Importing Analog Audio to the PC the Easy Way (Part Two)
Last week, we looked at using analog lines to record audio sources to your PC. In such cases, the source you use is usually analog (e.g., a turntable or cassette player) but it doesn't have to be. You can also record audio from other sources (e.g., DVD players) that support analog Audio Out. In fact, I discovered that sound-card Line In recording works amazingly well: I couldn't tell the difference between a professional MP3 rip of a particular song and the version I recorded from an analog-connected DVD. Of course, your results could be different because of several factors, including the quality of your sound card, cables, or source material.

Importing Analog Audio to the PC the Easy Way (Part One)
An all-digital music library would be ideal, but most people have vast libraries of albums, cassettes, and other analog audio sources�not to mention other potential audio sources, such as concert DVD movies�that require analog copying. Wouldn't it be nice to get that content onto your PC? The catch�and there's always a catch�is that recording analog audio requires that you hand-tune each recording. Source: Connected Home Express, August 14, 2002.

Picking a Media Player Isn't So Simple These Days
Typically, I'm comfortable doling out advice about various digital media- and connected home-related topics, but if my recent attempt at writing a roundup of Windows XP-compatible media players has proven anything to me, it's that I still have a lot to learn. That experience taught me two important lessons. First, modern media players are complicated and offer a wealth of features, many of which won't interest the average user. Second, everyone seems to want something different from a media player. You can see why picking one product as the best all-around solution is often impossible. Source: Connected Home Express, July 17, 2002.

Do you have Digital Rights?
A battle brews occasionally between content creators such as authors, musicians, and television companies, and their customers, typically average consumers such as you and me. One famous case from the early 1980s pitted Sony against Universal City Studios and Walt Disney. This case started when Universal City Studios and other copyright owners sued Sony for offering a device�the VCR�that could record copyrighted television shows. The TV industry feared that Sony's device would devalue the industry's copyrights and lead to the death of TV as a communications medium. In a landmark 1984 decision, however, the US Supreme Court ruled that letting consumers record shows for personal use constituted "fair use." The message was clear: Sony didn't have to stop selling its devices just because someone could conceivably use the technology illegally. Source: Connected Home Express, June 12, 2002.

Digital Strategies: Digital Music
As with digital photography, moving to digital music is best done in steps, especially if you have a large music collection. Transferring music from CDs to your PC is fairly straightforward, if monotonous. But copying music from older audio formats, such as cassette tapes, is more complicated. In either case, the goal is to move your existing audio collection from its current media�such as CDs or cassette tapes�to your PC hard disk so that you can manipulate the music files in any way you want. You can, for example, organize and back up the music, transfer it to portable devices, and create custom CDs. The beauty of acquiring digital music is that after you transfer the music to your hard disk, you can easily use the music elsewhere, such as in your car, in your living room, or on a portable device. But first things first. If you want to move an audio CD collection to the computer, you need to plan: The software and media formats you choose matter. Source: Connected Home Express, May 30, 2002.

MUSICMATCH Jukebox 7.1 Plus Review
Because of the current proliferation of free and nearly free media players, choosing the one that's right for you is getting harder. In the April 10, 2002, issue of Connected Home EXPRESS, I discussed some obvious choices in media players; based on several reader responses, I decided to investigate alternatives. I immediately abandoned the popular but aging Nullsoft Winamp player because it lacks all-in-one tools such as a media library, which I consider crucial. Winamp also requires you to interact with the file system, which I believe to be needlessly complex for most users. A more traditional player, however, is MUSICMATCH Jukebox, which is available in free and paid versions. The free version-Jukebox Basic-lets you play, rip (i.e, record), and burn (i.e., create your own CD) MP3s and audio CDs, and works with a selection of portable audio devices. Source: Connected Home Express, April 23, 2002.

Apple iPod Review
Released about a month ago, Apple's portable MP3 player�the iPod�features the same design-savvy aesthetics as the company's iBook and PowerBook G4 systems, a generous 5GB of storage space, and yes, a hefty price. But any initial misgivings about the iPod are immediately forgotten when you pull the device out of its elegant box. Source: Connected Home Express, December 18, 2001.

