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I've long been looking for a solution to record my phone calls (for archiving for my electronic diary database - it's just fun to listen to, say, calls you've made twenty years ago. Yeah, I've archived my calls back even then - then, onto audio tapes, with my self-built automatic call recorder circuitry and automatic tape recorder controller).
As you may already know, except for some (in Europe / the States, rare, Asia-only Gigabyte models) NONE of the current Windows Mobile Pocket PC's (and only some MS Smartphone models) support this. It's just not possible to record the other party, let alone directly saving the GSM-based encoded stream to greatly preserve sound quality while keeping the same low speed (without recompressing it), just like how the vast majority of non-Windows Mobile-based call recorders do on both Symbian and in many "dumb" phones like the Sony-Ericsson t68i and the t610.
Yeah, sure, there're some software titles capable of recording conversations (most importantly, the brand new, 4.x series of Resco Audio Recorder, superseding PMRecorder, the, before the new release of the new Resco app, best phone call recorder app), but, as the restriction is hardware / OS-based, they can't lift the restriction either.
I've bought a Nokia N-Gage (got it for comparatively cheap with several original game cards - they're far better than I've previously imagined, particularly when you play multiplayer games at Nokia Arena! Highly recommended if you're into mobile phone-based multiplayer games - many titles are far better than anything else multiplayer-enabled on any other mobile platform) some days ago and played a lot with the current, compatible audio recorder solutions, most importantly, Ultimate Voice Recorder For Series 60. (The other, well-known solutions like ALON MP3 Dictaphone for S60 (2nd / 3rd), Total Recall (which, BTW, according to the homepage, will soon receive a Windows Mobile 5+ version too), LivePVR for Symbian Series-60 etc. are all Symbian S60 2nd / 3rd edition only and, therefore, don't run on the first-generation S60 OS of the N-Gage.) It worked just great (in automatic mode) and offered everything one may want to except from a decent automatic call recorder, except for the hardware-initiated beeps, which seem to be a non-fixable issue with the latest N-Gage firmware, unlike with some other Nokia models like the Nokia 6680, 6681, 6630 and N70 (and some more). (BTW, if you're interested, also see this thread on the beeping issue. Note that Beep Off can be found here for $20. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a trial version so you can't check for yourself whether it really eliminates in-call beeping during calls.)
Guys, Microsoft, hardware manufacturers, why do you want us to go for a Symbian device (or, for that matter, any "dumb" phone like the above-mentioned t610) for making phone calls? Can't you understand a LOT of people want flawless call recording capabilities? Why can't you enable this feature?
BTW, many ask whether it's legal to record phone calls at all. Please refer to this page - it's really useful. Well worth a read, particularly if you're in the United States (it lists all the states that allow for free call recording, and the ones that don't.) In Europe, to my knowledge, you're allowed to record calls in all countries without letting the other party know.
(Please do check out my already-mentioned PMRecorder article for more info on call recording issues. You may also want to explicitly check out the Windows Mobile Audio Recording Bible for alternative sound recorders. Note that, currently, I recommend the brand new, 4.x series of Resco Audio Recorder for call recording. Follow the link for a (linked series of) comparative reviews.)
Finally, I need to point out that it's the same issue that makes it impossible to implement a local voice mail / answering machine application for Windows Mobile, another highly demanded functionality. (There are several similar solutions for Symbian and Linux, where the hardware / API's allow for directly accessing and recording the incoming voice channel.) Just make a search for the words "answering machine" at XDA-Developers and HowardForums (the two most active Windows Mobile Pocket PC Phone Edition boards) and you'll see these kinds of applications are in high demand too. Also impossible to implement on Windows Mobile. Check out for example THIS ARTICLE for more info on this question.
Menneisyys said:
In Europe, to my knowledge, you're allowed to record calls in all countries without letting the other party know.
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In Germany that would be illegal. You HAVE to inform the other party. And that could lead to the situation, that nobody calls you anymore...
We had some troubles with recorded phonecalls in the past (especially eastern Germany for about 40 years... ), that would make such a product hard to sell here.
As nice as it may be to listen to past phonecalls, it would make a lot of people highly uncomfortable to know every word ist recorded.
Menneisyys said:
It's just not possible to record the other party,
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Recording/playing sound from any analogue source is trivial with an AK4641-based
phone ( universal, hermes, athena, etc.) on the hardware level. Don't know about wince, but i've
done some tests on linux/universal and it works.
let alone directly saving the GSM-based encoded stream
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It's a hardware design decision made by HTC,
and you can't override that without soldering and (most probably) heavy radio ROM patching.
The raw input/output phone sound is mono and analogue.
I wud like to add.All e-ten devices does record the calls.Also, imate PDAL, a bit of atom, Dopod P800w,D600,U1000.
All tested with Vito Audio Recorder.
We r at par with Symbian
hdubli said:
I wud like to add.All e-ten devices does record the calls.Also, imate PDAL, a bit of atom, Dopod P800w,D600,U1000.
