Guys,

FYI. Should be good for moving songs from casettes to CDs.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/6908/?cpg=cj

I had come across this few months back , but than the question is once you convert all your tapes , lets say 10 , 30 or 50 tapes to mp3 than what ? Isnt this 150 price tag a bit too much for this kinda gadget ?

I just found out , there is someone in India who will convert all my cassette tape to mp3s for $1 per piece ... I am gonna go for that .....

http://forums.itweek.co.uk/thread.jsp?forum=17&thread=41704

What I cant believe is they still sell audio cassettes in stores. Who buys them??

U can get the best kind of audio converter cord for $15 from Radioshack and do it yourself, if you wanna save that much money.

Chitralekha.. there are many!

One such fine example is YOURS TRULY!

N

I am not talking about the ones we already have. Woh to mere paas bhi bahot hai, and I cant let go of them. Too precious stuff! I was very sad the day my car was broken into and my tapes of Hindi oldies were stolen. But I mean the new stuff... I am thinking people would rather buy a CD, no? or even better a DVD. Since last 5 yrs, all I have bought is CDs, no tapes.

Arre baba that is what I meant.. I still do buy the new ones in TAPES! It is easier to destroy them if I cant stand the songs any more

N *Wide grin*

In my experience, for old HFM, the ratio of tapes to CD's available in music stores in India is virtually 95:5 or less. Whereas in the USA, the ratio is in reverse, but the old music would be on compilations and not as the CD album of a movie.

HMV is very slowly converting into digital format it's huge archive of music and releasing them through HCD at snail's pace.

Particularly, for rare tracks from insignificant movies, it is impossible to get them on CD. I would love to get hold of even an audio-tape of "Adventures of Robin Hood".

No joke. You are in good company. When I was in India earlier this year, there was a newspaper report that the cars of Usha Mangeshkar and Hridayanath Mangeshkar had been broken into. They nabbed the culprit.

(I bet it was an HF member seeking "rare old songs in CD quality". )

If HMV releases CDs, the quality will be as bad.. sorry.. as good as a tape In India tapes rule. I think recently tips had priced its audio cd at 55 bukks for a movie. Inspite of a such tough marginal pricing, audio tapes still rule the market.

Aah achha, that sounds logical. I only buy the new music I like.

Interesting to know. thanks. I have been away from India too long to know the trends.

Btw, how much are new movies on DVDs? I have two DVDs that a friend got me. It has three whole movies on there. I wonder how much they cost and also the ones with one movie on each.

And how are the VCDs priced? My dad actually bought me quite a few of those but I haven't really opened them and watched any.

A vcd (Tseries) ranges from 99 bucks to Ultra/shemaroo ones to about 199 bucks .

Buying old movies in DVD is waste of money .. coz those manufacturers do nothing but converting vcds to dvds.

DVD range from 295 to 999!

N

Why people still buy tapes.. and why so many tapes are still sold in the market ???

When I was in India last year , I had asked this same question to the buyers as well as the sellers.... and the reason I got was some kinda convincing.... In India , for many people still 50 bucks or 55 bucks to be spent on Hobby is way little too much.... and when they spent it finally they looking for durability and longitivity of the product.... i.e. TAPE.....

The buyers told me the avg price of CD players are still not that cheap that average middle class people can afford it and than even if they save money to make this kinda big purchase.... they want to keep it for sometime unlike in other countries , its mostly like use and throwaway in less than couple of years..... So once you wanna keep it , you want less hassles of CD Skipping , CD Scratches , or the players LENS getting bad , etc.... and to repair the cost is again way to expensive.... so even if the quality is better of CD , the avg price of CDs and Players collectively makes it high cost maintenance thing......

Plus not many ppl can afford to buy cds players for their small cars.. so a cassette takes care of that too

N_pauper

I am curious to know why VCDs are not promoted/marketed in the U.S.A.

Took a chance and brought a bunch of them from India, downloaded free software, and watched them happily!

It's no big deal that a movie is in two VCD discs as compared to one DVD disc. And there was little to choose in terms of picture quality.

You are right Nimii about quality of old movies on DVDs not being any better than the VCDs. It's really sad. I can produce the DVD of the same quality, if not better from the video cassette sitting at my home. I converted some of the 2003 world cup cricket matches to DVD format using my 733MHz computer and a $60 video card and the quality was comparable to some of the DVD movies you get.

As for CDs, my guess is that many people still have cassette players only in their homes and in the cars. So cassettes will always be in demand.

Pranav

Kaash I lived in the same city as you did ... by now I would have got all my vhs tapes to dvd * wicked grin *

N

OK, next time I come to India I will come with all my stuff so I can convert the videos - mera india ka kharcha nikal jayega...

Pranav

he he he! yes yes.. i better open a hundi by the name Pranav-ticket/videoconversion-fees *grin*

N

Works for me!

Well, the trend is to digitize and store your music, videos etc. The cheap video card that I have does not have a video out . I will get the right card one of these days and then connect my PC with the satellite dish and the output from PC will go to the TV. This way, I can record all the wonderful programs straight into mpeg format and get much better quality than recording in VHS format and then converting it. With my current video card, I did the same thing, but the problem is, without video out, I need to keep a monitor next to my TV - that is quite inconvenient.

And I already have the wireless network set up so then I can pipe in all my RD audio that I have already converted to MP3s into my home entertainment system. Life set!!!

Sheikh-challi ka naam suna hain?

Pranav

Haan hindi text mein woh kahani thaa ..

N

If you have a digital satellite reciever from which the Optical / Coaxial audio outs are connected to the Dolby Digital AV receiver/decoder which in turn is also connected to all the other components of a classic home theater as well as a DVD recorder, then you can really enjoy the true benefits of true digital audio-visuals right in your living room. You can play, record etc etc, all digital. Some of the satellite receivers are available with a huge hard disk capacity too. But expensive.

Unni, there were both technological and commercial reasons behind the adoption of DVD over VCD in USA.

Among technological ones, the better compression algorithm (mpeg2 in DVD Vs mpeg1 used in VCD), higher resolution format (720x480 in DVD over 320x240), long recording capabilities (commerical DVDs can have up to about 9 GB of data as opposed to 700 MB on one VCD), and the capabilities to have a better user interface (in the form of animated menus and other remote operated functions) are main reasons.

Apparently, there was not much gap between before DVD technology arrived on scene here and VCDs were introduced. Hollywood never caught the VCD bandwagon and boy ain't it happy now. That is partly due to commercial reasons -- as it turns out, Indian subcontinent, China and Taiwan are the fertile ground for piracy of movies, where in unnamed factories movies are duplicated at unprecedented rates. Hollywood is more than happy to let the VCD technology prosper in those countries, that is until DVDs also begin to get copied cheaply and easily (in fact, I believe the trend has started also with very cheap DVD players available there now!).

I read that some of you did n't find some of the Hindi DVDs very good picture quality wise -- that is a reflection on the quality consciouness of desis. I have also come across countless dvds that refuse to play or are so poorly authored that I wished I had bought a tape instead.

And cramming three movies, as C. said, on one DVD is nothing but a technological crime. Left to me, I'd love to wrangle such manufacturer's neck.

Would like to know: What is the price of audio CDs in India which were released from All India Radio archives -- namely 5 volume series of various Indian Classical maestros?

All you need is Dazzle Video to USB kit... roughly around 50 bucks , dont even need to open up your computer to install a card ,etc and you can connect pretty much anything as long as you have the right cords.... like red , white and yellow or stereo headphone pin on one side and red and white on other side for the tapes to mp3 thing......

The problem with me is ofcourse AM LAZY and second thing I dont have a TAPE recorder since almost cpl of years now..... what a price to pay for being a gadget geek

Anu bhai , Aab India mei bhi DVD's are like for 200 to 300 bucks damn cheap.... but those are faaltu movies ya remix ke gaane wali DVDs... If you really want a good copy lets say like the YashRaj collection , etc it still might be expensive.....

About wishing ke should have bought VHS instead of DVD ... you are absolutely right, especially when buying OLDIES - RARE unheard movies ..... better not to go for DVDs as my experience being very frustrating when the DVD starts skipping dueing the CLIMAX or in between a wonderful song or the sound goes of during excellents DIALOGs..... I have tried all the vendors like EROS , INDIAPLAZA, NEHAFLIX, INDIAWEEKLY , etc... and local NY & NJ shops.... but its like hitting in the dark... some comes out to be good and some are real BAD .....

I don't have it handy but there used to be a site I use to refer before buying Hindi Dvds ... just like epinion.coom or reviews.cnet.com ..... it was specifically only for reviews on the copy or prints of hindi DVDs... a must have site for people like me who buys tons of Hindi DVDs

Yep , so true...I have all this .... High Definition Mpeg2 DVR recevier with component output and fibre optical output for digital sound... also Panasonic 120MB DVD recorder.... but than the question is for the hindi programs the channels are so so much limited from DISH Network and even with the premium package.... its all repetition of the programs over and over again ......

