B: OK , so we 're live .
A: OK .
B: Are we live or are we Memorex ?
A: We 're somewhere in between .
C: OK , so that 's
A: OK , so we have some sheets for uh some standard doohickies to C: Wait .
B: Right . So .
C: You 're going to sit there ?
B: Is that alright ?
C: Yeah , OK ,
C: maybe I 'll put this thing here then .
B: OK .
A: OK , so this is February second , eh , two thousand ,
A: this is eh meeting number one with Adam and Dan and Morgan , about five o ' clock uh in the afternoon .
A: A range of microphones .
C: Yeah .
A: What 's this one here ?
A: This this one is has a couple of cheezy electrettes and C: Yeah , that 's  that 's the dummy dummy PDA .
A: That 's connected too , or ?
B: Yep .
C: Yeah , it is .
A: That 's connected .
B: Yeah , both channels .
A: It 's got two to both channels .
C: Oh , hang on .
A: Yeah .
C: Yeah , it is at the moment .
A: OK .
C: Yep .
A: OK .
A: This is B: Although the gain is pretty low .
B: So for the um read numbers task , I have extracted these A: Mm - hmm .
C: Hang on , let 's let 's OK let 's just let 's just name the microphones .
B: OK .
C: So I 'm speaking on the ear mounted uh wired headset thing .
C: OK .
B: Right and I 'm now talking on microphone number two ,
B: uh , the wireless microphone number two .
C: Yeah .
A: Um , I have no idea which one I 'm I 'm on .
B: I 'm A: Oh one !
C: You 're on one .
A: Oh , I 'm number one .
C: Absolutely .
A: OK , which is a a l a lapel ,
A: in fact it 's sticking through my lapel .
C: Yes .
C: OK so this is this is the PZM nearest the eh eh the machine room end of the table .
B: Actually , i
C: Then there 's C: I know , but yeah .
C: It 's number three , it says , but we 'll be able to figure it out .
C: This is at the middle of the table
C: This further down the table .
C: And this this one is right at the end of the table ,
C: OK ?
C: And then we 've got the uh C: This is the left side of the dummy PDA and this would be the right side .
A: I think listening to this is gonna be like watching somebody 's home movies .
B: Yes , it 'll be pretty horrible .
A: Yeah , OK .
C: Very exciting .
B: So , what I have on these forms here is for the read numbers read digits tasks and it 's extracted directly from Aurora
B: and uh B: So what I was thinking is we could start just by filling it out and then reading reading the numbers on the form .
A: OK , what do we do with the stuff on top ?
B: Fill it out .
A: But I A: Do we say it after we C: No .
B: No , you don't need to .
C: Just write it down .
A: What are we why are we writing it down ?
B: So that when we transcribe the data we can figure out who said it and their gender and the date and the time and what mike they were on and all that sort of thing .
A: Oh .
A: OK That 's good .
A: So I don't need to fill that out right now .
A: So maybe we should just say it .
B: W Why don't you want to fill it out right now ?
C: OK .
B: Just so that A: So then we 're not spending the time writing it out .
A: So that we 're spending the time talking .
C: Well , how about you give me one of those
C: and we can fill it out
C: and Morgan can read
C: and then we can do it like that .
A: I 'm just uh concerned about a bunch of dead time while we all sit here and fill out the things .
B: OK .
C: Yeah , yeah , yeah .
A: Right ?
B: And so you have to be sure to pause between each line , since we 're going to be segmenting it and then doing it that way .
A: Oh .
A: Right .
A: OK , so this is Morgan .
A: I 'm going to read some numbers now .
A: That 's my group .
B: So I definitely wasn't pausing enough between them .
C: This is these are things we will find out .
B: That 'll be an issue .
B: Yep .
A: Yeah .
A: I don't know if I said mine was transcript zero ,
A: but it was .
B: Mm - hmm !
A: Oh , good .
C: OK .
A: OK .
A: That 's a little bit .
C: Can I have something to write on the back of ?
