Oh yes Alexa and going even earlier than that, I remember when there was no TV so we listed to radio programs such as Ozzie & Harriet, Mr. & Mrs. North, Lux Theater, The Edgar Bergen show with Charlie McCarthy, Amos and Andy. We read books and comic such as Archie, Little Lulu, Donald Duck and played cards, jacks, pick-up sticks, Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly, hopscotch, skipped rope, and roller skated on heavy metal skates that you clamped onto your heaviest shoes using a tightening key on a cord that you hung around your neck, until you needed to tighten them again. Balloons had just been invented or reinvented after the war. Records were 78 rpm until the Long plays LPs and the 45s came out. We could play outside all day until we heard our moms standing on the back porch calling our name for us to come in. Girls all wore dresses to school and wearing trousers or slacks (as they were called) to school was forbidden except when there was deep snow. We wore gumboots over our shoes when it rained. When we picked up the phone, an operator said...'Number please', and the phone cord was black and not spring coiled. People who came to the door: the milkman, the egg man, the newspaper boy, the grocer bringing the groceries, the boy from the meat market, the laundry service with dad's white work shirts, the Watkins man, the bread man. There were no supermarkets. We fought over who could read the Sunday comics first when the weekend newspapers arrived on the front porch. And we walked miles to high school carried a load of books and an umbrella, usually open. I guess I'm going farther back in time to when most here were not yet born lol! SharonCb

I took a quick look at a review for the InstantMusic box and it is just the kind of thing I'm talking about. I actually have a stereo system (receiver, turntable, cassette deck, CD player) hooked up to an Onkyo audio hub (no longer made) which then feeds my Macintosh. Works great. Mine just converts to bits, and the software I use has to convert into the various music formats; this goes one step further. For $40 or so, it looks like just the ticket. The various music formats. There are a bunch of them. AAC, MP3, and WMA are the most popular. AAC is the format used on iPods and Apple's iTunes by default. Apple claims that AAC results in better-sounding files that are the same size as MP3 files. I don't know anyone who has a particular opinion on that, though I'm sure this is discussed to death elsewhere on the Internet. Music you buy from the Apple iTunes Music Store also is AAC-encoded. One disadvantage is that music from the iTunes Music Store has additional coding that makes it difficult to move those files to a non-Apple player (the main exception being iTunes for Windows). MP3 is the more generic format. iPods can play MP3s as can digital audio players from whoever is left in the business (Apple owns about 80% of the legal digital music business). WMA is a Windows Audio format. I don't know a lot about WMA other than Microsoft would prefer you use it. :-) I have not heard that it sounds significantly better or worse than any other format (including ones I haven't mentioned here); the big issue with WMA is that if you're not using a Windows-based system for playback, it will be harder for you to find a player for WMA-encoded files. Not impossible; just harder. It's not as popular a format as AAC or MP3. The general things to remember about digital audio formats are 1) that the smaller the file, the less good it sounds. That may not be a big deal if you're listening through iPod earbuds or a portable speaker or your cell phone -- it may sound just fine through those devices. It might be a bigger deal if you pipe your music to a quality home stereo. But it costs you pretty much nothing to try it for yourself; and 2) unless you have access to an "uncompressed" digital file of the music (or the original record/tape/CD), once you "rip" it into one of these formats, converting it to another format often causes some audible damage to the file. Then there's the labor that entails. So you might want to think just a bit about the format in which you want your music. It would be a pain to have to convert hundreds of files if you decide to move to another player that can't handle your chosen format.

First off let me say that I prefer Mini DV camcorders to the direct to DVD type. If you plan on editing you video then a Mini-dv will end up giving you a better quality result because it will stay uncompressed until you are done and ready to author the DVD. In the DVD camcorders you get MPEG compressed video on the disc so any editing will uncompress and then recompress resulting in lower quality. To answer your questions: 1. The mini dvd's are either DVD-R or DVD+R discs these differ not in the content on the disc from normal DVD's but in the actual disc itself. The recordable disc's both mini and full size use a color changing dye to record the bits of data while a normal dvd is a pressed layer. Most newer DVD players and DVD-ROM drives in PC's will read either format with no problems. However you can go to Video Help.com and look up your DVD Players, others have put in feedback about what type's of disc your player works with. 2. The CCD is the electronic device that actually converts the incoming light signal to the electronic format, the number value attached is typically a resolution number, the higher the resolution (pixel count) of the CCD the higher quality the captured visual information can look. There are higher end models that employ three CCD's to give an even higher resolution image. 3. Both digital camcorders (a sony and a panasonic) I have owned had this feature, its name varies by manufacuterer. 4. Nope no adapter is typically required. If you look closely at the tray there is normally an indention to hold the smaller disc's, this has been a standard back to the mini CD. 5. Sound sync issue you experienced is likely due to the way you captured the video/audio. You dont say much about it so I can only speculate. In any case the MiniDV and the DVD camcorders should not have this issue is setup properly. You can also go the videohelp website for tips on how to capture analog video and convert if you are still interested in that for you old tapes. 6. Dont know check the manufacturers specs for their camera. Are you certain that the Panasonic was mini VHC (VHS-C)?? If its miniDV then I think you need to reconsider a new camera and look at how you edited and converted the video to DVD, it should not have the problems you described. Here is an excellent camcorder buying guide at Cnet.com

Well, to answer the question, I listen to books through the Talking Books program that is run by the US Library of Congress National Library Service. I do all of my "reading" this way and have done so for the last 25 years. I'm very used to books on tape. Soon they will be converting to a digital format. Of course, being this kind of reader means that I don't often get to take part in discussions of books on boards like this one. I can't just order up a book from the library and expect to get it in time for the discussion. Sometimes I wait many years for a requested book. Just the other day I got one I'd requested 12 years ago, for instance. On the other hand, I get to keep the books for up to a year. I know of no other library with such a generous policy. Back in my student days, we often had to get library books for 24 hours only--and race back with them to avoid stiff fines.