All tested with Vito Audio Recorder.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for the info. (BTW, are you absolutely sure they directly tap into the voice stream, and make a flawless recording of the other party, even in a very noisy enviroment OR when you use a Bluetooth headset)?
you could wait for q60 t600 from gigabyte and or get the i300 which is getting also a wm6 upgrade \o/
Why I Secretary can’t mute the microphone of my xperia x1 and why the caller can’t hear my answer message
How can I fix this using registry or any tweak tool for windows mobile 6.1
thanks
TekSoft: "the MS BT stack can not be hacked to enable flawless call recording"
TekSoft, one of the most excellent newcomers to the Windows Mobile developer scene but already being Bluetooth experts (see for example their excellent BlueMouse and BlueMusic applications), have just announced in THIS thread that it's, unfortunately, not possible to "hack" the Microsoft Bluetooth implementation of Windows Mobile to "capture" speech packets and record them:
"We had another attempt of making PhoneREC possible - by intercepting the voice flowing through the BT driver when a Bluetooth headset is connected:
1) when a call is established, the software would have enabled voice routing to Bluetooth headset
2) if a headset was not present, it would have been emulated (to be able to use the device without headsets with phonerec too)
3) voice data over Bluetooth would have been in the form of SCO packets
4) our software would have intercepted the SCO packets, extract the voice data, record it to a file, and play it on the device's speaker (so no need of using the headset to hear the other party in the call)
Unfortunately this failed too, as the SCO packets are handled in the hardware, so we found no way of capturing those from a software program.
The only remaining option is to use a custom made wired headset with PhoneREC. This works and assures high fidelity sound for both parties, but the phoneREC user can only record the phone call by using the special wired headset."
This is certainly very bad news for anyone not having a call recording-capable model.
For the time being, you have only few choices if you want to record your phone conversations. These are as follows:
If you want to stay with Pocket PC's, go for either the Gigabyte gSmart. According to the user comments HERE, the O2 Atom Exec and, HERE, the Asus P525 and P535 are also call recording-enabled. Unfortunately, the availability of (some of) these models can be restricted (for example, it's pretty hard to get the gSmart in the non-Asian / Australian region and when it's available at all - through, for example, ordering via Expansys -, it is pretty expensive.)
If you prefer MS Smartphones (in the Windows Mobile 6 parlance, WM6 Standard devices) or, are ready for returning to the two-device approach (one for phone calls and basic stuff like, say, playing emulated games via SmartGear / MasterAll's emulators or quickly browsing the Web via Opera Mobile or Opera Mini, another for anything other requiring a decent Pocket PC or Smartphone), with the HTC Oxygen (HTC s310). I'm absolutely sure it DOES support call recording - it makes excellent recordings, even when a BT headset is used. Note that I have an Orange rebranded Oxygen localized to Central-Eastern Europe (I've bought mine from a Slovakian guy to keep the costs down and it has Polish / Slovakian / Hungarian localization), SPV C100. However, I don't think the original HTC Oxygen wouldn't support call recording and it's just because the given countries' allowing for call recording that my Oxygen supports it. (To make sure HTC supports it in the "basic", non-localized models, I couldn't reflash it to a generic HTC ROM discussed HERE because there are no CID unlocking solutions for the model.)
Note that some? many? other Smartphone models do NOT support call recording. One of them, unfortunately, is the HTC Vox (s710), which is by far the best Smartphone available today. It does not, I repeat, NOT support recording the other party and yes, I've tested this VERY thoroughly.
If you don't want to get the above-listed PPC / Smartphone models but is ready to keep a non-Windows Mobile phone with you, you may want to read for example THIS article on the Symbian alternatives and what call recorder applications the platform has. Note that UIQ-based Sony-Ericsson phones, according to this thread, aren't capable of recording calls, only Nokia models. Also note that it's not with ALL Nokia models that you can get rid of the constant beeping.
If Symbian isn't your favorite, you may want to stick to "dumb" phones like the (Sony-)Ericsson t610/t618 (and, probably, later models). If you assign the call recording functionality to be started by quickly pushing the joystick to the left, you can easily emulate the (missing) auto-recording functionality. Unfortunately, the t610 doesn't support saving the other party's number / name along with the recording, unlike the call recording-capable predecessors of the t610. An example of the latter are the t68(i) and the, now, seven-year-old r520m. Note that the latter only supports recording one party and the former, while it stores both the timestamp and the other party's identity, doesn't let for transferring these recordings to anything via a cabled / IR / BT connection - that is, the recordings must be played back on the t68(i). Furthermore, on the t68(i), it takes slightly more button presses to start recording (there are no auto-recording capabilities either), unlike on the successor, the t610.
Siemens' old "dumb" models (for example, the SL-45) are also stated to be able to make flawless recordings. I don't know whether it's easy to make them automatic, whether the recordings are correctly timestamped or whether the other party's number / name is also stored along with the recording.
Finally, if always switching your phone to speakerphone mode is OK with you (and your environment: co-workers / family members etc.) and you never use wired / Bluetooth headsets (which would make recordings entirely impossible), make sure you always do so. It'll deliver definitely worse recording quality than recording with a phone that does support recording, but is still better than in the non-speakerphone mode. Note that if you need automatic speakerphone activation (as opposed to the manual one), you'll want to take a closer look at VITO AudioNotes - currently, it's the only audio / call recorder application to support auto speakerphone activation (and is, in general, an excellent call recorder for both the Pocket PC and the Smartphone).
