Taking the audio to the people

I thought Christopher was already working on this? I know It Is Written has created content for the Kalahari people in Africa (the "click" language) and put them on Godpods. They contain the whole Bible plus some other content in a hand-held, solar powered device. I actually had to process all the audio files for this project when I was working for them.

Contact me if you want to know more about this and I can get you in touch with the folks that did this.

salaam-
paul

Paul, they actually have a few Godpods, but they have to process everything through Israel or something.  Was that your experience?  Seems like the Godpod people are being quite protective of what goes on these devices.  This is inconvenient, making them impractical for quickly distributing material.  For example, they can't send a sermon home with someone after church.

I've toyed with the idea of pulling together a group to develop a very simple, rechargeable battery powerd mp3 or ogg player that can be automatically updated and recharged with the simple plug of a USB cable.  The focus would be on easy-to-use and rugged.  But... not sure all this is worth the hassle since there are a million different media players out there to choose from.

The other side of puzzle is equiping for recording.  If we could get them something like we got Adam, they might be in a better position for quality audio work -- thuogh this will never solve the crying babies and people talking problem.  I think it'd be cool to have a recording with a nice jungle sound background.  Nathan, if you could get folks quiet or record in an isolated place this could be acheived.  Your other option is to build or setup an isolated sound room.  This can be a lot of work, and may not be practical in such a warm environment.  I think I would focus on finding pleasing background sounds rather than eliminating them.

Nathan, if you could pull the perfect media player out of a hat, what would it look like?  What would the feature set be?

I'm not sure what the Godpod folks' policy is toward content, but I know for It Is Written, EGW books were included because the Bible didn't take all the space.

That would be good to have an "import" USB jack. After seeing what you could do with the "Recording" studio light, do you think this is something you could just do yourself? Or maybe you know someone that could do it? What about a bluetooth interface? That would allow the thing to be completely sealed without the mess of a USB port. Course, Bluetooth (as it is now) would be awefully slow to transfer gigs of data.

The other thing I've noticed especially where I live is that everone just uses cell phones. They walk down the street with Islamic sermons blaring from their cell phone...loud enough for everyone to hear it. Not only that, but content can be easily transferred and duplicated that way. I know folks in Palawan probably don't have cell phones, but I would imagine that would change before too long.

I have no doubt that we could build our own MP3 or Ogg(since there would be no royalties) player, but I'm not sure if that is the best approach.  I'm pretty sure it isn't the first step, though I do see room for something specifically targeting this "market."  While I agree with Paul that cell phones will eventually make their way into the mountains, I don't expect that to happen to degree that they could be relied upon for media distribution for quite some time.  (Truth is, there are already folks with cell phones in the mountains, but they are significantly more wealthy than everyone else.  Maybe the top 0.1% or something.)

I think our first line of business is to get Nathan a good recorder.  I'm actually thinking of buying a number of them and getting a bit of a network out there...  I suppose that's a topic for another thread -- but Adam, do you think my folks and their student missionaries would be able to use one of those recorders?

I think the first step is for you to get some good recording equipment -- doesn't need to be fancy, but needs to be able to do clean take.  (See my response to salaam.)  Once you have good equipment, you can start experimenting.  There are many factors contributing to the success of a recording.  Since you are in a unique situation, it will take some trial and error to discover what works best.  Folks here who have experience with recording can help guide you.

As for media player feature set.  I think you're on track, but I might do several things a bit different.  Let me know what your thoughts are on this list:

• No display
• 3 buttons (Play/Stop, Fast forward/Skip forward, Rewind/Skip back.)
• mini usb plug for uploading data and charging battery
• headphone jack
• internal flash (TBD)
• waterproof
• external speaker and auxilary power interface (connector TBD)
• one dual color LED (for feedback such as charged/charging)

Here's how this would work.  You guys distrubute a huje fleat of these.  At convenient locations, you can have a computer (or other device) that has multiple USB jacks.  When a device needs to be charged, the plug it in to one of these cables, and two things happen: the battery is charged, and the media is updated.  Since all the devices are identical, there is no waiting neccessary -- just grab another player, and go.  Cheap headphones will be distributed for private listening -- folks can even use personal headphones if they are fortunate enough to have a particularly good pair.

What happens when they want to listen in a group?  No problem, we have an external amplified speaker that can be hooked up.  There are such speakers available off the shelf, or we could design our own that could be powered off the players internal batteries.  But now, the cost of these speakers is no longer duplicated across all units, nor tied to a specific unit.

External power / field charging can be accomplished via the auxilary charging inteface.  This interface would be designed to accept power from a wide range of charging sources.  Examples would include solar, handcrank, external batteries, etc.

What do you think?

I am sure they could use the recorder.  It is very simple to just make a recording.  It gets abit more complicated if you want to multi-track, but mostly they would just be recording mp3s.   I think it would be great to have them all over.

Nathan:

Some of us have been discussing off-line how we might assist you.  We're looking at purchasing one of these Zoom H4 field recorders like Adam has.  Is this something you'd be willing to use?  As part of the process of becoming familiar with the unit, it might be cool if you did some audio blogging for NoLessDays.  This would be pretty cool for folks here that might enjoy the inside look into what life is like there in Kementian, and also, help us give you feedback on your recording -- practice makes perfect, eh?

Anyway, NLD has some funds and Christina (NoBlesseOblige) will be travelling there within the next week or so, so this may be a good time for us to move.  Do to the short time, I may go ahead an order a unit that we can use elsewhere if you decide against it.  We'd like to help -- just want to make sure what we're thinking really is a help to you.

I think this has great potential and would certainly be used here a great deal.  Having solar power would be the most ideal and having the speakers run off the handheld player's internal battery would be best - no batteries otherwise needed.  Keeping the thing simple and rugged - that is the key. 

How would this differ from the God pod?  Basically, as I can tell, it would delete the necessity of going to another entity each time you wanted to put new material on the pod.

Thanks for giving this a lot of thought.  We appreciate it a great deal.

We're excited about the Field Recorder and the possibilities it presents to us.  Thank you all - for your generosity and for having vision about what this can do for our tribe here in the PHilippines and also for our friends back home.

Leonda George

Palawan, Philippines

Paul, we are trying to get ahold of the company and get information about how to send them the audio files for them to put into a format that we can then import to the Godpod.  Do you have any idea how we do that?  They're not answering emails....

Leonda George

Palawan, Philippines

Leonda-

I'm trying to get a better contact for you. Unfortunately MY contacts aren't even responding. I'll call them today if I don't get an email. No guarantees they can help either, but at least they have a history working together.

I'll let you and Nathan know as soon as I hear something.

salaam-
paul