| With IPODs and all of this MP3 talk, not a lot of people really know what this is about, so, I'll bring you all up to snuff on this and give you a short seminar here -- 'cause I know all about this! "Audio" has been my occupation for the last 40 years! I got my first tape recorder in 1960 and have played with them since! My early days was playing with reel to reel recorders -- I only have about 6 decks left -- and I've got over a thousand reels of "stuff". About 25 years ago CDs came in -- and sound was no longer analog, but digital -- many advantages, among them was that you could make a copy of a copy of a copy of something with no loss in quality. Also, computers can handle digital information in an instant, a CD copy can be made in 4 minutes. Now we come to the interesting part. A regular CD holds 80 minutes worth of material. (twice of what a record album holds) About ten years ago a new way of coding audio digitally was invented, called MP3. So -- what's the big deal? Well, it crams audio in perfect quality using much less memory. That means a CD recorded in MP3 holds 40 hours worth of audio. Now, every time I tell somebody that, their eyes sort of glaze over -- nobody seems to comprehend what that means. So, let me go over that again! ONE CD RECORDED IN MP3 CAN HOLD 40 HOURS WORTH OF PRISTINE STEREO AUDIO. About half of the new CD players made today WILL PLAY MP3 audio. And of course, your computer plays MP3. Now think about that for a minute. 40 hours. You can transfer 60 of your old record albums onto ONE CD. I like old time radio programs -- I ordered 850 Jack Benny half hour radio shows -- which came to me on 9 CDs. I transferred them onto my cheap 12 dollar audio IPOD -- 40 shows at a time -- and listened to Jack through my little earpod headphones while I was doing my laborious labor in the shipping department of my company! As a source of reference, I email to you guys audio in MP3. 30 minutes worth of stuff can fit into 9 megabytes. When I email anything, I usually keep it under 10 megabytes. (and before high speed phone lines came in, I didn't email over one megabyte to anybody) So, if you've got a pile of old cassette tapes or whatever of precious stuff -- you can more or less transfer the whole she-bang onto one CD. Now what? Throw out all of your tapes and put the little CD into a safe deposit box so that you don't lose it? I have a CD duplicating tower. It makes seven CD copies in four minutes. Blank CDs in bulk are about 15 cents each. You can make copies for 100 of your closest friends and relatives, and it will NEVER be lost! (and you can burn duplicates on your computer) Now, can this get more awesome? Well, a DVD is just like a CD, except it holds 7 times more information. YOU CAN GET ABOUT 270 HOURS WORTH OF AUDIO ONTO ONE DVD. (your eyes just glazed over again -- and pick up your jaw from the floor) Blank DVDs in bulk on sale cost about 20 cents each. That's really cheap efficient storage, ain't it? So now what? Well, you can get "MP3 maker" types of software for about 30 bucks or more, and connect your record player or cassette player or old tape recorder to your computer, and feed it into your computer memory. And you can then start burning CDs of your stuff -- either the regular way or MP3 way. And if you have a pile of old CDs, you can "rip" them into your computer very quickly, and put your whole collection onto one CD. And you can also dump all of this stuff into your little IPOD straight from your computer, and listen to all of this while you're doing your daily menial labor types of things. A cheap basic audio IPOD starts at 20 bucks. (it's kinda like a flash drive with headphones) A video IPOD, the size of a credit card, is a few hundred dollars, I got the cheapest one that Best Buy had at $69. I just got another one for $29. The more expensive ones cost ten times that much. And an IPOD holds about what a DVD would hold in terms of memory. And on a video IPOD, you can watch pre-recorded TV shows. One question -- how well do CDs and DVDs last through the years? Well, they're not totally indestructible as people once thought -- there is something called "CD rot" -- if you put your CD onto your car dashboard in the hot sun for a day, forget about playing it again -- but if you keep moisture and extreme temperatures from it, it should last a lifetime. Also, make copies of your CDs and DVDs -- it's cheap to do. They're not magnetic at all -- magnetism will NOT affect it in any way. That's enough ramble for now, class is excused, but this is my effort to keep all of you guys smarter than your kids! |
| SO WHAT'S MP3 GOOD FOR? |