A: So , so where are we in this ?
C: Thanks .
A: Let 's see , so we now we now have a few mikes that work .
A: How long did it take you to set this up ?
C: Oh !
C: It didn't doesn't take Well , I mean as you see we haven't really set it up that well , but it doesn't it doesn't take long to set up .
C: I mean , We just came up here one night after recording so it took like twenty minutes something like that .
B: Right and that that included a fair amount of fiddling around , since it 's it 's more or less the first time we 've tried to do it .
C: I mean it 's C: Yeah , I mean the equipment C: Right .
C: The equip Me and Adam went through it yesterday , just looked at everything .
C: But it 's all kind of here and set up , so it 's just a question of turning it all on .
C: And , um running the program .
B: I mean , ev eventually we 'll want to like tape that over and run them up through the center so that wires aren't aren't people aren't tripping over the wires and so on .
C: Right .
A: Are we gonna I mean , is it gonna be over there , or is it gonna be in there ?
C: Um , it 's it 's gonna b it 's for reasons because of the microphones runs we want that chunk there .
C: There 's more equipment in there .
C: But there 's  the idea is that there are these microphones on the table ,
C: there are some cables coming down sort of under a nice mat ,
C: and then that 's  they a bunch of them get sort of converged with digital there .
C: And the idea is that this gets replaced by a cabinet with doors , so that  so that it 's not open to fiddling .
A: So that 's what 's gonna happen .
B: Right .
C: That 's
B: Do we have like a cabinet on order or do we just need to do that ?
C: We need to do that .
C: It 's on a list of things to do .
C: I keep on hoping that they 're gonna get done but they don't .
B: Well , I  I can help them get done um one question is budget .
C: I C: Yeah !
B: Do we have any money at all that we can go out and spend on things like cabinets or a hard drive or things like that .
A: Oh I mean , I don't know .
A: Did we s did we spend our the budget already that we had ?
C: Yeah .
A: Uh , how much are we talking about here ?
C: Um . I don't know .
C: A cabinet is probably going to cost a hundred dollars , two hundred dollars something like that .
A: Yeah , I mean , you know , we we can spend under a thousand dollars or something without without worrying about it .
C: I mean .
C: Yeah .
A: I mean , I think um I 'm more worried about things being kept in a funky state long enough that that uh stuff gets broken or or you know .
C: Yeah .
B: Well , I think our intention at this point is when we 're not using it to record a meeting we 'll coil them all up and put them under so that people will not be tripping over them and so on .
A: Yeah .
B: So .
C: But , well we should get to a a nice kind of working state of our set up as quickly as possible .
A: Yeah , and there 's also the minor matter , it 'd be kind of nice to able to bring people in and say " yes , this is where we do such - and - such " , and then be able to see uh , you know , some kind of I mean it 's less important than doing what we 're doing right now
B: Right .
B: Not have it C: Yeah .
A: but C: Yeah .
A: So .
C: I mean there 's one big issue with the equipment still , which is um ultimately we 're gonna well the idea is to have any number of these wired headsets ,
C: but there 's this amplification problem .
C: I built this thing , it 's that 's it 's very noisy .
C: We 're actually recording I 'm I 'm going through it at the moment , but it 's so noisy that I am not using for this .
C: it 's it 's designed to be used for the for the desktop meeting as well .
C: But I 'm using running that through my uh damp machine as a pre - amp as an alternative .
A: Well , we should be able to just go buy some preamps , I would think .
C: Yeah .
C: It 's just it eh
C: You see how clumsy this is
C: right ?
C: I have to use these batteries to bias them .
C: And I 'm only get two channels and there 're a bunch of  There are like three connectors in the circuit .
C: The thing is , like , it 's it 's not s it 's not that the thing doesn't exist commercially , but there isn't one unit which does the whole thing in one in one swoop .
C: So it seemed like it was a good idea to make one .
C: um And I 'm still not sure .
C: I mean , I think I probably know how to fix this .
A: Yeah .