Use CD-R for Digital Audio, Data Archival
When the first PC-based CD players appeared back in the days of Windows 3.1, installing and configuring the hardware was difficult, and CD systems were expensive. Today, however, recordable (and re-recordable) CD players are inexpensive, readily available, and easy to install, and although 650MB of space might seem a bit paltry in these days of mammoth-gigabyte hard disks, recordable CDs are still an excellent way to back up important data, such as digital media. Source: Connected Home Express, October 10, 2001.

Choosing the Correct Format for Digital Music
Consider how you plan to use digital music. You might plan to play digital music only on the PC, but what if you'd eventually like to make your own CDs or copy music to a portable audio device? These scenarios require a few considerations, including compatibility, speed, and file size. Source: Connected Home Express, June 22, 2001.

Tunes to Go
Once you have recorded your audio CD collection to the computer, the possibilities are almost endless. You can play music while you work, of course, but that only applies to time spent on the computer. Unless you're a real computer potato, you'll want to bring your music out of the office. And today, that's surprisingly easy to do. Source: Connected Home Express, June 8, 2001.

Paul Thurrott on Connected Home
An index of digital media articles I've written for Connected Home Express and Connected Home Magazine.
 

Music & Audio Tips From Connected Home Magazine

Download Windows Media Player 9 Beta
Yeah, it's only a beta, but you'll be amazed by how far Windows Media Player has progressed with this new release, Windows Media Player 9 (WMP9). WMP9 features an almost infinitely configurable user interface; cool new playback modes, including a Web-based InfoCenter view; Smart Jukebox features with Auto Playlists based on various criteria; crossfading and auto-volume leveling functionality; deeper shell integration on Windows XP only; powerful tag editing for WMA and MP3 files; high-speed CD burning; and numerous other improvements over Windows Media Player 7 and Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP). Download it now from the Microsoft Web site.

iPod Now Available for Windows
A few weeks back I mentioned Mediafour's excellent XPlay application, which lets you integrate Apple's iPod portable music player with Windows Media Player and the Windows shell. But Apple recently announced new iPod versions specifically for Windows users, and these models include a special version of MediaMatch Jukebox for no additional cost. Head over to Apple's Web site to check out the new iPod, which ship in 5 GB, 10 GB, and 20 GB capacities. Trust me, once you try an Apple product, you might find yourself thinking a bit more wistfully about that iBook or iMac.

Try Audio Books on Your PC, Portable Player, in the Car
Audio books on CD and cassette have been popular for years, but a new generation of digitally-delivered audio books--as well as other audio content, such as news, poetry, speeches, or public radio programs--may just prove to be one of the killer apps for portable audio players and other devices normally used for playing back digital music. Thanks to services such as Audible.com (http://www.audible.com), it's possible to purchase individual books (and other content) or subscribe to monthly services as appropriate. The advantage of digital audio content, of course, is that you can copy it to your iPod, Pocket PC, Handspring Visor, or other compatible device, or just listen to it on your PC or laptop. Commuters might consider one of Audible's subscription services, which let you download daily audio news reports from leading newspapers such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, as well as content from many popular magazines. And for listening in the car, any standard cassette adapter (about $20) will connect your portable device to the car stereo.

You Can Never Have Too Much Memory
Whether it's your home PC, digital camera, or portable digital audio device, you can never have too much memory, or RAM. Today's PC-based digital media tasks--editing video, ripping CD audio, or processing digital photos, takes up a lot of RAM, and while a faster processor will help, you'll probably get a lot more mileage out of your system if you upgrade the RAM. For PCs and Macs, I recommend at least 256 MB of RAM on a modern system, and more if you'll be doing video work. Portable devices like digital cameras will benefit from an upgrade as well; when I recently swapped out the 32MB CompactFlash card in my 2.2 Megapixel camera for a 256 MB version, my potential picture taking capacity rose dramatically, from 44 pictures to almost 400 images. And upgradeable digital music players will see similar results, simply be increasing capacity. Most memory is cheap today, too, though you should shop around, especially online.

