Anyone know how to record soundbites digitally? by Kurukami

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Anyone know how to record soundbites digitally?

POSTED BY: KURUKAMI
UPDATED: Monday, December 2, 2002 17:20
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Monday, December 2, 2002 7:27 AM

There are tons of neat little one-liners and music snippets I'd like to put on mix CDs from various episodes of "Firefly". I've got most of the episodes from P2P, and I'd like to try to get a few snippets into separate .wav or .mp3 files.

Can anyone offer their expertise in such matters?

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Monday, December 2, 2002 8:07 AM

DELVO

What's P2P?

If you mean you've got them on video tapes or some other TV recording system, you need a computer program that records sounds into digital files. You could use a built-in microphone or an external microphone (or even headphones plugged into the computer's microphone jack and used as a microphone) while playing the quote on your speakers... but it would be better to use wires to connect an output from your entertainment system to your computer's microphone jack (a stereo "phono" jack, the same kind headphones plug into). That way, the sound never has to go through the air and become subject to the ambient accoustic conditions, which tends to degrade recording quality. But, in order to make this direct closed connection, you'd probably have to buy a long phono wire and possibly also a converter; it depends on what type the available output jacks are.

The wires and converters you'd need in this case are just a few dollars at Radio Shack. I downloaded a program for recording sounds into computer files for $10. Downloads.com is a good place to search for a sound recording program.

If P2P is an online source for downloading shows as movie files, then you need a program for cutting out sound clips from the files you've got. I use Quicktime Pro, which is a $30 downloadable extension on the free Quicktime player; with it, you can select the part of a media file you want and cut/copy/paste, and separate or recombine the audio and video elements. (I'm assuming the format is MPG or MP4 or AIFF or MOV... Real files and Windows Media Player files can only be read by their own programs...) Again, if you need or want some other program for the cut/copy/paste functions and audio/video separation, you can search for sound editors at Downloads.com...

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Monday, December 2, 2002 10:33 AM

LIVINGIMPAIRED

P2P means "Peer to peer" downloading services, like Limewire, KaZa, etc.

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Monday, December 2, 2002 3:18 PM

MORWYND

Connect the audio output from your television (or VCR, or sound system) to the Line-In jack on your computer's sound card.

Next make sure "Line-In" isn't muted in your computer's Volume controls, either in Playback or Recording. (You can switch to the Recording levels by going to Options/Properties)

Now you need software to record the audio data. I haven't done this myself in years, but Windows original Sound Recorder used to do just fine... it won't be in your Start menu anywhere, but look in your Windows directory for a file called sndrec32.exe and run that. Just hit the red record button and play the section on your tape or whatever. Sound Recorder even has cropping commands, "Delete before current position" and "Delete after current position" which you can use to shorten your clip to the precise boundaries you wish.

Next, you have to save it. Default is to save as a raw PCM WAV file, however, if you have the right codecs installed, you can probably also save it directly to an MP3, go to Properties and check out the Convert button.

Hope this helps.

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Monday, December 2, 2002 3:31 PM

MORWYND

Lemme clarify a couple points... if you have the episode taped on your VCR (hopefully in Standard Play, not Extended Play), you should try to connect the VCR directly to the computer for the best quality... the only reason to use TV or secondhand output would be if your VCR didn't have a dedicated audio output.. like if it only had coaxial cable output for example, but I imagine those are pretty rare these days. The fewer connectors and devices the signal has to pass through, the less opportunities for interference.

Also, avoid using a microphone to record the clip at all costs, it will pick up lots of background noise and atmospheric distortion that a direct connection will avoid.

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Monday, December 2, 2002 5:19 PM

KURUKAMI

Actually, I've got all of the eps as .mpgs, downloaded from WinMX. I'll investigate both the idea for QuickTime Pro and Windows Sound Recorder -- thanks for the ideas, all!

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Monday, December 2, 2002 5:20 PM

KURUKAMI

Arrgh, razza frazza double post. What's up with the .asp script saying it can't run?

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