I've been really happy with Real Encoder (from the hated Real Audio
people) in a 1997 version on my win95 desktop (look at the header on
this message).

There's an old 11 kbs music codec that's just fine for me, and it
produces about 6MB/hr of file ; and an 8.5 kbs codec for voice, at
4MB/hr.

http://rhhardin.home.mindspring.com/faure.ram sample music. Not
hi-fi but a pleasant sound, at least on my PC.

The chief thing that keeps me running this faithful old PC is that
Real Encoder is now gone. There's a Real Producer, but I don't know
if it has all the codecs, can run from batch mode, and so forth.

Its GUI is completely undecipherable. I run it from the command line.

Radio Shack has an audio cable, I think, that alleges it converts
line level to mic level ; you could do the same thing with a 500k
resistor, probably; adjust value for best sound, if that doesn't work.

Probably you'll need an isolation transformer in any case, as well.
They also have one of those. It's too bad there isn't an isolation
transformer that also does the line to mic level conversion.

--
Ron Hardin


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.