In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Simon Mackay wrote: > Most HiFi VCRs do support this form of recording. This can be done by > selecting LINE-IN on the VCR and hooking up a radio tuner to the audio > inputs. You don't hook anything up to the video inputs. This isn't true of VHS HiFi machines I've tried in the UK: they need a video signal at the same time, or they simply won't record. Probably the video is required for locking the speed of the tape transport. But you can feed them with a dummy video source in parallel with your radio -- even an old games console will do, if it outputs something approximating to a broadcast waveform. Up to a few months ago I used MiniDiscs for recording radio, but now I use a PC with digital satellite card, streaming the DVB data direct to hard disc. In Europe, digital radio programmes are broadcast in mp2 form, mostly in stereo at 128, 192 or 256kbit/s, depending on the broadcaster, although there's one mono DAB station hereabouts that's at only 64kbit/s. A hard disc of the capacity routinely fitted to new PCs could record continuously for two or three weeks, Windows permitting. I cut up the recordings afterwards with MP3 Butcher (it handles mp2 too) and use CD-R for any I want to keep; it's possible to get 6-10 hours of stereo on to a single CD-R, depending on the data rate. Cost of the recording medium is incredibly low and playback quality is identical to the original broadcasts -- which cannot be said of MD recordings. I switched to using CD-Rs when a two-hour programme I like suddenly became available in stereo. I could have bought an LP-capable MD machine instead. But its recordings would have been unplayable on my other MD machines, which would have thus instantly become useless. Richard Lambley ----------------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