Keep Media Players Updated
With much computer software, it's OK to simply install and use the software without ever worrying about updates and patches. But Windows-based media players such as Windows Media Player (WMP), RealONE, MediaMatch Jukebox, and Apple QuickTime are updated fairly often, and it's usually a good idea to keep up on the updates. In some cases--especially with WMP--these updates will actually keep your system more secure. But more often than not, you can add more and better functionality to your player as well. Here's how to keep the major media players up-to-date:
     Windows Media Player - WMP 7.1 and Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP) can be automatically updated through the Windows Update service, or directly from the player by choosing Help then Check For Player Updates.
     RealONE - RealNetworks' best media player yet includes an automatic updating capability that can be configured from Tools, Preferences, AutoUpdate. You can also trigger a manual update by selecting Tools, then Check for Update Now. This second option will also let you add features to RealONE, including media support and various plug-ins.
     MusicMatch Jukebox 7.x - MusicMatch Jukebox is set up by default to automatically look for updates periodically. You can find this option from Options, then Settings, in the General tab. To manually trigger an update, select Options, then Update Software. To add new capabilities, select Options, then Add New Features. This will launch a Web site that lets you add new plug-ins, support for portable MP3 players, visualizations, and Windows Media Audio (WMA) support.
     Apple QuickTime 5/6 - Like the other players, QuickTime will automatically look for updates periodically, and you can configure this feature through Edit, Preferences, QuickTime Preferences, and then Update Check. This dialog also lets you manually trigger an update. To add new features to QuickTime, you can launch the QuickTime Update application, which Apple includes in the QuickTime program group.

iPod on Windows XP? Yes You Can!
Apple's awarding winning iPod digital music player packs a 5 or 10 GB hard drive, simple but beautiful aesthetics, and a blazingly fast FireWire connection. But it lacks one crucial feature, especially if you're in the upper 95 percent of the computer-using public: It only works with Apple's Mac OS and not Windows. Well, thanks to some amazing beta software from Mediafour, that's no longer true, and it's now possible for Windows 98SE, Me, 2000, and XP users to interface Windows Media Player 7 (or, in XP, Media Player for Windows XP) with the iPod. I've been testing Mediafour XPlay for months now, and it's for real: Not only can you copy playlists to the iPod from within Media Player, you can also access your music through the Explorer shell, using a beautiful drag and drop environment that nicely complements Apple's elegant hardware. Check it out today at the Mediafour Web site.

Going Portable? Think Hard Drive
If you're looking into portable digital audio solutions today, it's time to think hard drive and forego the limited capacity, flash RAM-based units of the past. The best of the latest portable devices feature 5 to 30 GB hard drives and decent battery life, giving you the ability to take your entire digital music collection with you on the road. The best of the lot is Apple's iPod, which is available in 5 GB and 10 GB variants, though it's pricey and available to Macintosh users only. PC users can take comfort in larger capacities and lower prices, however, thanks to contenders such as Sonic Blue's Rio Riot and the Creative Labs Nomad series, the latter of which now offers USB and FireWire (IEEE-194) connectivity and 20 GB of storage space. Whichever you choose, you can't beat the convenience of having all of your music with you, no matter where you are.

Add New Music to Your Media Library
If you're using Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP) and would like to import some newly acquired digital music into your Media Library, there are two easy ways to do it:
     1. Through the Player. Press F3, point Media Player at the directory where you've stored the new music, and click Search.
     2. Through the Shell. Open the directory where you've stored the new music, select the music, right-click and choose Add to Playlist (curiously, there's no Add to Media Library choice, but this workaround will do the trick). MPXP will launch with the Playlists window displayed. Select an existing playlist, or create a new one (perhaps called New Music or whatever). When the music is added to the playlist, it is added to the Music Library as well. You can delete the playlist later if you don't want it.

Add Lyrics to Your Digital Music Files
One of the cool new features in Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP) is the ability to associate song lyrics with individual digital music files. Here's how: Open up MPXP and select the song to which you'd like to add lyrics. Then, right-click and choose Properties, then navigate to the Lyrics tab. You'll see a text box where you can enter the lyrics. Fortunately, you don't have to remember the lyrics by heart; instead, you can look them up on lyrics.com and then copy and paste. To view the lyrics while the song is playing, select View, then Now Playing Tools then Lyrics. A lyrics pane will open in the Now Playing View.
     This works for both MP3 and WMA formatted music. But if you're wondering why this isn't more automated, that's because lyric support was added very late in the development of MPXP, thanks to usability testing during the beta. Microsoft says that it try to add the ability to automatically download song lyrics in a future Media Player version.

