In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Matt wrote:
> I own a CDR deck, MD deck & portable but the one thing I can't do with all this is >record a continous 2 or 3 hr FM radio broadcast (and later one day from DAB). OK, my >MD gear both have MDLP but I'm after quality rather than convenience. LP4 is rubbish >and LP2 is very listenable, but as others have said, only really for personal/in car >use. I'm therefore considering a DAT personal. (I can get an Aiwa HD-S200 for UKP150). > I'd be interested in comparions of DAT with MD if anyone has experience. > How does taping compare ? Editing is not really an issue. I'm after the ability to >make continuous long recordings of 2 or 4 hr length. Now that the Psion Wavefinder (www.wavefinder.com) is down to ukp100, why don't you cut out the analogue stage altogether and record DAB direct to your PC hard disc? In the native mp2 format of digital broadcasts, a 45Gbyte HDD will hold three weeks of recordings (assuming no Windows crashes) and a CD-R will hold over eight hours at almost regligible cost. Mp2 files can be played with all the usual PC media players and replay quality is identical to the original digital broadcast. If you add one of the low-cost sound cards with optical i/o to your PC, you can copy the recordings to MD. Alternatively, for a larger choice of radio stations, you could use a digital satellite card such as the Hauppauge WinTV DVB-s, which, likewise, will stream mp2 to your hard drive. One other option is to convert the mp2s to mp3s (the Wavefinder can also save as mp3s directly, cutting out this step) which can then be played back on the low-cost CD-R mp3 players now becoming available. DAT appears to be passing its sell-by date in professional audio circles, and it's too much to expect it to survive in home use. Anyway, it's pointless to decompress the broadcast mp2 stream to WAV just so that you can record it expensively on a DAT cassette: it makes much better sense to archive the original mp2 on a CD-R. Richard ----------------------------------------------------------------- To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
