Number 239 - April 2003

MP3's Aren't Just Music Anymore
By David Navratil, Member 1960 PC Users Group, Houston, Texas July 02 PC News
Just about everyone with a computer has probably tried their luck with downloading MP3 files. In the past two years I've put together quite a collection of songs from the 1920's through the 1970's, accumulating almost 3,000 songs during that time. I've covered the Big Band era, easy listen, holiday music, country, folk, classical -just about every genre you can imagine. During one of my many afternoons of surfing the net look for that one elusive MP3 that would fill another CD-R, I came across a genre that was new to me but may be of interest to members of our club. Old Time Radio Show (OTR)    The name of these new finds is "Old Time Radio Show" or OTR's for short. What could be a better use for the MP3 format than OTR's! Most OTR's length is from 15 minutes to 1 hour. In regular "wav" format the size of one of these files could be from 60 MB to 400 MB but in MP3 format an average show is from 3 MB to 30 MB. Another advantage is that since most of these shows are from the 1920's through the 1950's the sound quality of course is not up to par with newly recorded material. This again saves you room on your hard drive because you don't have to use a bit rate of 128 kbps but can use 24 to 64 bits. (Most OTR's I've downloaded from the net are in 24 to 32 kbps.) This lower bit rate saves much space and when played back kind of gives the performance that "old time radio sound.". You can easily record 60 hours of OTR's onto one CD-R, using the lower bit rates, without sacrificing sound quality. OTR Sources    As to the quantity of OTR's available on the net, I have found at least 560 different series and as many as 57 ,000 different programs. Some of the more popular and easy to find are Amos & Andy, The Shadow, Fibber McGee & Molly, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Dragnet, Inner Sanctum, I Love a Mystery and the list just goes on. Most of these shows include the original commercials that were aired at that time. The shows started becoming popular in the late 1920's and I have some from as recently as the 1980's.	I have many of the "Classic Books" presented in OTR format. These are not audio books where one person just reads to you, but full productions with sound effects, music and such. Most of these last from one hour to three hours. The late Orson Wells was involved with many of "Classics". Some titles are "War of the Worlds," "A Christmas Carol,", "Pride and Prejudice," "Time Machine" etc. Finding OTR's    Finding these programs on the net is even easier than finding music. There are thousands of individuals who collect OTR's as a hobby. Most of them have their own websites and offer a few selections to download changing the selection each week or month. Many sites will also send you an email when new offerings are available. You can go to Google or any search engine and key in "OTR" or "Old Time Radio Shows" and you will get thousands of different sites. Also using one of the many music download sites, such as KaZaa, keying in the name of the series will bring up hundreds of results. You can join OTR clubs at any of the major websites like AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. There are OTR trade and share sites where you post a listing of the shows you have and can trade via CD-R with others for shows you need.    If you are running out of hard disk space or don't have a CD burner you can still enjoy the experience of OTR's. There are many sites on the web that broadcast the shows over the web in different formats. All you need to listen to these is one of the many free media players available on the web. Listen    Turn off the TV some night, relax and listen to one of these shows and you to may find that MP3's are not just about music!! A Few Sites    Here are a few sites to get you started:    http://old-time-radio.com/    www.starcreations.com/otr/links/MP3links.htm    www.homestead.com/repsonline/BrowserDownloads.html    http://users2.evl.net/~ey/audio.html    www.otrcat.com/index.html    This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of theAssociation of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization to which LACS belongs
Number 239 - April 2003