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Audio printing

 Printed waveform on paper, read optically
  (+3)
(+3) 		  [vote for,
against]

Could be on a letter, a business card, in a book or magazine.
Ever wanted to hear what the test car sounded like, or a particular bird call? Take a photo of the waveform and play it.
—Ling, Jul 29 2005

Encoding a lot of data in a print medium http://www.xerox.co...try=USA&Xlang=en_US
[half, Jul 29 2005]

PARC research - dataglyphs http://www.parc.com...rojects/dataglyphs/
[Ling, Jul 30 2005]

[link]






       Glyphs could maybe encode data from a digital sample on paper and be "played" via optical scanner (or really high-res camera).   

       Are you proposing to print something like the waveform that is viewable in sound editing software? Could you get enough of that on a business card to reasonably reproduce such sounds as proposed?
—half, Jul 29 2005
   

       ...or just include a URL where a sound sample can be found.
—hippo, Jul 29 2005
   

       That seems a lot like the failed CueCat.
—half, Jul 29 2005
   

       The advantage of [Ling]'s idea is that future societies could hear, for instance, what birds sounded like. If out technology is ever lost then everything compressed will be difficult or impossible to decode.   

       I can imagine a buisness card has enough data storage area for a few seconds of sound.
—Worldgineer, Jul 29 2005
   

       If a business card is 10cm x 6cm (??), and if each pixel is 1mmx1mm (conservatively, to allow for poor printing, dirt, creases...), then a card could hold 60kbits of printed data. Should indeed be enough for a few seconds of sound, especially with compression.
—Basepair, Jul 29 2005
   

       [half], thanks for your link. I was proposing that the waveform be printed as you mention, but a quick calculation at 600dpi and maximum frequency 4kHz, means 1 second of sound recorded over 26 inches of waveform. Erm...
The dataglyph system can record 1kB data in 1 square inch. However, to play either system back would require something like a hand held scanner, with today's technology.
I have linked to PARC solutions, who give more details. It is interesting to note that the coding can be 'invisibly' contained in a printed photograph.
Maybe a small scanner could be swept over the objects in question, on a page, and each object could contain sound information.
—Ling, Jul 30 2005
   

       Build the technology into a cell phone with a camera.
—Worldgineer, Jul 30 2005
   

       2D barcodes can hold about 2K (1800 bytes).
—jocelyn, Jul 30 2005
   

       Using the CELP 4.8 Kbps algorithim and the PaperDisk program I have been able to store a 3 -1/2 minute song using both sides of an 8-1/2 by 11 inch sheet of paper using an inkjet printer and a scanner. It would be cool if they made an open-reel tape player that played sound digitally and optically on paper that you could print on your home printer.
—Amishman35, Nov 01 2005
   
      
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