Recording archive radio to MD

dillon

24-07-2003

How can I best connect my Sony Minidisc recorder to my computer so I can record radio programs - either live or the one weeks' repeats that are streamed.

I have tried just plugging the speaker output from the computer into the miniisc digital input but the quality is very poor.

Is the quality of the streamed archive radio show poor , or is there a better way to connect?

Thanks for any help; Keith

comicsansserif

24-07-2003

The "line out" output should be fine to do this, however make sure that the volume level on your computer is not set too high otherwise the sound will distort due to clipping when recorded and this could be why your recordings may sound poor.

Can you adjust and see the recording level on your mindisc? If so you will be able to see if it's too high.

chris_paulin

24-07-2003

i am presuming you are trying to record shows from the bbc player. These are not the best of quality as they are only 32k/bs. You will find that the quality of most web streams to be bad.

Larry Scutta

25-07-2003

I've tried something like this before, even with non-streaming clips on the computer the quality can be bad. Presumably this is because of the culmulative loss of audio in the transfer to MP3 and then to Minidisc format.

comicsansserif

25-07-2003

I've never had any trouble converting mp3 to minidisc. If the audio sounds OK on the computer it should be OK on minidisc. You will always get some loss of quality on conversion but in this case you are converting from a higher compression system to lower compression so the difference is much less noticeable than the other way. Personally I can't tell the difference from an mp3 and its minidisc recording.

davey_do_little

26-07-2003

You say you are plugging from pc to digital input on minidisc?

The speaker out will be analogue so you will need to do an analogue recording I think

regards

d_d_l

comicsansserif

28-07-2003

Quote:
“Originally posted by davey_do_little
You say you are plugging from pc to digital input on minidisc?

The speaker out will be analogue so you will need to do an analogue recording I think”

Hadn't noticed that, but a lot of portable minidisc recorders have a dual use socket which accepts both analogue and digital optical via the same socket. If he's using a optical cable to connect to the analogue PC then he's not going to get any recording never mind a poor one, so chances are the connection's the right one.

Rodney

28-07-2003

Get a soundcard with an optical digital out and connect the md via a toslink cable. This will give you the highest quality possible. The soundcard should only be about £30.