Saraswati - a robust, multi-channel audio recording, transmission and storage system
Project description
Saraswati
About
Saraswati is a robust, multi-channel audio recording, transmission and storage system.
The software is based on GStreamer and the GStreamer Python Bindings, in turn using the fine PyGObject under the hood. It is designed to run on Single-board computer (SBC) systems as well as larger machines.
The system might become the designated work horse for flexible field recording of audio signals in environmental monitoring systems.
Saraswati is developed by an independent community of scientists from different domains working collaboratively on this project. You are welcome to join our efforts.
Etymology
Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, wisdom and learning.
Status
The software was tested successfully with Python 3.7-3.9, GStreamer 1.10.4, 1.14.4, and 1.18.4, on both Linux and macOS.
THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. THERE MIGHT BE DRAGONS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
Setup
This part of the documentation covers the installation of Saraswati. The first step to using any software package is getting it properly installed. Please read this section carefully.
Install prerequisites
As Saraswati is based on GStreamer and, optionally, ALSA, let’s install the relevant packages.
Debian-based systems
apt-get update apt-get install --yes libgstreamer1.0 gstreamer1.0-tools gstreamer1.0-alsa gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good apt-get install --yes python3 python3-pip python3-gst-1.0 python3-gi python3-tz apt-get install --yes alsa-utils mkvtoolnix pip3 install saraswati --upgrade
macOS systems
brew install gstreamer gst-python gst-libav gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-good mkvtoolnix
Configure system
Synchronize system time with NTP, this is important for appropriate timestamping:
timedatectl set-ntp true
Install Saraswati
Install saraswati package from PyPI:
pip install saraswati
To quickly verify the installation, invoke:
saraswati record --channel="testdrive source=autoaudiosrc"
Usage
This part of the documentation covers how to run Saraswati. Please read this section carefully.
Recording audio
saraswati record is an implementation to
ingest audio from a GStreamer audio source element,
run it through flacenc to encode audio with the FLAC lossless audio encoder, and
finally store it using splitmuxsink, a GStreamer component which multiplexes incoming streams into multiple time- or size-limited files
Each audio fragment will be timestamped with the current date/time information in an ISO8601-like format, using a qualified UTC offset of +0000.
In order to learn about the command line syntax, please invoke saraswati --help or saraswati record --help.
Example output when being started at 03:35 CET:
recording_channel1_20210620T122642+0000_0000.mka recording_channel1_20210620T122652+0000_0001.mka recording_channel1_20210620T122702+0000_0002.mka recording_channel1_20210620T122712+0000_0003.mka recording_channel1_20210620T122722+0000_0004.mka
Display segment metadata information embedded into the file:
mkvinfo var/spool/recording_channel1_20210620T122642+0000_0065.mka | grep -E 'Date|duration' | + Date: Sun Jun 20 12:26:42 2021 UTC | + Default duration: 00:00:00.104489796 (9.570 frames/fields per second for a video track)
Project information
Background
This software gets developed for the “Bee Observer” (BOB) project, a joint endeavour initiated by the Cognitive neuroinformatics group at the University of Bremen and the people of the independent research and development project Hiveeyes. See also:
Details
The “Saraswati” program is released under the GNU AGPL license. Its source code lives on GitHub and the Python package is published to PyPI. You might also want to have a look at the documentation.
If you’d like to contribute you’re most welcome! Spend some time taking a look around, locate a bug, design issue or spelling mistake and then send us a pull request or create an issue.
Thanks in advance for your efforts, we really appreciate any help or feedback.
Code license
The code is licensed under the GNU AGPL license. See LICENSE file for details.
Have fun!
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