Recording TV audio broadcast onto portable media

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
  • 4_everyman
    Junior Member
    • Oct 2003
    • 10

    Recording TV audio broadcast onto portable media

    I'm looking for some advice on an audio/video project.

    Here are the facts:
    I'm a fan of the Imus in the Morning program. The program is carried on a local AM station starting at 6:00 AM. The first three hours of the Imus program are also simulcast on MSNBC from 3:00AM-6:00AM (I live on the West Coast, have Digital Cable, and MSNBC is available to me.) It's also available via the Internet on SurferNetwork. Right now, i hear a little bit of the show on the radio at home while i'm getting ready for work. I hear a little more of it on the drive to work. When i get to work, i can listen to most of the rest of it from my PC via SurferNetwork (Internet radio).

    What i want to do:
    I'd like to be able to record the first three hours so that i can listen to it in its entirety the same morning it's broadcast. All too often i have to miss large portions of the program. I do get to hear some of it while i'm driving, but i also frequently ride the train to work and because there's no AM reception on the train, i miss a lot of the program. I'm not looking to sit down in front of the TV at night because that would eat up a lot of time. I just want to listen to the audio while i'm commuting and while i'm at my desk working.

    My available hardware:
    * TiVo
    * PC with an AverTVStudio Personal Video Recorder (PVR) card

    Hardware i wouldn't mind acquiring for this project:
    * A home MiniDisc recorder
    * A portable MiniDisc player
    * An MP3 player with a USB connection

    I own a 1st gen MiniDisc recorder, but i had been thinking of upgrading to the new decks that offer LP4 mode (4X density) recording. This would enable me to record almost 300 minutes on a 74-minute MiniDisc, which is more than enough for what i want to do. Going the MiniDisc route, i'm thinking i could do the following:
    1. Wire the MiniDisc recorder to the audio outputs of the TiVO
    2. Set the TiVo on MSNBC when i go to bed
    3. Set up the MiniDisc recorder to switch on at 3:00 AM and switch off at 6:00 AM
    4. Take the recorded MiniDisc with me and play it on the portable MiniDisc player.

    Step #3 requires that i have a MiniDisc recorder with a Timer switch on the front panel (a 3-position switch that you can set for Record-Off-Play).

    A second option would be to record the program on my PC via the AverTVStudio PVR card and then transfer the audio to an MP3 player. Not a bad way to go, but it would require converting the audio portion of the 3-hour recording into an MP3 file and then transferring it to the MP3 player via a USB link. I've seen conversion utilities, but i don't know how long they would take to do this conversion and then how long it would take me to download the file to the MP3 player.

    The advantage to the MiniDisc approach is that the recording is waiting for me when i'm ready to leave the house. Recording on the PC is cheaper (less new hardware to buy) but it would require me to do this file conversion/transfer operation every morning before i can get out the door and go to work. Yeah, i don't have to babysit the PC while it's converting, but it would require some amount of hands-on effort and time. I'm already rushed in the morning so i'm not eager to get up much earlier to do this, but it's not out of the question.

    By the way, since it's talk radio, audio quality is not an issue.

    So, has anyone on this forum tried anything as wacky as this? I'm probably going to a lot of effort for a silly radio talk show, but coming up with a solution has become a challenging mental exercise for me. (Obviously, i'm easily amused!) I'm eager to hear from forum members about this. If you have another, less complicated (or less expensive) solution, please share it. If you think i'm nuts, feel free to point that out as well.

    Rgds,
    --Pete
  • Lex
    Moderator Emeritus
    • Apr 2001
    • 27461

    #2
    Interesting delimma Pete. Have you considered seeking employment with the show? Then you could be there live, lol. BTW, welcome to the forum!

    Some of your options seem viable to me. How about this?

    DVD recorder ? Put it on DVD RW, and you should have plenty of capacity. I don't know if the decks now have a timer or not. So you may wind up having to use a PC DVD Recorder. All this is gry area to me. I've never attempted such.

    3 hours is a lot of audio. I could probably make it through it, but it wouldn't be easy in my own job.

    Lex
    Doug
    "I'm out there Jerry, and I'm loving every minute of it!" - Kramer

    Comment

    • ThomasW
      Moderator Emeritus
      • Aug 2000
      • 10934

      #3
      I frequently record a 2 hr Rythm and Blues program broadcast on the local PBS Jazz station.

      I use the audio capture part of Pinnacle Clean ($50), taking the output from my FM tuner and saving the file to my hard drive.

      Then I use WaveLab also a part of Pinnacle Clean, to edit the program (remove public service anouncements, etc.). Then I use the Clean program itself to auto de-noise/de-hiss/de-pop/de-click and 'normalize' the audio levels.

      Finally I use one of the L.A.M.E. (freeware) based encoding programs to convert the .wav files to high quality mp3 that are then burned to a CDR.

      FWIW, I just finished archiving 19 C-90 cassettes containing psychology workshops to CDR's using this same technique. For spoken voice where sound quality isn't of paramount importance, this resulted in getting all the files on 3 CDR's vs the 30 needed had .wav files been used

      If you want more info just let me know.

      Regards
      Thomas




      theAudioWorx
      Klone-Audio

      IB subwoofer FAQ page


      "Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-Bresson

      Comment

      Working...
      😀
      😂
      🥰
      😘
      🤢
      😎
      😞
      😡
      👍
      👎
      Searching...Please wait.
      An unexpected error was returned: 'Your submission could not be processed because you have logged in since the previous page was loaded.

      Please push the back button and reload the previous window.'
      An unexpected error was returned: 'Your submission could not be processed because the token has expired.

      Please push the back button and reload the previous window.'
      An internal error has occurred and the module cannot be displayed.
      There are no results that meet this criteria.
      Search Result for "|||"