The DIY Audio site is filled with a ton of projects and resources: Pass Labs, Solid State, Chip Amps, Tubes, Class D, Analogue, Digital Loudspeakers, Musical Instruments, Music, Introductions, a Market Place, Electronics Parts and Car Audio. The diyAudio wiki is a collaborative effort to create the ultimate DIY reference site. You can create or edit any Wiki page you like, anywhere you like Link. Thanks Sam!
Dan Glickman CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America has a opinion column on CNET about how the Broadcast Flag needs to go forward. This is what we’re up against. If you like MythTV, developing software projects and using your TV the way you want to- a lot could change if the FCC can mandate how anyone builds or writes software that goes near HDTV. Link. Also: listen to our interview with Cory Doctorow for more about the Broadcast Flag.
I think we’ll see something like this for all music players soon- This Widget for Mac OS X grabs the currently playing iTunes song and gives you the lyrics for it. It checks Lyrictracker.com first and if they don’t have the lyrics, iTunesLyrics checks another lyric database. Link.
Good resource- To transfer audio from aging cassette tapes or records, you’ll need some basic audio hardware and recording software. Cassette Deck or Turntable The first thing you’ll need is a cassette deck that can play back your tapes or a turntable for your records. Any tape deck with audio-out jacks should work...Link.
TotalRewind.org is a virtual museum of VCRs spanning pre-1970 up to the some of the latest systems and formats. Lots of photos, history and tidbits like this: The name Betamax is derived from a Japanese word “Beta”, which apparently means quality (and can also describe the recording system) plus “Max” to imply maximum quality. Link.
Kempa.com has a great overview of video on vinyl and the history of getting videos on all sorts of discs. In fact, there was a ‘format war’ of sorts that broke out amongst companies encoding video onto grooved discs, well before the VHS / Beta wars were waged. CED’s appear to have been the dominant iteration of this technology, though I’ve found reference to a number of similarly imagined formats, including VHD videodisc system, Magnavision/DiscoVision, phonovid and y. Link.
Mini review: The $20 Griffin XpressCable digital audio cable for Airport Express is nice- if your looking to get the best quality audio from your AE (or iMac G5) to your stereo (with Toslink/Optical inputs) this worked out for me and it’s about half the price than the Monster cable version. Of course the other fun thing to do is to point a laser at it for science experiments. Link.
