Re: MD: Recording audio to video tapes
Gary Gilliland wrote: 4. VHS Hi-Fi is not digital and is usually implemented poorly for critical recording in all but really expensive pro decks. Whether it's digital or not is largely irrelevant here. What matters is the sound quality, and I don't think MP3s are going to give you incredibly better sound quality. As I said before, the drawback to that is 2 or 6 hours to a tape. I agree that at 6-hour speeds the sound wouldn't be as good as at 2-hour speeds, but the audio quality doesn't drop at all as much as the video quality between SP and EP. At standard speeds (2-hour), even on a mid-level hi-fi VCR, IMO the sound of VHS is better than MP3. But if he's not looking for the best sound quality, and just wants to review some radio programs, then 6 hours of VHS is a pretty good way to do it, and certainly a lot easier that dealing with recording/ripping MP3s. As for finding content, some VCRs (my Mitsubishi is one) allows you to place index marks on your tapes that work just like track marks. Not all do, but if you do it's a great feature. las [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: While I'm sure that Dan F. knows that VHS Hi-Fi is not digital, I don't think he realizes that the problem with MP3 is usually the hardware and not the format. Not sure what this means, Larry. MP3 is compressed audio, but not only that, even at the highest bitrate it's inferior compression to our beloved ATRAC. In my mind, that makes the problem the format, since even the best hardware is limited by the format. Perhaps Dan has very high end equipment, but as impressed as I was with Hi-Fi video when they first came out (both VHS and Beta) I don't think that the sound quality is as good as many of the cuts on the MP3 CDs that I make. Perhaps it is our systems. Certainly possible. But I don't have high-end video equipment, just a nice Mitsubishi Hi-Fi VCR (although an older model from when Mitsubishi was the cream of the consumer crop for VCRs ;) ) - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: recording audio to video tapes
=== = NB: Over 50% of this message is QUOTED, please = = be more selective when quoting text = === What I actually want is to record shows off the radio without having to change media. Figured that if a videotape can hold 6 hours, then I could get the show on without doing much more than turning the radio and recording on with power timers. iT takes forever to convert a huge wave file in to an mp3, last time I did it, it took not much less than real time recording. I suppose my disk just isn't fast enough. Iomega.com has a free program called recordit. It records mp2 (yes that's right) on the fly. No need to record as wav and then convert. - 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]
Re: MD: Recording audio to video tapes
Gary Gilliland wrote: 4. VHS Hi-Fi is not digital and is usually implemented poorly for critical recording in all but really expensive pro decks. While I'm sure that Dan F. knows that VHS Hi-Fi is not digital, I don't think he realizes that the problem with MP3 is usually the hardware and not the format. I have compressed CD audio and WAV files to MP3 and then copied them on to a CD. I then played the CD using my Apex DVD player. The results seem cleaner than anything I have ever heard from VHS Hi-Fi. Perhaps Dan has very high end equipment, but as impressed as I was with Hi-Fi video when they first came out (both VHS and Beta) I don't think that the sound quality is as good as many of the cuts on the MP3 CDs that I make. Also, unlike linear audio, VCR Hi-Fi is not really dependent upon the speed of the tape. The specs for SP and LP are not that drastically different. LAS - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: Recording audio to video tapes
Oh, Will the six hour mode work OK without really noticing what this extra error will bring? I suppose the one thing is it will convert the audio in to a video signal so that all VCR's will record it. I kind of like the idea of having track markers, but how that really can be implemented, I'm not sure, but the four track cassette players usually have tones audible in rewind/fastforward modes that may be able to be counted automatically, if something supported that. At 02:22 PM 7/29/01 -0600, you wrote: 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] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: recording audio to video tapes
On Fri, 27 Jul 2001 13:45:23 -0400, las [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That would be 10 hours of compressed, BUT digital recordings made from digital originals. Larry, the implication in your post is that compressed digital MP3 recordings will sound as good as, or better than, uncompressed analog recordings. I would have to disagree. A good hi-fi recording on SP using a VCR will sound better than any MP3 file. But, as you said, that's only two hours, compared to 10 with MP3s. To answer the original poster's question, you shouldn't need any special cabling -- most hi-fi VCRs have stereo line-in jacks. Simply go from your tuner or pre-amp/amp to the VCR and press record. Although what I said above about audio quality won't be as relevant if you're using EP to catch 6 hours on one tape. The audio quality degrades if you use EP. - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: recording audio to video tapes
There my be some pro decks still out there, but why would you want to do it? You would still only have analog recordings. At best the PCM tape would sound about as good as the original analog. High quality MP3 recordings would probably give you better quality sound, if the original files were digitally recorded. On a 700 MB CDR you could record approximately 200 to 250 songs (depending upon the length of each song-obviously Patti Smith's Land/Horses is going to take more than 3 times the space of Del Shannon's Run Away :) ). If each song were an average of 3 MB you'd be able to get about 230 songs on the disk. And if each song averaged 3 minutes, that would be 11 and a half hours of music. OK, lets say my calculations were off and you could only get 10 hours on a CD (700 MB). That would be 10 hours of compressed, BUT digital recordings made from digital originals. You can purchase a CD Writer for as low as $100 (although I'd suggest going a little higher and getting a faster unit-say $150.00). A portable CD/MP3 player can be purchased for about $99. And you can even get an Apex DVD player (their basic model with no digital or component video out) which plays MP3s for $99. You can even get a car unit that plays MP3 CDs (although, I'd wait for the price to drop). You can convert any music CDs you have to MP3 files on the fly and either record them to HD and then to CD (I'd suggest taking this extra step) or even directly to CD). Although Napster is in a coma, it hasn't seemed to have affected Musiccity.com's Morpheus. I'm also fairly certain that legal downloads of most music will soon be available for a small fee (Morpheus is free and currently has about 350,000 songs available at any given time). Of course if I misunderstood your original question and you have songs recorded on analog media (vinyl, cassettes, etc.) that you need to transfer, your best bet, IMHO, would be to record them on to MDs. From there if you wanted you could copy them to your computer. LAS Brent Harding wrote: Is there any devices out that will allow recording of audio only signals to videotape? I remember hearing on the datheads faq about PCM decks that took the analog output of an audio device, converted it to digital, and then making it in to a video signal a VCR could record. I like the idea because it would allow 6 hours of audio on a single tape, but I'm doubtful that many VCR's would have track marking features to bookmark favorite spots in the tape. - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: MD: recording audio to video tapes
=== = NB: Over 50% of this message is QUOTED, please = = be more selective when quoting text = === What I actually want is to record shows off the radio without having to change media. Figured that if a videotape can hold 6 hours, then I could get the show on without doing much more than turning the radio and recording on with power timers. iT takes forever to convert a huge wave file in to an mp3, last time I did it, it took not much less than real time recording. I suppose my disk just isn't fast enough. At 01:45 PM 7/27/01 -0400, you wrote: There my be some pro decks still out there, but why would you want to do it? You would still only have analog recordings. At best the PCM tape would sound about as good as the original analog. High quality MP3 recordings would probably give you better quality sound, if the original files were digitally recorded. On a 700 MB CDR you could record approximately 200 to 250 songs (depending upon the length of each song-obviously Patti Smith's Land/Horses is going to take more than 3 times the space of Del Shannon's Run Away :) ). If each song were an average of 3 MB you'd be able to get about 230 songs on the disk. And if each song averaged 3 minutes, that would be 11 and a half hours of music. OK, lets say my calculations were off and you could only get 10 hours on a CD (700 MB). That would be 10 hours of compressed, BUT digital recordings made from digital originals. You can purchase a CD Writer for as low as $100 (although I'd suggest going a little higher and getting a faster unit-say $150.00). A portable CD/MP3 player can be purchased for about $99. And you can even get an Apex DVD player (their basic model with no digital or component video out) which plays MP3s for $99. You can even get a car unit that plays MP3 CDs (although, I'd wait for the price to drop). You can convert any music CDs you have to MP3 files on the fly and either record them to HD and then to CD (I'd suggest taking this extra step) or even directly to CD). Although Napster is in a coma, it hasn't seemed to have affected Musiccity.com's Morpheus. I'm also fairly certain that legal downloads of most music will soon be available for a small fee (Morpheus is free and currently has about 350,000 songs available at any given time). Of course if I misunderstood your original question and you have songs recorded on analog media (vinyl, cassettes, etc.) that you need to transfer, your best bet, IMHO, would be to record them on to MDs. From there if you wanted you could copy them to your computer. LAS Brent Harding wrote: Is there any devices out that will allow recording of audio only signals to videotape? I remember hearing on the datheads faq about PCM decks that took the analog output of an audio device, converted it to digital, and then making it in to a video signal a VCR could record. I like the idea because it would allow 6 hours of audio on a single tape, but I'm doubtful that many VCR's would have track marking features to bookmark favorite spots in the tape. - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: MD: recording audio to video tapes
BEGIN QUOTE=== What I actually want is to record shows off the radio without having to change media. Figured that if a videotape can hold 6 hours, then I could get the show on without doing much more than turning the radio and recording on with power timers. END QUOTE 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. Newer machines treat the line inputs as though they are TV channels - you select the input by using the channel selector buttons with the unit showing AV on the channel display. In Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other countries that use the PAL system, some HiFi VCRs offer Audio LP mode where the units will record only sound in the LP mode. If you are wanting the show recorded under timer control, you would use the VCR's own timer to start the recording at the radio show's time. On newer machines, you select the audio inputs by setting the recording channel parameter to the line-level inputs associated with the radio tuner. For older units, you set the machine to LINE-IN mode and set the timer to record any TV channel -- the unit records off the radio tuner connected to the audio inputs. In all cases, avoid setting the machine to SIMULCAST mode, which records the video from the built-in TV tuner and the audio from an external device. The only device that you need a power timer for is the radio tuner, and try to use one that uses a quartz-controlled digital clock, rather than an electro-mechanical cam setup. Also remember that if you live in the PAL countries (Europe, Australia, New Zealand, etc), you can buy the E-300 (5 hours in SP mode) blank tapes and when used with LP mode, you can record 10 hours of radio programming. With regards, Simon Mackay - To stop getting this list send a message containing just the word unsubscribe to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
