Sound Professionals Q&AAnswer
Feb 04, 2022 - 05:41 AM
Our zoom systems or "kits" consist of a device (or group of devices) that will allow you to take part in a zoom (or other) video-conference so that you can hear and be heard, and also record the audio *directly* into your CAT program (and optionally into your writer or digital recorder as a backup). Specifically, there is no sound going into the room - the audio is going directly from the zoom computer to the CAT computer for the best possible fidelity and sound quality.
If you are using one computer to do it all - join the Zoom meeting and run your CAT program on the same computer, this is the system you need: https://soundprofessionals.com/produc...
If you are using two computers - joining the Zoom meeting on one computer and recording using your CAT program on a different computer, this is the system you need: https://soundprofessionals.com/produc...
What are the benefits of using a ZOOM system or "kit" - in depth......
If you have been doing remote depositions by simply using a microphone in your computer, writer or digital recorder to record audio coming out of a speakerphone or computer speakers and you are unhappy with the results, please keep reading:
First - the definition of a “Transducer” - A transducer is a device that converts audio sound waves into an electrical signal, or vice versa. Examples of audio transducers are microphones and speakers. Microphones convert sound waves into electrical signals. Speakers do the opposite - they convert electrical signals into sound waves.
Why is this important?
The reason you are getting less than ideal recordings is that you are basically using the air in the room as a conduit to send the audio from one transducer (your speakerphone or computer speakers) to another transducer (your microphone). This is not a direct connection and is very inefficient. When the sound waves leave the speakers, they go out in all directions, losing strength very quickly over distance (even very small distances). You can easily hear this for yourself - Just play any sound (not too loud!) through your speaker(s) and move your ear right next to the speaker - almost touching it. It will be quite loud. Now start moving away from the speaker and you will see that the sound intensity drops off dramatically, and very quickly. Those sound waves from the speakers are also going off in all directions, further exacerbating the problem. Lastly, any unwanted room sounds (dogs barking, people talking, echo, etc) can mix in with the good sound and get picked up by the microphone.
So, when you try to record sound coming from a speaker into a microphone, the efficiency and accuracy (fidelity) is very poor. The result is a very poor recording.
How do we fix this? Easy! We simply need to make a direct connection (with an audio cable) between the computer generating the audio (your Zoom computer or other device) and the computer that needs the audio (the CAT computer). We can also record to a backup device (like a Steno writer or digital recorder) at the same time.
The problem is that we also need to get *your* voice heard by the other zoom participants and get it recorded into the CAT computer. How do we do this? We use a Zoom "kit" to make it all happen! The result is a crystal clear recording - better that you have ever heard from a videoconference.
Note that it is also possible to make an excellent audio recording in your CAT computer and join a zoom video conference on the same computer. There are zoom kits for this as well and you get the same benefit of the direct connection, because the connection happens within the zoom interface.