Well as long as I can archive my fav music programs paisa vasool ....

I have looked at the Dazzle card in Fry's a number of occassions, but just not convinced about buying it yet. I have been told that recording at a higher compression rate, the movie gets choppy.

Here's a technical question for you guys. Why doesn't it work when I put a coax cable splitter in front of my Dish Network receiver out and have one go into my TV and the other into say another TV?

Simple procedure
Connect the first TV via the scart cable. The RF out can be used to connect to your second TV. If you don't see anything on your 2nd TV, fine Tune the channel on your second set. If that doesn't work, try changing the frequecy.

More Dicey Stuff:
A modulator and a 6-way TV booster/splitter. The modulator connects to the SCART of the satellite receiver and mixes the satellite output with the ordinary terrestrial TV signal. Your receiver may already have a UHF in/out which case you might not need the modulator.

TV aerial connects to the modulator, then loops out to the VCR. Then to the booster, the six outputs of which are connected to televisions around the house.

It allows you to watch satellite or video or terrestrial on any TV in the house. The Sat & VCR can only be controlled from the living room and only one Sat channel can be watched at a given time.

If you want to have independent control of channels in each room then you need a Quattro LNB, plus a multiswitch or cascaded multiswitches for satellite reception in all rooms with a separate receiver in each.

If you need more, if time permits later

If you want to see in two different TV's the same program that the reciever is tuned into , than why dont you just use the TV output of receiver to connect to another TV. This works , I had used that in past... , the cable from dish goes into DISH 500 receiver , and I used S-Video out and Optical output to TV number 1# and than RF coaxial cable running from OUT TO TV of receiver to this another TV and would get audio / video both on this TV as well... The only catch is your reciever is still tuned to only one single channel no matter on what TV u see the program......

The second option is if you want two recievers which can be tuned to different channels using additional receiver access service of $5 ..... This can be done using two ways... (a) using twin LNBF eye ( old traditional ways of Dual LNBF and using switch SW21 ..... (

I am attaching both the pictures diagrams here...., is you have already registered for online access at www.dishnetwork.com ,more of this options could be found under installations menu .......

Good info. Thanks.

Yes, I did look into getting two LNBFs and that way I have two independent receivers. However, my primary purpose is to connect my computer to my home system. I think I am stuck with either getting something for my PC that has a video-out so that I can manage my computer using my TV and not have to put the darn monitor there.

Pranav

Why ? That is not a good idea... your TV has much much less resolution than your computer... so it is not and must not be used instead of monitor when editing videos , etc.....

Second thing why you wanna hog up the TV while you go through all that conversions or editing..... and ofcourse while you converting those , not gonna sit in front of TV watching the progress bar proceeding slowly..... for example when converting a raw 1 hr AVI into MPEG2 dvd format... gonna take almost whole 1 hr of conversion time.... What I normally used to do was leave the conversion ... and come back to TV to watch or record other programs, etc .... But now life is easier with the DVD recorder.... just put in the DVD-RW like a floppy disk record whatever you want from TV channels , songs or whatever rare oldies programs.... than pop it out from recorder... put it in your computer , and do whatver you want with that RAW format....convert to mp3 , vcd , dvd formats or whatever you want...

If you are a digital audio freak, don't connect your optical out directly to the TV, there is a big qualitative difference when it is channeled out via the A/V receiver-decoder, if you have this kind of set up. Present day receivers have plenty of optical & coaxial inputs for connecting a whole lot of digital components.


HDTV / Plasma TV (in the higher range) have resolutions almost similar to the resolutions on your computer. You can also connect them to the PC/Laptop & they have slots for SD cards/PCMCIA slots etc.

The more complicated stuff you want to do , the more complicated it becomes & more expensive it gets to be.
Better to "KEEP IT SIMPLE SIR(KISS)"

If you are a digital audio freak, don't connect your optical out directly to the TV, there is a big qualitative difference when it is channeled out via the A/V receiver-decoder, if you have this kind of set up. Present day receivers have plenty of optical & coaxial inputs for connecting a whole lot of digital components.


HDTV / Plasma TV (in the higher range) have resolutions almost similar to the resolutions on your computer. You can also connect them to the PC/Laptop & they have slots for SD cards/PCMCIA slots etc.

The more complicated stuff you want to do , the more complicated it becomes & more expensive it gets to be.

Word of advice. Dont buy it. I went through 2 in about 14 months. It goes bad in due time. Best way is to just use a walkman that has a good motor not the 5 dollar cheap players they dont last either or a home stereo.

That works better then that deck and lasts longer in long run.