Recording of sound??

[tesla8er]

@armyturtle

You're clearly not happy with us or the product. Please write to support with your license details and we'll give you a refund for whatever you've paid us. Same goes for your boss. There are other products that have audio for less money. We're focused on computer vision, which is hard but a big differentiator.

On issues you bring up, the whole point of support subscriptions is that you'll never have to buy even a major upgrade again. I've looked at all of our competitors and our offer is better. For minor releases you never have to pay anyway.

Vitamin D ceased operations. We bought the software and offered an upgrade path. We're not the same company, not the same owners, yet we offered deeply discounted upgrade options, better than Microsoft, Adobe, Inuit and others do for software that you already paid them for.

And we have to decide every feature that goes into the product on behalf of everyone because we have a team of engineers that we need to direct. The conflicting demands of 400,000+ users are not a product strategy.

Stephen

[armyturtle]

Please write to support with your license details and we'll give you a refund for whatever you've paid us. Same goes for your boss. There are other products that have audio for less money.

To paraphrase: "If you don't like it, take your money elsewhere." And there you have it - check, mate.

[gizmotoy]

Above all, Sighthound's main purpose is to provide automated monitoring of a video feed to alert you when something or someone enters a scene so that you don't have to monitor the cameras yourself. Because the computer is doing the monitoring, it doesn't need sound. And detection of individual sounds is not useful as a trigger. So the only benefit of sound is for humans to hear voices or noises from interior cameras when viewing clip playback. This is clearly useful for nanny cam type uses, and is why we do have audio on the future features list.

The fact that is not useful for most professional security applications is why the product doesn't have audio yet.

If you can share why audio is such a deal breaker for you we'd like to hear it. We've implemented over a dozen of the top customer requests in the last year, and continue to improve the product, and so we do listen.

It sounds like you already understand why it's an issue, which is that the program has substantial uses outside of professional security implementations, and you hit on a big one (and my particular interest).

Imagine both you and your spouse work and you have a caregiver looking after your child during the day. What if you could ensure that even if you're not present, you wouldn't miss his first word, his first steps, or even simply watching him play with his toys during the day. Clearly such a use case is substantially diminished without audio.

With multiple cameras at 720p, you're looking at significant storage requirements to record the entire streams 24/7 (or even just during waking hours). Sighthound's detection of people vs. motion for selective video storage is absolutely ideal for this, as it will tag and mark clips for storage even if the child stops moving for awhile.

It may seem like a small market, but IP cameras are cheaper, higher quality, and have more features than commercial baby monitors. When deals on cameras like the Foscam FI9821 hit Slickdeals, the thread is absolutely flooded with baby monitor posts. It is becoming extremely common to use IP cameras instead of dedicated baby monitors.

In summary, the market for this use case is growing, and the things that make Sighthound unique for security applications also make it ideal for this use case. In my opinion, an audio-enabled Sighthound would be well-situated to be a leader here.

Truly I know nothing about your implementation, but it seems like you already have all these other features that substantially exceed the competition... simply passing the audio from the camera's stream along to the stored copy of the clip seems like such a minor thing. The audio's already there, just stop stripping it out!

[tesla8er]

@gizmotoy

Thanks for the example. I agree that it is an increasingly important use case that we need to consider. I'm sorry we don't have dates on when, but the feedback is well noted.

Stephen

[bbloo]

I created a login just so I could get an update on this... I just received promotional email from you guys and remembered, ahh yes, this software was awesome, why didn't I go with it for my security needs... Ahh yes, no audio... deal breaker... While the video and person detection is exactly what I need, audio is critical. As many on this thread have stated there are many times when video only is not enough to determine identity and while the camera placement, or other outside conditions, may make audio clarity an issue, the fact remains it is possible for the audio to help in making a determination of a given situation. I think all the frustration on this thread comes from not having a clear understanding of where this lies on your road-map and a good explanation on why such a simple feature hasn't been added. I get having to prioritize your enhancements, I really do... But it is just hard to understand why you would close off entire markets of potential new revenue streams for something that should be a minor update. In my experience the only thing that would explain something like that would be just an aversion, for whatever reason, to adding this feature, or you have a large, or a few large clients, that are waiting on a particular feature before they will commit to a large purchase. That is the only business reason I can see as to why you would turn down soo much other revenue... So, rant over, here is the real question... I would love to implement your solution in a number of locations... But not without audio, for my own sanity is this even on your roadmap at all? If not, I can finally remove myself from future communications and search for another audio friendly solution. If this is indeed on your roadmap what can you tell me regarding a timeline... A reasonable answer may result in a purchase... Thanks.

[ryan]

Hi bbloo,

Thanks for your interest in Sighthound Video! We know that audio is a common request and we’ve begun looking into it. It’s unfortunately not a minor update and there is a great deal to sort through. We need to license and integrate new audio codecs for example and the current video player doesn't support audio. There are numerous small changes which ripple throughout the app and we need to be sure they don't break things. We know it's been requested for a while now, but there isn't a date we can tell you that it will be available. We never want people to buy on the expectation of future functionality, but as and when we release versions we announce them on Facebook and Twitter.

[bbloo]

I appreciate the response, thank you.

[juice370]

Any ETA on audio recording? I'm pretty desperate for this right now as we have a neighbour racially abusing a family member. The sooner the better for me Ryan.