I am currently working on a virtual interview project. This project has two parts: 1. Capture a live interaction between a user and a pre-recorded virtual career counselor via a local video camera. 2. Perform analysis on the audio (non-music) and provide feedback on how well the user speaks, for example, number of words per minute, volume, pauses, etc.
I read on Macromedia’s website that it’s possible for Director and Flash Communication Server MX to capture the video stream via a digital video camera, so that’s good news. I would like to know whether it’s possible to perform part 2 in Flash/Director. More specifically,
When the video is captured, will the audio stream be stored separately?
If the answer to the above question is yes, then is there a way (either by direct coding in ActionScript/Lingo or existing audio plug-ins) in Flash or Director to perform analysis on the audio stream and produce statistics on frequency, pitch, number of pauses?
If anyone has any ideas, please let me know at your earliest convenience.
man… that’s a tough question. I have little doubt that it can be done… but I’ll bet that you will not find the answer easy, or soon. The actuall analysis of the audio would have to be created using action script… and it would be large.
I do believe that the audio and video are streamed as separate objects in Flash. That’s about all I can tell you right now. I like the idea of the project though. I’m going to perform some searches and see if anyone has come up with anything close to what you’re talking about. Who knows, maybe it’s already been done.
I think the important part is the answer to #2, and that is no, Flash cannot directly analyse audio in any way. Same with director - theres no real direct method of obtaining much info about the audio there either, though Im sure there are some Xtras out there that will do that and more.
Since you are pre-recording, most of these things can be done pre-Flash/Director and be hardcoded in. SwiftMP3, for example, for Flash generates audio levels for a pre-recorded sound and converts it into a swf which contains the audio and hardcoded variables based on the audio analysis which can then be read by flash. Im sure similar apps exist. frequency… pitch, I dont think theyd be too hard to snag - words per minute might be a stretch though that can probably be obtained well enough through guestimation from pauses… but probably the hardest thing would just be finding these apps that would analyse that for you and in a capacity which would make it viable for bringing in to director or flash (director I think would be your best bet).
Thank you all for your timely responses! I was able to use an executable function in C++ that performs the audio analysis, however the function can only take WAV files.
Do you know of any program that will convert the Flash Audio file (I assume it’s saved in some native Flash format) to WAV???
