Optical Line in recording - creating separate tracks

[Arkle]

Hi All,

Can anyone enlighten me as to how I can record (radio programmes) from satellite tv through the optical line in and have them record as separate tracks?
If I set six to copy to iRiver iHP140 they copy as one long file needing to be split on the pc.
Sony can do it on their minidisc players through the optical line in.  All six programmes would record as six separate MP3 files.
It would be great to know if it can be done and how to do it using Roxbox and also the iRiver software.

Thank you,
Arkle

[Arkle]

Hi
Can anyone tell me if it's possible to set the iRiver iHP140 to record a number of (radio) programmes from satellite hard drive using the optical line in and have them record as separate individual tracks and not as one long track?

Sony can do it with their optical line in minidisc players.  Say I set ssix radio programmes to plaly out then all six recordings would record as six separate individual tracks.  Like they would on a DVD recorder.

Thank you,

Arkle

[bascule]

##MERGED##

[petur]

Can anyone enlighten me as to how I can record (radio programmes) from satellite tv through the optical line in and have them record as separate tracks?
If I set six to copy to iRiver iHP140 they copy as one long file needing to be split on the pc.
Sony can do it on their minidisc players through the optical line in.  All six programmes would record as six separate MP3 files.
It would be great to know if it can be done and how to do it using Roxbox and also the iRiver software.

you can split into files manually or automatically.

manual: while recording, press record to start a new file
automatic: set options to split in time or size. It might be possible to use the trigger function to split as well - not sure though

[mborus]

Sony's MD recorders understand the track-change-signal in the digital stream.
Rockbox doesn't, so there's no direct way. I don't know if this is a hardware
or software limitation. It would be a cool feature.

You can define triggers that will change the file, if there's a longer pause between each track
(or if you insert a blank track into the playlist between each file)

If you're recording directly into mp3, cutting the files manually using
mp3directcut (http://mpesch3.de1.cc/) on the PC might be a better idea.

[petur]

got more info on this 'digital track cut signal'?

[mborus]

got more info on this 'digital track cut signal'?

Alas, no. I also do not know if it's just a track number, that's always transmitted (so MD recorders react to a change) or if it's a real change signal. The only thing I know is that all my MD recorders react to the exact trackmarks from CD players or other MD players when connected via optical cable.

[Llorean]

Is this true when you record from a gapless CD?

[Rincewind]

Is this true when you record from a gapless CD?

yes, it is.

[mborus]

Is this true when you record from a gapless CD?

Same here. For gapless CDs or MD recordings of live concerts.

When I record a minidisc, I can create track marks later at any position.
If I copy this MD digitally using an optical cable to another MD, the
track marks are copied.

I own a digital signal filter - if I plug this in between the two MD recorders,
then track marks (and other copy-related information) get lost. So there
really is some track/track change information present in the digital stream.

Fur fun, I also tried using my H120 as a filter, connecting it between two MD recorders. Here the signal passed through the unit unchanged and the copy related information was still present causing the second MD recorder to detect the copy status.

[Rincewind]

a short search on google returned this:

http://www.epanorama.net/documents/audio/spdif.html
This page has quite a good specification of the spdif format. I haven't read everything but it also mentions some user bits in the stream. It is possible that those are used to mark tracks.

http://lalists.stanford.edu/lau/2002/11/0278.html
A mailing list post. not much information here. We could try to contact this Bob Caine. Maybe he has some more info to pass on.

[LinusN]

The track index seems to be embedded in the User Channel data. I have not yet found a good description of it though. The MCF5049/50 controller (iriver H1xx/H3xx and iAudio X5/M5) can extract the User Channel, but it seems a little involved.

[Rincewind]

The track index seems to be embedded in the User Channel data. I have not yet found a good description of it though. The MCF5049/50 controller (iriver H1xx/H3xx and iAudio X5/M5) can extract the User Channel, but it seems a little involved.

I found a description of the user channel data format!
it is in the datasheet of the AD1892 Chip on page 16
www.analog.com/UploadedFiles/Data_Sheets/AD1892.pdf

edit:
I had a look at the MCF5049 data sheet (page 296ff). The Q-Channel of the User Channel (where the track number is in) is stored in a special register (QChannelRecieve). Reading this register periodically or interrupt driven and extracting the track number from there should be possible. I don't know anything about this low level C programming and I don't want to kill my player with it, otherwise I would be very tempted to try to implement this.

[keuleJ]

Hi, this would be a very nice feature to record from DVDs.