Allow upload of voice posts

[bhael]

Title
Allow upload of voice posts

Short, concise description of the idea
I'd like to be able to record and edit a sound file using a desktop program such as Audacity and upload it to LJ.

Full description of the idea
I'd like to be able to record and edit a sound file using a desktop program such as Audacity and upload it to LJ. This feature should be

Comments

[aetheric]

+1

[mordyn4]

+1

[azurelunatic]

Only issue I could foresee would be people (ab)using this to upload music for which they do not have permission to upload and share in public.

While using Vox as an example is sort of obsolete now, Vox doesn't make it particularly easy to access the source file to download it. (Not that I've tried or anything! :-P ) LJ invites it, almost.

I don't imagine that LJ would want to deal with a torrent of people happily sharing their favorite music, and the resulting small flood of copyright complaints as those with the rights to said music noticed.

I'd really like to see voice post uploads, but LJ would probably have to change the implementation of their player to make the source files for uploaded voice posts a little less easy to access.

[bhael]

I thought about that too, but nothing stops someone right now from holding their phone up to their radio or computer speakers while recording a voice post. The quality's not great, but it can be done.

[jaberwockynmt]

This could work, but only if LJ set some specific standard and required all posts to use it. Something like 56kbps CBR Mono mp3 under 5Mib total. If a user fails to format the file right, it gets rejected.

[bhael]

Part of the suggestion is that, upon upload, the post will be converted by LJ to the format specified in the my voice post settings, assuming a conversion is necessary and reasonable. As to your suggested limitation, it should still at least allow any of the permissible encoding options.

[jaberwockynmt]

I don't really care what the standard or standards are, but the LJ servers should never be reencoding anything. If the user fails to encode to a specified standard, the message is rejected. LJ shouldn't have to use cycles to correct these sorts of things for the user. By making clear that we don't want to bog down the LJ servers, we are more likely to succede in having this implemented.

[matgb]

I agree with this. Great idea though.

[pauamma]

Hmm, IMO it should have the same limit as standard voice posts (5 minutes), if done at all, not a higher limit.