MP3's on the TS1000

I just spent some time experimenting with capturing an audio cassette
on PC using Polderbits (a nice program that I have been using for years
to convert tapes to cd's - you can get it at
http://www.polderbits.com). The program I captured is Vu-Calc. After
tinkering with the cassette volume (so there is no tape hiss when on
silent portions) and the Microphone volume in Polderbits (about notch
6) I saved it as an uncompressed .WAV file (as a backup). After this,
using the same recording in Polderbits I saved it as 5 MP3's 96kb,
128kb, 192kbm 256kb and 320kb (all CD quality, Stereo, all at 44khz
except the 96kb which was 32khz). Next I used Windows to copy the 5
MP3's to a CD as files (not as audio).

Once this was done I pulled out my portable MP3 cd player/stereo,
hooked up the earphone jack to the TS1000 and started trying to load
from the MP3. To my surpise, after playing with the volume on the
stereo I was able to load the 96kb version of Vu-Calc from the CD into
the TS1000 and run it! The 96kb file is 2 minutes 24 seconds in length
and 1.65 mb in size.

This opens up many possibilities for the TS/ZX. You can take all of
your cassettes and copy them to one (or more) CD's and put the
cassettes away in storage. You have instant access to any program just
by switching tracks, no rewinding or changing tapes.

For more information and sample files see the board at:

http://www.ts1000.us/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?board=HARDWARE;action=display;num=1140193621

Bill H - www.ts1000.us

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