Long term use

[Michael Graves]

Audio Tool is a great bit of software. Very useful. I'd like to ask your thought about a small project that is before me. 

I need to monitor the SPL of a situation on an ongoing basis. I have a tablet with an iMM-6 for the purpose. The tablet will be continuously powered. The screen output of the tablet will be connected to an encoder such that it can be recorded to a network video recorder. In this manner we hope to monitor the installation with a surveillance camera, and the SPL, continuously recording the Audio Tool screen as if it were a second camera.

The hardware will be assembled into a weather tight kit that's remotely located. Not terribly remote actually, but not readily at hand. Do you think that Autio Tool will run continuously for a long time? Weeks would be preferred.

While I have a Nexus 5 or Nexus 7 for the purpose, I might be able to purchase an nVidia Shield K1. The nVideo tablet has a convenient HDMI output.

Thanks,

Michael

[Julian Bunn]

Hi Michael,

Sounds like an interesting project. I expect AudioTool would run for weeks, although I've only ever run it continuously for a couple of days. The most likely ways it could terminate are it not being in "Keep Screen On" mode, or auto updates of software on the device that cause it to restart, or losing battery charge, or some other environmental effect like overheating of the Android.

I think several recent Android devices have mini HDMI out for an external screen.

Julian

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "AudioTool Discussion Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to audiotool-discussion-group+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to audiotool-discussion-group@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/audiotool-discussion-group.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Michael Graves]

In initial experiments audio tool runs a long while. The HDMI output of the tablet can be lost. Casting the screen to a Chromecast works, but I'm not sure about long term stability of that link as yet.

The nvifia tablet has a built in link to twitch in order to share gaming. I'm curious yo see if this can be coopted to deliver to a different server. That might allow the built in integration to feed the NVR directly.

I've also ordered an h264 encoder with an HDMI input.

[Michael Graves]

I've done some further testing, including running Audio Tool on the nVidia Shield K1 for a week continuously. The HDMI output of the tablet is fed to an H264 encoder and the recorded on a standard surveillance NVR. So far everything works quite well. I can reliably record the output of the tablet on a scheduled basis.  

Along the way I've stumbled into a couple of minor things that I thought worth mentioning.

(1) Display Lock - It would be great to be able to lock the display. It's very easy to have something brush against the display and accidentally alter the scale.

(2) Light/Dark Mode - I've seen other SPL meter apps that implement a "dark mode" that dims the display. This is also great when working in a darkened room where the bright display is annoying or disruptive. While it can be done from the OS settings, it would be great of this was a button within the app.

Further, if you want to run Audio Tool over an extended period it's important to manage power consumption. Even if the tablet is on external power it can draw down the battery over time. The can be stopped by dimming the display.

(3) Loop Through - I'd like to record the audio as well as the display. I accept that might be a heavy lift. As an alternative might it be possible to loop the microphone audio out to the headphones? That would let me add an external hardware recorder. It would basically be like using the Android device as a preamp.

Thank again!