How to Organize your Digital Audio CollectionWritten by Ross MacIver
If you have been collecting audio files for even a short while, you probably have a fair number stored on your computer. Finding a specific song by clicking through directories can be tedious and time-consuming, so you really need a way to find what you are looking for quickly and easily. Fortunately, there are many software packages that can help you do just that – organize your music collection and let you find songs by name, artist, or almost any other classification.MP3 files can have “tags” imbedded in file that store information about song. Standard tags are Title, Artist, Album, Track, Year, Genre, Composer, and Comments. Most MP3 files that you find on internet will use at least some of these tags – Title and Artist being most common. If you have lots of MP3s that don’t have tags, you can use a program like MP3 Tag Tools that can add tags automatically. MP3 Tag Tools is freeware and there are many other programs that have similar functions. Tags will be generated from file name or folder name. You can process all your MP3 files at same time, and even re-name files according to their tags.
| | How to Capture Streaming AudioWritten by Ross MacIver
Streaming audio is all over web these days. There are live radio broadcasts, video and audio streams, and many music vendors use streaming audio as samples of their products. You can listen to song, but unless you buy it, it can’t be stored on your computer. Or can it? The simple answer is “Yes”! We’ll take a look at a few methods for recording streaming audio.First of all, we should examine what streaming technology is and what it is used for. The traditional method of listening to music or watching videos on your computer was to download entire file and play it from your hard drive. Streaming works in real time – you can view video or listen to music as it is being downloaded. The data arrives in a “stream” of bits from server to your computer. The obvious advantage of streaming is saving time – you can listen to stream a few seconds after download is started. Streamed audio and video can also be protected from copying by Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. This is often done by commercial vendors of video and audio to control distribution of their content.
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