Challenging live AudioCD burning and mp3 encoding question

[Joel Kleppinger]

My turn to ask a question.

I'm trying to find a program that will burn an audioCD from an incoming live audio stream. I'm not sure whether I can do the audio stream digitally, though it may be an analog stream coming in.

What I want to do is make a live CD recording of whatever without having to store it as a wav on the hard drive first (since I only want a 500MB - 1GB hard drive on the system). Don't worry - it'll be a SCSI burner, and since it's burning at 1x, I'm not at all worried about buffer underruns. I just need something that will do it.

Now for the mp3 part. I want to take this same live audio stream and while the CD is burning away the audio, I want to also encode the stream in real time (should be feasible from a performance perspective with a C366 or better) and save it as an mp3 on the hard drive. I'd also love it (I know this is stretching here) if I could do a variable bit rate on the fly as well.

Yeah, I know it's challenging, but I'm also sure it's possible. What I want to know is whether it's been done, and if not, then some theory on how to do it. I have a few ideas, but nothing concrete.

[BBA]

Adaptec Spin Doctor will let you do this. It comes with easy CD creator deluxe.

[Joel Kleppinger]

Including mp3 encoding on the fly? I don't know of any programs that will encode from a live stream (but it wouldn't surprise me one bit that they are out there).

[BBA]

Well...you could run audio catalyst will do the MP3 conversion on the fly in real time..start both at once!

PS: You are weird! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[Joel Kleppinger]

Hmmmm... I'm looking at AudioCatalyst 2.0 right now, and I can see that I can indeed mp3 from an incoming Wave in, but only for a CD - and it cuts off when the track cuts off. If I were to do it that way, I'd have to have a CD with one track that filled the CD in the drive and then hit Grab for that track... but I don't know how well that'd work - I might have to wait for the entire track on the CD to finish before it'd keep the mp3 (otherwise, it'd be automatically deleted as a temp file).

Of course, that's just theory. There has to be a better way - perhaps I could try to write a front end for the Xing encoder to do it... but I'd rather not. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/wink.gif

Weird, eh? What's weird. You're weird. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif I'm merely trying to see how much I can get out of the technology I have - it's just natural for me. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif

[This message has been edited by Joel Kleppinger (edited 02-02-2000).]

[BBA]

I think you can set input for audio cat to be a line in device just like spin doctor...I might be wrong tho.

Anyway, if recording audio directly in to MP3 and CD, it would be a continous track of audio on the CD as well as for audio cat to mp3, so starting/stopping at each track would be a moot point...since it's all one track!.

Oh...I just think it's a crazy scheme to do what proffesional devices do at a fraction of their cost, but the professional devices wll be more practicle...not that your really 'weird' weird...

[Joel Kleppinger]

Well, I'll keep looking at it, but I can't see that feature (at least on v2.0) without having to be "ripping" from a CD in the CD-ROM drive.

The reason I want to do this is to record daily live performances to CD and mp3 to make them available over the web and by personal CD duplication. I thought a little about one of those Magnavox CD->CD burners that would also do a line in burn, but I figured that since I can spare some hardware, this would be the better (and cheaper) way - and make things simpler, yet more powerful.

I'm aware that everything will come out as one track, and I'm fine with that. The problem I noted is that when AudioCatalyst rips straight to mp3, it deletes the mp3 if the rip is canceled in the middle of it. So, if I were to end the recording by "canceling" after I was done, it's likely that the mp3 would be deleted. That was my point.

Thanks for the note on Spin Doctor - that does do the CD part of what I want to do... now to figure out how to do the mp3 part and then integrate the two into one "Record" button (if possible).

[BBA]

Well, I'll poke around a little and see if anyone I know has any thoughts on it.

[Bleeding Edge]

If I remember correctly, you don't care for MusicMatch software, however, it'll do the mp3 part as you want.

[Joel Kleppinger]

Well, I just _prefer_ AudioCatalyst for ripping CDs to mp3, but in this situation, I can't be a chooser. Thanks for the heads up - I'll check it out.

[Joel Kleppinger]

^ Shameless bump to the top. http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif