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Building a CDR/CD-RW Appliance?
Fafhrd asks: "My father has developed a new hobby: He records music shows from his satellite dish TV, digitizes the music, and burns a CD to listen in his car. We tried digitizing to the computer as the show runs, but it's cumbersome, as we have to drag the computer across rooms to plug the dish box's Audio-Out into the sound board's Audio-In. So, I'm planning to build a device to do it for him. Just a ATX baby board with sound, a CD-RW and a big HD.
Any ideas on what hardware is the best for this? Where can I find a case compact enough to house it, and not look out of place beside the VCR and the dish set-top box?"
A book-sized PC does sound about right. A Google search for "book pc" shows several sources. I see that EZ-BookPC has several pretty devices, including some with video outputs.
Speaking as the originator of this AskSlashdot...
;) Take a look at http://www.empeg.com (now the RioCar, or something like that). I think building our little appliance will be easier, actually (think about car vibration).
Putting another computer on the car is a very different project
By slim-line case, you're saying something like those "pizza box" computers? Haven't seen them being sold around here lately... Any websites?
Agreed on the "good excuse for hacking"... That's what drew me to this project, actually.
;)
I haven't heard much about MiniDiscs lately, how much would you expect these (a recorder and a portable player) to cost? I'll look into that...
Actually, DirecTV receivers in Brazil don't have SPDIF. I'm actually using a plain-vanilla RCA-to-line-in cable directly to the computer. That's an improvement, as my father wanted to use cassette tapes as a transfer device... Until he heard how the first one sounded like
Actually, I'm talking about what I see available around here. Keep in mind that I live in Brazil, and I haven't ever seen a FlexATX board. However, they sound intriguing.
That said, I could always try buying one on the 'net... Do you recommend any sites?
If I could find a Celeron-level (I'd prefer Duron, but I'm afraid it would generate too much heat) board with an Creative onboard audio, I'd be set...
Great link!
;( Were it free software, I'd work on a sound recorder for it...
This package is really nifty. I'll download it and take a look.
However, it seems to be more of a media player app. And closed source, at that.
This Terapin sounds perfect!
;)
I'll show it to my family, and if they are so inclined, that will be the way.
Too bad it has little hack value... I'd still prefer building one myself
This seems to be just what I was thinking about! The size is just about right.
Thanks, I'll look into this further.
Cool concept. However, I think this particular board is a bit too small for what I have in mind. I don't see an IDE connector on the specs. Is there such a thing as a CompactFlash CD-RW? It's probably very expensive anyway.
You can get a bookPC without the cpu and memory for under two hundred, which looks nice next to the other audio/video components, and runs fairly cool. Drop a cdr into that, write your own app and you're done. Best of all, most book PCs output video so you can write your own tv controller app, and use a remote to program it.
-Adam
Honk if you've never seen a bazooka fired out a car window.
This sig 80% recycled bits, 20% post user.
Sometimes the problem is a good excuse to start hacking away like a lumberjack (and that's ok) until it gets you to work all night and sleep all day.
Seriously, what I'd do is place my MiniDisc recorder with the TV top and use a portable MiniDisc player (or another set top recorder) to hook it up to my PC.
Advantages:
1- It has a remote control, so you can start recording at will at anything you see.
2- It automatically breaks tracks up when there's a slight pause (and on music-only channels like MTV, this is the case)
3- Given a high quality digital sattelite receiver, you can use SPDIF to capture the music digitally from the start. If not, the AD converter of the MDS-JB920 (that I have) is far superior than most soundcards on the market today (remember: your PC is a noisebox)
4- Given a SoundBlaster Live or any other soundcard with SPDIF, I can digitally transfer music from my recorder to my PC and turn it into MP3s, or burn it on a CD.
Remember: garbage in means garbage out.