Accessibility and Confident Audio Mode?

Started by IanTrue, April 03, 2015, 10:43:57 PM

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IanTrue


I should preface this with a why.  There are a lot of people out here with horrible vision.  Now should we be trying to make video?  That is a whole different topic but it is I'm sure why canon cameras don't already have screen reader functionality.  Could magic lantern implement this though?  That is the question.  I really have no idea how the programming side of this firmware works and realize that including a sound library could greatly increase the size of the package but hang with me for one second...  What if there were an accessibility version of the software for people who need it?  What if we didn't include a complete dictionary, but only very small highly compressed recordings of every word that might be needed.  Could the firmware trigger the playback of those files.  e.g.  If one pushes the iso button, it plays iso.mp3 and then if someone spins the wheel it plays the appropriate corresponding file. e.g. again...  iso800.mp3?
Now ideally with this type of functionality if someone were to push the iso button it would play the iso.mp3 file and then revert to standby until the button were pressed again to actually enter the menu but there aren't a million buttons on these cameras so learning which ones to push and memorizing them is no huge deal so just going straight into the menu with a cue to where one is at would be something like immaculate conception as it is.
If someone would be willing to do this I could record and render each and every sound sample needed from A-Z, to f1.3.  But again, it's only a dream as of now, there would I'm sure be loads more thought that would need to take place in order to make it a goal.  So here is a much easier request that I don't believe exists as of now.
Would it be possible to have an audio mode that grabs either the left or right input channel from the stereo jack and duplicates it to the other track during recording.  Here is the use case.  Mono shotgun mic into a zoom.  Stereo out from the zoom through an attenuation cable only outputs sound on the left side.  Adapters suck.  So does duplicating the channels in post.  I think I read somewhere that there is something kind of like this that takes place already but it records to the second channel at -10db just in case one is too loud.  That is all the way awesome and a great idea.  It still requires some work in post if everything was good in the first place though.  Maybe we could call this mode confident mode?  This could be used for the cases in which one has a standard setup that they use consistently such as in their studio or for shooting their YouTube videos.  It would basically do the exact same thing as above except skip the step of lowering the gain.
Thanks for taking the time to read my book.  Once again...  You rock.
Sincerely,
Ian

a1ex

1. I see no technical obstacles in implementing this, just a fairly large amount of work (if you don't have the skills, it's just a matter of convincing somebody who has).

2. ML won't replace your audio editor.

IanTrue

I can do just about anything in PHP and JS but I know this is all very different.  If there is a place where I can look at the code and a tutorial on how to compile everything I'd be willing to try, I just don't want to turn my camera into a brick.
I would think that an easy way to test out the concept would be by grabbing whatever function makes "focus beep" possible and making the camera beep on record start and record stop.  I say focus beep because there is already a sound file for it, as well as a setting in the menu to turn this feature on and off so all of that could be copied as well.  Making the beeps happen just prior to record start and just after record stop would probably be a better implementation as no beeps would show up in the recording.  Ideally though, the sound could be configured to only play through the headphones.  I can see others who may not even have vision problems benefiting from this specific function too as I'm sure we've all had a recording stop on it's own and didn't notice.
I could be completely wrong though as the "sound file" for the beep could be and probably is just a bell that is triggered when need be.
As for 2.  You're right...  I probably should have called it "lazy mode". :)