C: I can probably build it better so it doesn't have such noise , but it 's kind of a buy .
B: Well , ultimately we 're gonna need to build one anyway .
A: Are we ?
B: Sure .
C: Well , we could just B: Because we we 're gonna have to put it in a PDA .
A: Well .
B: Right ?
B: If we have microphones in a PDA it 's gonna need bias and a pre - amp .
A: I guess I 'd sort of figured that that Jim would do that at some point .
B: Mm - hmm .
A: Right ?
C: Yeah .
C: Well n
C: Yeah .
C: Jim is busy at the moment .
C: That 's the problem .
C: I was kind of hoping that Jim was going to build this box .
C: But um but he hasn't had time .
A: Yeah .
C: Well , I think I think he is quite interested in doing it .
C: But .
A: OK .
A: Well If it 's too noisy and if there 's something we can buy , again for , you know , moderate amount of price , even if it takes a couple boxes or something , maybe we should just do it .
C: Yeah .
C: Yeah .
A: And then and then later we can uh replace it with A: Because there may be other considerations that will go into the design .
A: I mean , uh our getting some experience with this may help to determine some of things that are I don't know might change this design , So .
B: Mm - hmm .
B: Right .
A: There was uh a statement made uh which I don't think is right , by the way , but  there was a statement made at the uh DARPA Communicator meeting I was at recently that um  microphone multiple microphones at a distance of less than three feet or something like that were totally useless ,
A: completely irrelevant .
C: Oh !
A: Yeah .
B: You you mean for noise cancelling , or ?
A: for nois noise cancelling .
A: Um , my counter argument is is an uh uh um , a white rat .
A: uh , which has th it 's two microphones exceedingly close together and it works pretty well .
C: Oh .
A: Um but Yeah .
C: OK .
C: This happened .
B: Do they mean omnidirectional ,
B: is that their point ?
B: I mean all the noise cancelling mikes , they 're you know , they 're a few m millimeters away from each other pointing in different directions .
C: I think  uh , I mean , uh my guess is that means it 's just that if it 's if it 's near field , the mathematics of beam  beam steering is different .
B: But .
B: Oh , I see .
C: If the f if the wavefronts are not approximately planar then you can't just do delay and sum and expect it to work .
B: It 's Oh , OK , so they 're not talking about how far apart the mikes are , they 're talking about how far they are from the speaker .
C: I guess .
C: Yeah .
A: Right .
A: But I think that if my point is I guess if you if you have a um a uh s a volume in between the two the two uh uh sensors and you do something cleverer , there clearly are ways to get more out of it .
C: Yeah .
C: Yeah .
C: Yeah , yeah .
C: Right , right , right .
C: I mean the um The the weird thing is that actually delay in some beam - forming is not is not the clever thing to do .
A: Yeah .
C: The the the underwater guys do this stuff which is different .
C: And it actually means that you should get the microphones as close together as possible .
C: Rather than trying to get them far apart so you can get separation , you sort of  you want them very close .
C: And And the math is too difficult for me to understand but it 's but it 's there .
A: Yeah .
A: Well , there are various points in meeting where people were making uh uh very strong statements as a matter of fact , like one shouldn't even question it
A: and this was one of them that was kind of funny .
A: Um but I I I what I take it to mean is doing doing the dumb thing uh with two microphones would be very difficult to get too much out of it
C: Yeah .
C: Yeah .
A: but I think it will be interesting to do other things that aren't dumb .
A: So I I still think it 's potentially <comment> interesting to do that .
B: Hmm .
A: Although we we 'll have to be uh a aware of this if we 're writing proposals about it , wherever , that there may well be reviewers who will say , " well everyone knows that you can't get anything out of it if it 's  if it 's close " .
C: Yeah .
B: Do they believe you can get speaker location out of it ?
B: Cuz that 's that 's one way we could sneak it in .
A: Uh , that is an interesting point .
A: Yeah .
C: Yeah .
A: Certainly you can get some C: Well we could I mean .
