Some assembly required

Someone please tell me this was not the easiest way to get “Just Another American Folk Song” (from last week’s American Dreams) into iTunes:

  1. NBCKSDK, digital via satellite
  2. KSDK ⇒ Charter, analog NTSC over-the-air broadcast
  3. Charter ⇒ TiVo, encoded using MPEG-2 and stored on disk
  4. TiVo ⇒ digital camcorder, decoding the MPEG-2, transferring via an analog cable, and re-encoding to DV and storing on tape
  5. Digital camcorder ⇒ iMovie
  6. iMovie ⇒ iTunes, converting from DV audio to MP3

For those counting at home, that’s six different audio formats (not counting anything that took place before it left NBC), including four conversions between digital and analog. The result sounds that way, too…

(Yes, I realize I could have compressed steps 4–6 if I’d just recorded to the computer directly from the TiVo, but (a) the iMac is in a different room and (b) I don’t have a cable that long. I tried recording directly to my laptop, but I couldn’t figure out a way to connect a line-level signal to the mic jack without severe distortion.)

3 thoughts on “Some assembly required

  1. I would like to obtain the information of who sings the music “Just Another American Folk Song” (from last week’s American Dreams)

    Regards,

    Marcelo Vianna

Comments are closed.