Re: MD: Making 2 or 4 hours recordings
Using a VCR with one of the older Sony or Denon PCM adapters works well. I used this for several years recording a 2-Hour FM program weekly using the timer in the VCR even while on holiday. In VHS, only SP is really satisfactory, and only T-120 tapes are rugged enough to be reliable. VCRs are cheap now and the PCM video is robust, so rigging two or more VCRs to take two hours each seriatim should present no serious problem. I have several Sonys and could be persuaded to part with one or two, but there used to be one every week or so on eBay going for low prices. The Sony PCM 10, F1, 501 701 should do fine and be cheaper than the digital I/O models 100 601. Hope this helps. Gary - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Recording audio to video tapes
Brent Harding asked about PCM adapters, and the discussion went off in other directions. In the interest of historical accuracy a few points might help Brent and anyone else wanting to do something like this. 1. PCM adapters do exist, but they are antiques. I have a number of them: Anyone interested in a PCM 10? How about an F1 or 500? I'll keep my 600s, thank you. 2. The A/D and D/A is unimpressive by 21st Century standards. The 600s have S/PDIF I/O, so they are more usable. 3. VHS at SLP (6-Hour speed) yields many PCM uncorrectable errors so there is much interpolation. Beta is better, but who has it anymore? 4. VHS Hi-Fi is not digital and is usually implemented poorly for critical recording in all but really expensive pro decks. 5. Sony made an 8mm video deck many years ago that directly implemented PCM audio recording as an optional mode, yielding a very long unattended recording and play time. 6. Any linear-access recording medium is a bear for finding things. Hence auto-locators and time code on pro decks. Hope this helps. Gary - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
MD: Viewing square waves There is a trap in viewing a graphical (analog) presentation of a mathematically-generated (digitally correct) square wave, and that is that any display scheme that is not square wave-aware will distort it at least somewhat.
The Send waveform in Cool Edt from a few threads ago, for example, showed ringing that is not present in a mathematically-perfect square wave. But the square wave-aware displays I know of simply draw a square wave when the input sufficiently resembles one, thus not necessarily displaying the true wave shape either. There are almost-square waves that will fool most of them, and certain steganographic techniques that depend on producing almost wave shapes, square and other, to keep things interesting. To examine a perfect digital-domain square wave critically, it is (or at least used to be) necessary to use a digital-domain presentation. The simplest, most readily available tool for this was usually a binary editor, but audio data files are so big they often choke (or at least challenge) available computer resources in opening an editing session. Hex.c is a simple-minded program I cobbled together seven years ago to work somewhat like Unix's Head, since I only wanted to look at -- not alter -- the data values, and not a great many of them at that. I will make the source and/or an MSDOS executable available to anyone who would like it. Gary - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
