Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What about backup?

  2. How much hard-drive space is needed for different formats of audio, and how many hours will that give me?

  3. What are the recommended requirements for the On-Air computer?
1.
Q: What about backup?
A:

The best solution for backup is to "mirror" your audio across two physical computers (On-Air and Production) so that both computers have duplicate copies of the audio files and can act as a "Hot Backup" of each other. Something recorded in production, gets copied across to the On-Air computer and vice versa. If either computer goes down, both have a full copy and either can instantly take over. We recommend software called Second Copy 2000; it performs a mirror backup in the background. Additionally, about once a week, copy the hard drive to a 4.7GB DVD to have removable backup storage.
2.
Q: How much hard-drive space is needed for different formats of audio, and how many hours will that give me?
A:

The following example is for a 160GB hard drive with the files in stereo mode. CDs have a 44.1khz sample rate.

QualityType of FileBit
Rate		Sample
Rate		BandwidthReduction
Ratio		Hard Drive Space
per Hour		Days for 160GB
Hard Drive
CDCD & WAV---44.1 khz> 15 khzNo compression635 MB10 Days
CDMP3192 kbps44.1 khz> 15 khz7:185 MB78 Days
Near - CDMP3128 kbps44.1 khz> 15 khz12:153 MB125 Days
Near - CDMP396 kbps44.1 khz 15 khz16:140 MB167 Days
Similar to
FM Radio		MP364 kbps44.1 khz11 khz24:126 MB256 Days
Better than
AM radio		MP332 kbps44.1 khz 7.5 khz48:113 MB512 Days
Near - CDMP2 (WINGS)192 kbps32 khz> 15 khz7:184 MB63 Days
3.
Q: What are the recommended requirements for the On-Air computer?
A:
  • Genuine INTEL 3.0GHz Pentium 4 CPU
  • Motherboard with genuine INTEL chipset or VIA chipset with current drivers
  • 2 or more full-length PCI slots
  • Microsoft Windows XP or 2000 Professional
  • 512MB or higher of SDRAM
  • 160GB or higher of hard-drive space
  • 17" monitor
  • USB ergonomic keyboard
  • Optical mouse with scroll
  • 1.44MB 3.5 inch floppy drive
  • CD/DVD-R/W drive
  • Audition speakers
  • 4 USB ports
  • Audio card
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