Date   : Fri, 29 Jul 2005 11:18:40 +0100
From   : Tim Fardell <tim.fardell@...>
Subject: Re: MP3 BBC tapes

Pete Turnbull wrote:
> MP3 works fine.  The losses don't affect what's required by the system.
> 
> Why invent something new when MP3 is already widely used?  It's not
> just used for people with BBCs, but also for lots of other machines
> that have audio tape I/O; it has the advantage of being standard,
> widely available, and portable. 

I refer the honourable gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago:

In Message-ID: <42D8DCFE.9030306@...>, I wrote:
> My other "platform of interest" is the ZX Spectrum, and for that, nobody 
> bothers to store the original audio - we use .TAP and .TZX format files.
> 
> http://www.worldofspectrum.org/TZXformat.html

In Message-ID: <42DA40E5.7010201@...>, I added:
> TZX and TAP files can be "replayed" as original Spectrum loading 
> tones and loaded into a real Spectrum. I do this quite frequently. There 
> is even a WinAmp plugin to replay TZX files out to the Spectrum :-)

The files have the other advantage of being titchy, and can easily and quickly 
be converted back to audio for transfer to your portable MP3 player, to take to 
the exhibition.

We have UEF for the Beeb - I think that's all we need, to be honest.

I think we have agreed that mp3 *does* work well, but I suppose I am now 
questioning whether there really is a need to keep the original tape sounds as 
audio, when this can be re-generated on demand from a UEF.