Date   : Mon, 29 Mar 1999 19:07:51 +0200
From   : "Robert Schmidt" <robert@...>
Subject: Re: BBC tape to MP3 and back to Beeb

Considering the low baud rate of the BBC tape signal, there's lots of
redundant information in a straight sample of a tape.  Of course, the
risks in using MP3 are:

1) the initial sampling rate (when making an uncompressed WAV, for
   example)
2) the compression factor chosen in your MP3 compressor.

I think Chris Richardson posted reasonably safe figures for this.

That said, tape is a lossy medium anyway.  It was amazing how bad tapes
could sound, while still loading flawlessly on the Beeb... :)

I'm sure your circuit is fine, but does it handle noise and spikes? 
They gave me a hard time when I wrote my BBC tape decoder program.  (I
wrote it without any knowledge of signal processing... :-)

Christopher J Thornley wrote:
> 
> Would there not be data loss? MP3 is lossles compression i.e an aprox
> representation of a signal. So you have to set the data rate correctly. Other
> wise you could lose all data.

--
Robert Schmidt <robert@...           > Software Engineer
Technoguide AS: http://www.technoguide.no
Tel: +47 22510463  Fax: +47 22734749
Private: http://www.nvg.unit.no/~rsc
Tel: +47 22606076 

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