Get Album Art for Previously Recorded WMA Files
If you've recently upgraded to Windows XP and would like your existing audio collection to get the cool Album Art feature--where the folder for each audio CD you've recorded is replaced by a copy of that CD's album art--then you're in luck. Microsoft has recently made available a free XP add-on that, among other things, adds this capability. The add-on is called the Windows Media Bonus Pack for Windows XP, and the tool you're looking for is called the Media Library Management Wizard. When you launch this wizard and point it at your music library (typically the My Music folder), it gives you two options: Clean up the media library or add new files. When you choose the clean up option, one of the subsequent choices is "Download album art." Choose this, and album art will be added for all WMA-based CD rips. What about MP3 you ask? Well, this is Microsoft, but as an interim solution, you can use a tool like Plus! MP3 Audio Converter LE, also part of the free Bonus Pack, to convert MP3 files to WMA before you get the album art. For more information, and the free download, check out the Microsoft Web site.

Backup, Backup, Backup
Not that I needed the recent failure of my 30 GB data drive to remind me, but when you begin storing all of your digital photos, music, and videos on the PC, it's more important than ever to backup regularly. I recommend a strict schedule, and if you use some sort of calendaring program such as Outlook, MSN Calendar, or Act, then be sure to set reminders so that you are prompted to make backups every week or so. While it's possible to use the built-in backup in Windows, it might be better to back up to removable media such as CD or DVD. And make two copies, bringing one off-site if possible. Remember: You can never backup too much.

Hard Drive-based Audio Players Perfect for Road Trips
If you think that hard drive-based portable audio players, like the Apple iPod or Creative Nomad are expensive, consider this: These players can store your entire music collection in a single, portable location, which is perfect for long trips and even the daily commute. If you do a lot of driving, you can connect such a device to your car stereo using a cheap (~$20) cassette adapter and always have access to your CD collection, no matter where you are. Just remember to keep your eyes on the road and preprogram a playlist before you leave the driveway.

Working with ID3 Tag Metadata
Each file encoded in the popular MP3 (MPEG Layer 3) audio format includes a special section, or tag, at the end of the recorded audio, that includes metadata information about the audio, including artist name, song name, album name, year, and the like. Dubbed ID3, this tag has grown over the years to encompass a wider range of metadata (including, even, song lyrics) and managing ID3 tag information has become a cottage industry of sorts. Here's why: MP3 audio players, both the PC-based and portable hardware kind, rely of ID3 tags to correctly display artist and song title information during playback. If the ID3 tags are incorrect, you're going to get a garbage display.
     The problem is that many MP3 ripping programs don't accurately populate ID3 tag files. I used RealJukebox, for example, to rip virtually my entire CD collection a year ago, but this otherwise wonderful tool has no way to fill in the "year" tag. So all my MP3s were reporting that all my music was from the year 2000, making it impossible to create an 80's playlist or whatever (we can debate the merits of that endeavor separately, I suppose). The trick, then, was to use an application that can edit ID3 tag information directly, and do it in a batch format so that you can change all of the songs from an individual CD album at one time. Media Player for Windows XP does this through the shell, but it's a bit ponderous. So I turned to a wonderful utility called MP3 Tag Studio. It's not free, but at $19, it's a good deal, especially if you've already ripped your entire collection and just want to clean up the tags. Check out this product at the MP3 Tag Studio Web site.

Batch Rename WMA files with Media Player for XP
The new Media Player for Windows XP (MPXP) includes a cool hidden feature that was recently revealed to me by Jonathan Usher, the group manager for Microsoft's Windows Digital Media division. As you may know, you can determine the format of the file names MPXP creates when you copy CD audio to the hard drive: Just go into Tools, Options, Copy Music and click Advanced to set up a custom file name format. But what if you already have a bunch of WMA files recorded and want to automatically rename them using your custom file name scheme? Thanks to this hidden feature, you can do this, though you must do it one album at a time. Here's how: Set up MPXP so that newly recorded music will follow the file name convention of your choice (say, Artist Name-Song Name.wma or whatever). Then, open the Media Library and select a CD album that was recorded with a different file naming convention. Right-click the album name and choose Get Names. This will connect MPXP to the All Music Guide (AMG) Web site and restore the original artist name, album name, and song titles from the AMG database. And if you click Finish, it will apply this information to the actual files, renaming them if needed, using your new file name convention. There's just one other limitation to this process: It only works with WMA files, not MP3s.

