Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

billege · 10-24-2006, 06:46 AM

I'm looking for an application that will solve an audio cassette to mp3 issue I have.

During one of our business functions we have to import audio conversations from mini-cassettes to MP3. Generally, the tapes are 30 minutes long, but the actual interview is shorter than that. Often, the audio is only 5 to 7 minutes.

We have two options:
Employees can put a tape in, hit play, click record, and the entire tape gets recorded to mp3.

Employees (and this is what we do) have to keep half an ear on the tape and manually stop the mp3 recorder/converter software when the audio runs out. This avoids several mb per recording of silence.

For example: an 8 minute conversation recording takes approx. 8mb. Letting the tape run past that and record silence ends up taking 18mb. It's about 16kB/s. We don't want to burn 10mB per recording on silence.

I suppose an option is to reduce the bitrate. I'll be lookign into that. However, the business unit is pretty happy with the conversation voice quality, so bitrate may not be somthing I can play with much.

What I am looking for is either an mp3 editor that will very simply let users edit out the silent part of an mp3, or an mp3 recorder/converter that will automatically cut a recording when there's no more audio.

Our goal is to eliminate the time our associates spend listening to audio cassettes in real time, just so they can hit "stop" when the audio stops. I want them to be able to hit "play" and walk away until it's done, then cut out the minutes of silence at the end.

10-24-2006, 06:46 AM	#1 (permalink)
billege Watcher Location: Ohio	MP3 Editor I'm looking for an application that will solve an audio cassette to mp3 issue I have. During one of our business functions we have to import audio conversations from mini-cassettes to MP3. Generally, the tapes are 30 minutes long, but the actual interview is shorter than that. Often, the audio is only 5 to 7 minutes. We have two options: Employees can put a tape in, hit play, click record, and the entire tape gets recorded to mp3. Employees (and this is what we do) have to keep half an ear on the tape and manually stop the mp3 recorder/converter software when the audio runs out. This avoids several mb per recording of silence. For example: an 8 minute conversation recording takes approx. 8mb. Letting the tape run past that and record silence ends up taking 18mb. It's about 16kB/s. We don't want to burn 10mB per recording on silence. I suppose an option is to reduce the bitrate. I'll be lookign into that. However, the business unit is pretty happy with the conversation voice quality, so bitrate may not be somthing I can play with much. What I am looking for is either an mp3 editor that will very simply let users edit out the silent part of an mp3, or an mp3 recorder/converter that will automatically cut a recording when there's no more audio. Our goal is to eliminate the time our associates spend listening to audio cassettes in real time, just so they can hit "stop" when the audio stops. I want them to be able to hit "play" and walk away until it's done, then cut out the minutes of silence at the end. __________________ I can sum up the clash of religion in one sentence: "My Invisible Friend is better than your Invisible Friend."