C: By the time  We 'll have we 'll have data so we can actually you know , demonstrate that .
A: Yeah .
B: Well .
A: Hopefully .
B: Oh , you mean for location ?
C: Yeah .
B: OK .
A: Well , we 're getting some we we 're getting some right now .
B: Depends on who 's working on it .
B: Yeah , right .
B: but someone has to write some software to to actually do it .
C: Right .
C: Right .
C: But I mean .
A: Well someone someone might be interested in in it .
B: Someone might .
B: Oh that 's uh B: I was just thinking one thing we may wanna do is put the fake PDA right in front of someone instead of in the middle of the table like we have it now .
C: Yeah .
B: on the thought that my vision of it is you know each of us will have our little PDA in front of us and so the acoustics uh you might want to try to match the acoustics .
A: Maybe .
C: Yeah .
A: But on the other hand , suppose that uh , you 're the only one uh who is advanced enough in this thinking to actually bring such a PDA to to a meeting
B: No , and I don't need to meet with those people .
A: and and  and therefore you bring it in ,
A: and you probably want it to be as near to people as possible so you might in fact shove it to the middle of the table .
B: Mm - hmm .
A: Well .
C: Yep , yep .
C: For those those we can make several several more of these <comment> and then we can have actual recording with you know three P D
A: Yeah .
A: Well , I think we should .
A: I mean , I think at least with two .
C: Mm - hmm .
A: Right ?
B: Right .
A: Because uh one of the th one of the fantasies that was at least fun to talk about was that uh
A: uh OK maybe you th you 're  the range of things you can do with multiple microphones is limited if they 're a few inches apart ,
A: but what if you have two of these things ?
C: Yeah .
A: And you know we have this this idea of the handshake back and forth and say " I 'm here , I 'm here "
C: Yeah .
B: Right .
A: " We 're now an array . "
C: Right , right .
C: Yeah .
C: And that that seems very uh easy to believe scenario , I mean , given the number of palm pilots we 've got on the table right now , so .
B: That 's right .
B: Three ,
B: right ?
C: Yeah .
A: Yeah
B: So I guess this a pretty dense group
B: but it it 's getting a lot higher .
C: Yeah , but But that it 's
C: We 're not , even , you know  It 's we 're just It 's not like we We we may be technical , but we 're not particularly PDA people .
C: So it 's That 's just how it is .
B: Well , I 'm trying to be .
B: So .
C: Well , I know .
C: Well , that 's true .
C: I mean .
B: Except I s got a PDA way before B: Well I was doing hand I was doing wearable computers at Boeing , so I guess I sort of count .
C: OK .
B: But .
A: So uh so where are we uh now ?
A: I mean so we 've just uh We 're doing this recording so we show we can we 're capable of doing recording
C: Right .
A: uh there 's I guess a little more wiring to do or something to have to have more if we had more people participating in the meeting we 'd wouldn't quite be ready for that .
B: Mm - hmm .
A: Uh .
C: Well we 've got we 've got Right now we could have two more people on wireless ,
A: Mm - hmm .
C: with a trip to Leo 's Audio we could get a third extra person on wireless ,
C: and uh right now we could have three more  three more people wearing mikes like this , and that would just work .
C: I mean I 'm not sure how  how good the quality is on this mike but I think it 's going to be OK .
C: So we could actually have eight people with with headset mikes with , I mean , basically no extra effort .
B: Well . Five with wireless .
B: So we could have eight .
C: Yeah .
C: Nine .
B: Nine .
B: Excuse me , nine .
C: Yeah .
B: Five with wireless and four without , and four with wired .
C: Yeah .
B: Um , we don't have headsets though .
C: Yeah .
C: We have the um the ones we 've been using , the ones we got for the PC .
B: Oh , OK so we just have to c wander around and collect them up .
C: Yeah , yeah .
C: I think we have three of those .
B: Mm - hmm .
C: So , and the h
B: Uh , there 's one in my office .