Repurpose That Old PC as a Media Server
In the old days, people would often toss out an old PC when the new one arrived, because PC technology moved along so fast that the old one was often useless. Today, that's often no longer the case, and any PC that's less than five years old can often be repurposed as a spare PC for the kids, a gift to a local school or charity, or you can use it as a dedicated media server to store your audio, movie, and photo files. If you do choose to go the media server route, be sure to purchase a new, high-capacity hard drive first, and back up often. Then, put it on your home network, and map drive letters to it from your other PCs. I use a home media server for this purpose, and it works fine on the wired Ethernet, home phone line, and wireless networks we employ.

Rip Audio at the Highest Quality, but Transcode for Portability
When it comes to archiving your audio CD collection, you want to save your music in the highest possible quality, while preserving disk space. For this reason, I used to use 160 Kbps MP3 files, but more recently, I've switched to 128 Kbps Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, which provides even better sound quality in less disk space. That's great for music you play off your hard drive, but what about portable devices, where space is at an even greater premium? Modern media players--such as Media Player for Windows XP--include a feature called transcoding that lets you compress music further when you copy it to a portable device, such as SonicBlue Rio, Iomega HipZip or Pocket PC. So you can store music at 128 Kbps on your hard drive, for example, and then transcode it down to your portable device at 64 Kbps or whatever. That way, you can have your cake and eat it too. On the road.
 

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Microsoft's XP Music & Audio articles
Getting Started
Courtesy of Microsoft: With Microsoft Windows XP, the whole world of broadcast and recorded music is at your fingertips. Play your own CDs. Tune in Web radio stations from across town or around the globe. Download music from the Internet, search for and compile information about tunes and artists, and do even more.

Copy Tracks from a CD
Courtesy of Microsoft: When you copy favorite tracks from a CD to your hard drive, you can you play them on your computer without having to load the CD. You can also save them for other uses.

Discover Music on the Internet
Courtesy of Microsoft: The Media Guide feature in Windows Media Player for Windows XP makes it easy to find your favorite artists and songs. Media Guide scours the Web for sites containing the music you are looking for. You can also type the Web addresses of sites you know or hear about into a search window at the top of the guide.

Create Playlists
Courtesy of Microsoft: You can arrange and rearrange the order in which you play music and other audio files copied to your computer. Arrangements of such files in order are called playlists. They're fun to create and take only a few seconds to set up. To get started, try creating a modest playlist with, say, six songs from three different albums copied to your computer and stored in Media Library.

Create Your Own CDs
Courtesy of Microsoft: Windows XP makes it easy to transfer�or "burn"�your favorite music or other audio files onto a recordable CD you can play on any CD player. Now you can take music from the Internet to your home stereo, car, or portable CD player, and you can create custom CDs containing only the tracks you want to hear, in the order you want to hear them.

Using Portable Devices
Courtesy of Microsoft: Take your favorite tunes with you when you jog or work out at the gym. Windows Media Player for Windows XP is set up to make the transfer of music to portable players as simple as 1-2-3. And since the music is stored on your computer hard drive, you can keep refilling your portable player as often as you want.

Enjoy Internet Radio
Courtesy of Microsoft: Think of it! Jazz from Paris, rock from New York, reggae from Jamaica, salsa from Brazil, even polka from Minnesota and bluegrass from West Virginia�and more�all with a few mouse clicks. Web radio, which is broadcast over the Internet, is like shortwave, only easier and better.

Give Your Player a New Face
Courtesy of Microsoft: Programs called skins govern the appearance of Windows Media Player for Windows XP. Don�t like the look of the standard skin? You can choose from 13 different designs that come with Windows XP, or select from others added frequently to the Windows Media Player Web site.

(c) 2001-2002 Paul Thurrott. All Rights Reserved.
This site created entirely with Windows XP and FrontPage 2002.