[RESOLVED] Record from Local Mic with PHP

shawjames

I am not trying to setup a spy station or anything... I run a small retail shop, and I made our point of sale system in PHP/MySQL. I want to be able to record the conversation between the sales clerk and customer at the sales counter.

Is there anyway to capture the recording from the computer and save it to our web server using a script from a browser?

If not, would it be possible for a script from the browser to activate the computer mic and save a recording to the local computer?

Let me know if anyone has any ideas?

vertmonkee

The recording will need to be done with somethign other than PHP. If you want something in the browser then I'm sure flash will have ways of recording sound input.

It could be a simple as hitting a button at the start of a transaction which begins the recording. Then hitting a stop button at the end of the transaction. This would then have produced an mp3 file, or another type of audio file. This file would then need to be stored somewhere.

The other action I would have happen is when you click the stop button an entry is made to the database which has details about the file name just captured, date - time and associate it with a transaction.

Have you looked into the legal implications of recording people?

shawjames

vertmonkee;10945311 wrote:
The recording will need to be done with somethign other than PHP. If you want something in the browser then I'm sure flash will have ways of recording sound input.
...
Have you looked into the legal implications of recording people?

Yes, that is how I see it happening as well. However I need to figure out how to control the sound recorder on the local computer from the browser. I suppose I can look into flash, but I know PHP much better. I was hoping someone knew of a way in PHP/Java?

The recording will be of my employees with their consent, so the legal issue is not a concern.

I know you can play a sound from the speakers from the browser. It is possible to also record sound from the mic with a browser?

Ashley_Sheridan

PHP is server-side, so it has no understanding of capturing or playing sound through a browser.

Also, there are more legal implications with regards to the customers privacy. They need to consent to this each time.

Assuming that you've got their consent too, you'd have to look into something that would be installed on the client machine for this to work. Flash might be able to, and Java also, and these are both available in browser plugin form.