digitizing music-cassettes-not yet sure which method/player suits best

[europanorama]

http://www.kassetten-digitalisieren.de/
here is a wonderful instruction-in german-how to digitize and which software to use.
was trying out no23rekorder but someone mentioned win7s own audiorecorder.
Problem 1 was:
which player(hardware)?
there are special digitizers. some need pc some not.
and a longplay-player(plattenspieler) which can be conntected to HIFI-device.
using a standard-mc-player is easy. special ones have either usb/AA(for pc) or AA/psu(no pc needed)
the special ones are storing as mp3 on SD-card.
A tip is telling its better storing in AIFF-format for further improvement options.
so if i use a player which is storing mp3 only i can simply use a different software with multiple formats right?
or will it only store inside that device on mp3?

2. when using the long-play-solution can i also digitize cassette from the connected HIFI-device or can it only be save on a MC there?
Some of these players are very cheap now. maybe better using a good MC-player from the old days.

[Train]

The windows instructions shoulod work in XP too.
I would save in .wav and convert to .flac
Play them with VLC
.flac is NOT lossey and lots smaller in size than .wav is. And all the sound is there.

Now for ripping music cds
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/