MS Smartphone (WM6 Standard) platform, the situation is far better about the half of the current models allow for recording phone calls, even the pretty new, cheap and recommended HTC Oxygen (aka Orange SPV C100, HTC S310). Unfortunately, some other models, for example, the otherwise HIGHLY recommended HTC Vox (aka HTC S710, Orange SPV E650) do NOT support call recording. (Just ignore if somebody states the opposite – unfortunately, many people just don’t know what they speak about when talking about call recording quality. My measurements are VERY reliable as I do all of them on MY devices and, therefore, my info isn’t based on hearsay.)

Please see the article Windows Mobile device manufacturers & Microsoft, we DO need phone recording capabilities!, paying special attention to following the links; particularly the PPCT one – it explains EVERYTHING about all these questions.

Other call recording apps

Up until recently, the only really useful call recorder application had been the free PMRecorder. While having its share of problems (the need for using a third-party tool to convert its output to be playable with any other tool; the need to manually start it before automatic call recording and the fact that it runs as a process, which can easily result in its purging from memory; the lack of sophisticated audio codecs like MP3 or Speex), it’s an excellent and reliable tool really worth checking out; particularly if you’re into free and/or Smartphone-compliant apps.

Then came the beta versions of the forthcoming Resco Audio Recorder 4, which, while keeping (and, Speex-wise, even enhancing) its really great codecs, added call (auto)recording support. It’s a really excellent app well worth giving a try. Its three major problems are only the following:

1. no Smartphone-compliance as of yet (YES, I’ve tried even on my WM6 QVGA HTC Vox)
2. its MP3 encoder is really bad and should never be used
3. the Speex encoder (the best encoder for voice storage, memory usage / quality-wise) uses a lot of CPU time. This means you MUST overclock your slower (for example, 195/200 MHz TI OMAP-based) devices so that it can work OK. And, even at running your TI OMAP device at 273 MHz, you will encounter occassional stuttering when playing back the recording.

Finally arrived AudioNotes 1.3, which, while keeping its excellent MP3 encoder (it’s capable of making really QUALITY recordings even at 64 kbps, unlike Resco Audio Recorder, which is unable to make quality recordings at any bit speed), added the necessary framework (autostart, storing caller / callee ID / number, the date etc) needed for call recording.

Getting, using

Get it from HERE. Note that the PPC (PE) and the Smartphone versions are exactly the same and are interchangeable. Install, start.

I've long been looking for a solution to record my phone calls (for archiving for my electronic diary database - it's just fun to listen to, say, calls you've made twenty years ago. Yeah, I've archived my calls back even then - then, onto audio tapes, with my self-built automatic call recorder circuitry and automatic tape recorder controller).

As you may already know, except for some (in Europe / the States, rare, Asia-only Gigabyte models) NONE of the current Windows Mobile Pocket PC's (and only some MS Smartphone models) support this. It's just not possible to record the other party, let alone directly saving the GSM-based encoded stream to greatly preserve sound quality while keeping the same low speed (without recompressing it), just like how the vast majority of non-Windows Mobile-based call recorders do on both Symbian and in many "dumb" phones like the Sony-Ericsson t68i and the t610.

Yeah, sure, there're some software titles capable of recording conversations (most importantly, the brand new, 4.x series of Resco Audio Recorder, superseding PMRecorder, the, before the new release of the new Resco app, best phone call recorder app), but, as the restriction is hardware / OS-based, they can't lift the restriction either.

It was about a month ago that Resco released the first beta of their brand new Resco Audio Recorder series (see review HERE).

The brand new version (beta 3) has just been released, available HERE and sports the following:

1. Problems with iPAQ 2190, 2490 & 2790 fixed
2. Don't go to foreground while phone call recording
3. Don't start recording upon

While I (to put it mildly) wasn't particularly happy with the earlier, 5.0 version of this voice recorder app (see review here) the new version (available here) seems to have fixed some of the issues and have introduced a phone call autorecorder, the biggest feat of

Anyone that has read the Windows Mobile Audio Recording Bible knows Audio Recorder by Resco, one of the best audio recorder solutions for Windows Mobile.

Resco has just released a public beta of the brand new version of the application. It’s available here and certainly worth checking out if you like Resco Audio Recorder and want something better.

You can read the official “what’s news†list at the above-linked page. Here, I “only†elaborate on MY real-world, unbiased benchmarks and pros/cons list. I give special attention to providing a side-by-side comparison to PMRecorder, the best, free automated call recorder solution for Windows Mobile.

This also means you’ll want to read the PMRecorder article, the Windows Mobile Audio Recording Bible and, with the MP3 playback CPU usage benchmarks, the Windows Mobile Multimedia Players’ CPU usage Bible to fully understand this review; I don’t explain everything from the basics here. Also note that the pros/cons list only discusses the changes between the previous and the current version.

