Wyszdom

The problem

I see a lot of confusion about the use of microphones at live events. A common scenario:

A speaker begins talking, but his or her voice is clearly not playing through the speakers. The speaker immediately looks down at the mic and starts flicking switches. He or she looks at the tech, who gives a thumbs-up that the mic should be on. Still no audio, because by now the speaker has turned off the mic completely. The tech, who knows that everyone thinks it’s his fault, ends up having to join the speaker on stage to fix the equipment.

What has usually happened is that for whatever reason, the tech was unable to enable the speaker’s mic in time to catch their first words. The mic’s audio was probably muted before because the speaker was talking offstage or rubbing the microphone against their clothing. Neither the tech nor the speaker are at fault. Not every speaker should be expected to be proficient in audio equipment, and the tech can only operate the equipment so quickly.

The solution

If I were designing a microphone (let’s imagine we’re dealing with a wireless handheld), there are two main features I would implement. They both address the fact that many reasonable people, when handed a microphone, do not account for the presence of a mixing board. In their minds, if the microphone has power, the sound comes through the speakers. If there is no sound coming through the speakers, the microphone is off. Here’s what I’d do:

1: Concealed switches
If users can’t find a switch, they can’t turn off the mic. Hide any switches in the battery (or separate) compartment. This eliminates the need for the tech to put unsightly (and easily bypassed) tape over the switch.

2: Power light
If the microphone is powered on, it should have a steady green light. Someone who has read the manual can understand that the light comes on for a second when powered on, then turns off, and only comes on again if the battery is low. A regular user thinks that light on = microphone on.

How you can help

If you’re ever handed a microphone, here are a few tips to help out the audio tech:

• If you’re about to speak for the first time in the session, bring the mic into position to signal that you’re ready, and then pause for a second or two to give the tech a chance to turn on the mic.
• Hold the microphone close to, but not directly in front of, your mouth. If you hold it too far away, or even hold it in your lap (I have seen people do this), the tech will have no choice but to turn up your gain, risking feedback. If you hold it “in the line of fire,” you’ll pop your P’s.
• Keep the microphone at a consistent distance from your mouth. This avoids unexpected changes in volume. One trick you can use is to lock the elbow of your microphone-holding arm to your side. With your upper-arm firmly planted, you’re less likely to move that arm around as you speak.
• Project, but don’t yell. If you speak just loud enough that you can hear your voice come back to you through the speakers, but so that if you spoke just a little quieter you wouldn’t, you’re good.
• If the microphone doesn’t work, don’t tap it or blow into it. None of the cool people do this. Test it by speaking or snapping, and look to the tech for instructions before flicking any switches.
• Turn off your cellphone completely or put it in airplane mode. Not all systems will be sufficiently shielded.

And finally, if you’re ever at one of those music award ceremonies, and as you stand at the podium and the microphone is not at the level of your chin, you do not need to lean down and speak into the mic. Technicians who work on live national broadcasts are smart enough to prepare for tall people.

Recently, Google announced a couple of new features related to captions and subtitles on YouTube: automatic captions and automatic timing. A couple of days ago, they released a video of the announcement which was made in Washington, D.C. Of course, since I’m a geek, I watched the entire hour-long video, even though as Googler who manages a YouTube channel with over 100 captioned videos, I totally already knew about anything they would announce.

Or so I thought.

At 20:32 in the video, Ken mentions a search feature that I’ll admit I was unaware of. Since captions have timing data, it’s possible to not only find the video that contains a specific caption, but to also point the user directly to the part of the video they were looking for, which is especially useful for longer videos. Here’s how to do it:

Google Video

1. Search for the text of the quote you’re looking for.
2. Enable the “Closed captioned” filter in the left sidebar. (You can also start out your search with this filter on the Advanced Video Search page.)
3. Make sure you’re in “List view,” and then click on “Start playing at search term” in the result you want to view.

YouTube

1. Search for the text of the quote you’re looking for.
2. Use the “Closed captions” option from the “Type” drop-down.
3. Click on “Start playing at search term” in the result you want to view.

And once you’ve found that specific point in the video that you want to share with everyone, you can link directly to it by adding this to the end of the URL, using 20 minutes and 32 seconds as an example: #t=20m32s

Note that a similar feature exists in the Google Voice app for Android, which allows you to jump to a specific part of a voicemail just by tapping on a word in the transcript.

Finally, I wanted to highlight one more announcement that was made recently about captions and subtitles. Google Translator Toolkit, a free service that assists with translation tasks, now supports editing subtitles in the .srt or .sub format. Just upload your subtitle or caption file with the correct extension (don’t save it as .txt), and you’re on your way to faster translations and a wider audience.

Disclaimer

Do you have an Android phone? Then stop what you’re doing, install the new Google Maps application which features Navigation (available in the Android Market), and head to your car.

You can read more about it on the official blog post, but here are my favorite attributes of the product, which runs just fine on my G1.

• Since it’s on your phone, it’s always with you.
• Map data is always up-to-date, and updates are free.
• You can search using your voice.

That last bit is pretty important, and I hope you try it out. As you may have already seen, our voice search quality  is getting amazingly good. In the car especially, you often don’t want to spend a lot of time typing. Before I started using Google Maps Navigation, I would often first look up a business using GOOG-411, have it text me the address, and then enter that into my Garmin GPS. Now, I can skip a few steps and say the destination directly to my phone, with no typing necessary. And remember that you don’t just have to search for a business name. If you’re entering a street address, just go ahead and say it. I’ve found that if you speak [number] + [street] + [city] + [state], it can work pretty well in many cases.

I haven’t dumped my standalone GPS yet since I still travel to places like Colorado where I drive in areas without a data connection, but for my day-to-day navigation, Google Maps Navigation has proven to be extremely useful.

Keep your eyes on the road, and have fun!