Audio Recording

Audio recording

Record lectures and meetings with timestamps on your notes. Beta 4 has the core recording tools with microphone and system audio, timestamps on text and ink, playback with speed control, and trim and split. Everything except start-up is untested by hand, so check the test checklist before you rely on a feature.

How it works

Press Record, and OpenNote captures your microphone. Optionally, it also captures what your PC plays, which helps with meetings and online lectures. A clear on-screen indicator shows whenever recording is on. Recording never starts by itself.

While you record, every stroke and text change gets a timestamp. Later, tap a word or a stroke to hear that moment. A highlight moves along the page during playback. A page can hold several recordings, and you can pause and resume.

What you can do

Feature	Status
Microphone and system audio	Built. Records both at the same time, as separate tracks.
Timestamps	Built. Every stroke and text change made while recording is time-stamped.
Tap to hear	Built. Tap any word or stroke to play from that moment.
Pause and resume	Built. Several recordings per page.
Playback speed	Built. 0.5x to 3x without changing pitch, skip silence, and 10-second skips.
Recording level meter	Built. Shows the microphone input level.
Trim, split, and remove parts	Built. Cut an "off the record" part from the audio.
Screen snap	Built. A shortcut captures a slide or whiteboard onto the page, time-stamped.
Audio and video files	Built. Drop an MP3, M4A, WAV, or MP4 file onto a page for the same player and notes.
Voice enhancement	Built. Makes a quiet voice clearer.
Recording storage list	Built. Compress a recording to save space, or remove its audio and keep the transcript.
Transcript block	Built. Lists each line with its time; click to jump to that moment.
Speakers and labels	Built. Rename a speaker once, and every line updates.
Action items and chapters	Built. Pull out action items and chapters from a transcript.
Meeting recap	Built. Copy a recap of the meeting with action items and key points.
Transcripts and captions	Not yet built. The transcript block is ready, but the speech engine is not. See On-device intelligence.

Targets

• Timestamps stay within 100 ms of the audio after a 3-hour recording.
• A crash never loses more than 1 second of audio.
• Recording uses Opus files. Three hours of one track takes about 44 MB.

Good to know

• System audio records everything your PC plays, including notification sounds.
• Windows sends no system audio while nothing plays, so OpenNote fills those gaps with silence to keep the tracks in step.
• Recording uses the default microphone and speakers. Changing devices mid-recording, and Bluetooth headsets, still need testing.
• Ask people before you record them, and check the rules where you live.

The decision and its measurements are in the audio capture decision record.

Related pages

• Privacy and your data
• Ink and drawing
• Keyboard shortcuts