There are several sound recorder applications for the Pocket PC (please see the Pocket PC Audio Recording Bible for more info.) Now, the previously Palm OS-only Audacity Personal DVR (Digital Voice Recorder) has also been ported to the Pocket PC.

The title is available for all WM2003+ operating systems and is accessible here.

In this review, I “only†provide a list of pros and cons and compare the title to other PPC sound recorders.

Pros

http://www.softtrends.com/products/livepvr/livepvrwmppc.htm

This sound / voice recorder application is both a phone call autorecorder and a meeting recorder with a, on the Pocket PC, really unique (yes, I know what I’m speaking about – I’ve thoroughly tested all the alternate voice/sound recorder applications – please see the “Recommended links” section for links) feature: “rolling recording”.

In this article, I thoroughly compare the just-released, latest (2.4) version to the already existing alternates, particularly PMRecorder (please read the review of the latter here – I will NOT explain why you can’t record the other party on most Pocket PC Phone Edition in this article!)



Compatibility, availability

It’s available here and costs $9.95. The trial version is pretty usable and only time (30 days) constrained if you want to take it for a test ride.

It’s only compatible with WM5. I’ve tested it on two WM5 PPC Phone Edition devices (HTC Universal and HTC Wizard) – both worked OK (except for the VGA incompatibility problems on the former).

http://www.motionapps.com/products.jsp?mvoice#

http://www.personalmemorysystems.com/products/ams/ams.htm

UPDATE (05/05/2007): Make sure you read THIS on the legality issues and how the compating operating system, Symbian, compares to Windows Mobile in this respect. Also, DO check out the Windows Mobile Audio Recording Bible for alternative, new sound recorders. Currently, the brand new, 4.x series of Resco Audio Recorder (review HERE - DO READ IT and FOLLOW THE BACKLINKS!!!) is the most recommended for call recording.
(End of update.)

If you would like to record your telephone conversations on your Pocket PC Phone Edition (PPC PE for short) device and come from a mobile phone like the Sony-Ericsson (S-E) t610, you will most likely be disappointed. To my knowledge, as far as Microsoft Windows Mobile-based smartphones and PPC PE's are concerned, only the Cingular 2125 and the HTC Tornado (two MS Smartphones) are able to record both parties at a good quality. Most? all? Pocket PC Phone Edition devices aren't - that is, you can't expect good recording quality of the sound of the other party currently with any PPC PE device.

This is diametrically opposed to the situation with several "dumb", cheap mobile phones; for example the above-mentioned S-E t610 or most other S-E phones starting with the t68 (pre-68 models like the R520m doesn't belong to here). These "dumb" phones all make quality recordings of both participating parties. In addition, Series 60 Nokias and S4x+-series Siemens mobile phones are also said to have excellent conversation recording capabilities.

This is because most? all? PPC PE's route the sound of the phone conversation completely separately from the Pocket PC part – they just don't route the sound to the PPC and they, therefore, can't record the sound of the other party directly (unlike, say, the above-mentioned Sony-Ericsson phones), only indirectly.

Indirect recording means that the built-in microphone in the PPC PE device attempts to record the other party only through the speaker. This won't really work at a really good quality, particularly if you don't use the speakerphone mode, that is, you don't make the phone play the other party loud.

The situation is very similar to those of using Compact Flash-based GSM/GPRS cards (and, incidentally, all the available TV/radio cards). They can't route the sound to the PDA either and you, therefore, you can't use the built-in speaker/microphone or Bluetooth headsets/headphones with these units. Please see this thread for more information on this question. In addition, if you use(d) the Compaq iPAQ GPRS sleeve with your old, PPC2k2 iPAQ's, you may well remember that it wasn't able to route the sound through the PDA part either – that is, you couldn't use the built-in speaker/mike of the PDA and you coudn't directly record both parties either.

What can be done? Unfortunately, not much, as the current limitations of the hardware can't be circumvented from "plain", software-based solutions. That is, it's pretty useless to try to record conversations on your PPC PE unless you use it in speakerphone mode, which isn't usable in most environments/under most circumstances. Still, not even then will you achieve as good recording quality as with the mobile phones/smartphones I've given examples of at the start of the article.

If you do want to use some call recording software because you can live with the limitations posed by the hardware architecture and, for example, can use the speakerphone while recording, you have several choices, one of them (PMRecorder) being really excellent.

http://smartphonemag.com/blogs/menneisyys/112005SoundRecorderApps.asp

http://vitotechnology.com/en/products/soundexplorer.html

http://smartphonemag.com/blogs/menneisyys/112005SoundRecorderApps.asp

http://smartphonemag.com/blogs/menneisyys/112005SoundRecorderApps.asp