How can I interact with a client-side sound device through a web application?

Question

I'm trying to find something that will allow a web application to analyze the line or microphone input from a client and transmit that data to the server. I've looked briefly at WebRTC and, although I find it to be the most compelling answer 'future-wise', it is (at the time of writing) far from being complete and/or standardized as a protocol.

This would be my first web application that would require such functionality. Ideally, part of the sound signal processing could be handled by client-side code to reduce the impact of device latency (say, the time it takes for a sound to travel from instrument to computer, go through digital-to-analog conversion, and then be sent to the app) and internet 'lag'. The signal would, at some point, need to make it back to the server for analysis.

It might be a bit high-concept, but perhaps there is a way using an existing plugin - I just thought I would turn to some folks who have spent more time in this realm than I have.

Thanks in advance for your time.

• Robert Harvey: Any plugin or custom code is likely to be even less "standards-compliant" than WebRTC. What is your metric for "fully-baked?" HTML5 is expected to be in draft mode for several more years.
• armadadrive: That all major browsers would support the method, basically. The more I'm looking at HTML5, the more I think it is the best solution. Web Audio API also looks very useful.

Answer 1

There is a Web Speech API:

This specification defines a JavaScript API to enable web developers to incorporate speech recognition and synthesis into their web pages. It enables developers to use scripting to generate text-to-speech output and to use speech recognition as an input for forms, continuous dictation and control. The JavaScript API allows web pages to control activation and timing and to handle results and alternatives.

It defines a new <voice-reconition> tag, but it is not standardized:

This specification was published by the Speech API Community Group. It is not a W3C Standard nor is it on the W3C Standards Track.

References

• Web Speech API

• Can I use...Speech Recognition