Please DO read my related articles for more information on all these questions; they may answer all your questions.
Windows Mobile device manufacturers & Microsoft, we DO need phone recording capabilities!
Review: decent phone call (!) / note / MP3 recorder VITO AudioNotes 1.3 out!
How can I record phone conversations on my Pocket PC Phone Edition device?
I saw this thread http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=509981 on how to use your phone as a webcam without any paid apps. It says to use mymobiler and an app called Vh Screen to capture the mymobiler camera stream (it will recognize the feed as a webcam). The problem is it suggest using mymobiler but with the Fuze/Touch Pro if you turn on the camera it doesn't stream through mymobiler (you just get a black screen but the menus show up).
So I did the following and it works as a video camera but I can't get sound yet.
1) Connected Fuze to PC using the tv-out cables. I use the freeware DScaler on my PC to get the input from the tv-out cables onto my PC: http://www.dscaler.org/dscaler4.htm
2) Used VH screen capture driver to capture the dscaler feed http://www.hmelyoff.com/index.php?section=8
3) Use MSN Messenger and it works as a 'video' camera but no sound was being transmitted.
Any ideas? I think the problem is that DScaler is not transmitting audio.
Thanks
I don't know about the way you are doing it, but Qik does streaming video and audio from your mobile phone for free.
www.qik.com
thanks - I know about Qik...it's very hard on batteries and you can't use it for other messenger apps. I was hoping to get a universal 'webcam' so you can use it for regular chats and skype, etc.
haha i'm not sure where i picked this up from, might have just been fuze mobility
BUT vzochat.com does free video messaging! they have a pc client and a winmo client. i installed it and used it with two friends - one has an HD the other has a tilt. the tilt camera had issues but the hd worked great, minus some feedback (prob volume too high) and htey have a pc client too.
that sort of kinda not really acts as a webcam but it's still cool!
lmao yeah vzo chat might have been from fuzemobility and i think the poster of that article is the original poster of this thread. Again vzo chat only works in vzo chat. I think the OP is looking for a webcam that work with other software like yahoo and msn and skype.
ptyindian said:
lmao yeah vzo chat might have been from fuzemobility and i think the poster of that article is the original poster of this thread.
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correctomundo
Yeah I did post on Qik and VZO in the past Both are good for what they are. I'm hoping to take it one step further so it can work in more apps though. I'm going to tinker with some more wires tonight while pressing 'record' in the video to see if that gets audio throughput.
OK- to get audio just plugin in a 3.5mm headset. Here is the entire thing step by step: http://www.fuzemobility.com/using-your-fuze-as-a-webcam/
Does anyone know of a program that can combine audio(from the mic) and video(from the camera) into a stream that could be accessed via wifi? Kinda like Qik without involving Qik servers. What would be perfect is VLC.
I have found a few programs that kinda do it, WebCameraPlus and Mobiola. But both require a driver on a computer and do not transmit sound.
What I am trying to do is use an old WM phone(HTC Wizard) as a baby monitor. I could use a PC or another smart phone to access the stream from pretty much anywhere then. The wizard apparently doesnt work with Qik, or maybe it is just an issue with the ROM.
Moved as not software release.
Hey all,
I have an old (80's-style) full-length cabinet that sits on the floor. It's got a 8-track, FM/AM, and record player built-in, but the radio sucks and the record player is broken. I want to gut the whole thing, install some more modern speakers, install a new record player, and control it all from a tablet or touch screen computer. The big thing I'm looking for is a bit of "future-proofing" so that it can control both the built-in speakers and cast to other devices across the house or even the back patio. We have guests over pretty often, whether to cook out or just hang out in the house. I'd like to be able to pop open the lid of the cabinet and let anybody add/change the music playing, or be able to play the record player throughout the speakers in my house (my wife enjoys the records, while I prefer the convenience of Google Play Music).
I think the best way to do this is through Android, since it's much easier to cast to devices, and I can still change the music playing throughout the house via phones, tablet, and gHomes if I want.
Does anyone have a recommendation for building this solution? I think the most effective way to do this will be to set up the speakers in the cabinet and just plug them directly into a Chromecast Audio. I'll need either a ROM or a home launcher that's more conducive to selecting and limiting itself to a select few music apps & YouTube.
The big hurdles I see are setting up "zones" so that I can pick which Chromecasts the system plays to depending on where in the house we're going to be. I also need a way to feed the external audio (the record player) to the Tablet so it can forward that sound to other Chromecasts. I've looked for how to do this a bit, and it looks like Mozilla figured out a way to do it using a Raspberry Pi. I'm not opposed to this, but I want to be sure that I can use the tablet/computer I build into the cabinet to select which Chromecasts this streams to.
Thanks for the help / recommendations! If I get all of this figured out, I'll be sure to share the end result so people can see how well it all worked out!