MARDI microphone, maybe possibly it'll be turned on? Options

[mcaplinger]

Like this?

No, like what exposure time a specific image was taken with.

[elakdawalla]

Exposure information can be found in the header for all the JPEG images. Attached is a .csv file (zipped) with the metadata from all the JPEGs available to date, stripped from the headers using Midnight Mars Browser.

--Emily

Attached File(s)

 phoenix_metadata.zip ( 612.49K ) Number of downloads: 361

 

[mcaplinger]

Exposure information can be found in the header for all the JPEG images.

Thanks for the CSV file! Apparently very few extent JPEG viewers can read the EXIF tags for some reason.

[elakdawalla]

Hmm. If I want to see a header, usually I just open the JPEG file in a text editor. --Emily

[Skyrunner]

Apparently very few extent JPEG viewers can read the EXIF tags for some reason.

Irfanview works a treat. Just hit the 'image information' button or press 'i' and hit hit the 'comment' button or press 'c'.

[Juramike]

"Hello...hello...(tap, tap, tap)...is this thing on? I just flew here all the way from Earth, boy are my solar panels tired! (pause for laughter) It's great to be here on the martian arctic plain...Do we have any martians out there tonight?...."

But seriously, when is the microphone going to be activated?

The recordings of Martian sounds would make a dramatic backdrop for every image of Mars ever captured.

I'd hate to have the only sound sent to Earth be a 5-second clip of a solar panel snapping off from frost.
[/vent]

[mcaplinger]

The recordings of Martian sounds would make a dramatic backdrop for every image of Mars ever captured.

Let me try to lower your expectations. The audio is only digitized at 8 KHz (telephone quality at best), so even if it does work, IMHO it's not going to "make a dramatic backdrop" to anything.

[ugordan]

Please say it's not 8 bits/sample!

[djellison]

It's not 8 bits/sample

(you said please)

If it's roughly the same as the '98 one, the ADC is 12bit.

Prepare to be unamazed by the quality. http://www.planetary.org/programs/projects...microphone.html

[ugordan]

I am indeed unamazed, but at least the sample depth is 12 bit. 8 bits is pretty much useless and very noisy for any appreciable dynamic range.

[mcaplinger]

If it's roughly the same as the '98 one, the ADC is 12bit.

It's got nothing in common with the Planetary Society microphone, but it's not 8 bits.

"DSP561xx processors are noteworthy because they include a sigma-delta codec on-chip. The sigma-delta codec provides linear, analog I/O with 16-bit resolution over a bandwidth of approximately 4 kHz. Motorola states that the codec has a signal to noise-plus-distortion ratio of greater than 60 dB. "

As always with ADCs, though, caveat emptor about how many of the stated bits are actually significant...

Prepare to be unamazed by the quality.

Indeed.

[fredk]

Well, I wouldn't say that we exactly need high-fidelity surround-sound here! Do we expect much Martian sound above 8 kHz? Obviously higher signal-to-noise improves our chances of hearing anything at all, but I for one would be thrilled to hear even a sub-telephone-quality recording of the creaking of the solar panels flexing in the wind.

[Stu]

Sneak preview of the first sounds to be recorded by the mic...

[ConyHigh]

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/ai....html?series=60

Smith talks about using the microphone.

[fredk]

From the BBC:

We'll start slowly, just turn it on and make sure it records sound, and we'll try and make some noise to make sure it's working. We'll try scraping ice with our robotic arm blade and we can bang a few pots or something. Then we'll listen just for the Mars sounds by themselves.