Quality of Cable Box Audio

[mattriv]

Hi Everybody,

I have the audio outputs of my cable tv box connected to the microphone jack of my computer. The music I record this way with GoldWave sounds horrible compared to the music I have copied from my CD's using Windows Media Player. For example, I have copied a song from a CD with WMP, and recorded the same song from a cable music channel with GoldWave and the song from the CD sounds a million times better. Is there a way to fix this?

One of the cable channels I listen to has been playing a song that doesn't seem to be for sale anywhere. I'd really like to get a decent recording of it.

Thanks,
Matt

[mattriv]

In case you are wondering, my computer does not have a line-in jack. It's a brand-new top-of-the-line Compaq laptop with a zillion ports on it, but no line-in.

[Stiiv]

Sounds like a USB audio interface might be what you're looking for. Also, you should experiment with getting the cable audio from your VCR or DVD rather than directly from the converter.

[mattriv]

Thanks Stiiv. I didn't know USB could do audio.

Getting the audio directly out of the cable box works fine. I hooked it up to one of my old computers that has a line-in jack and it works well. I like to have things for my old computers to do, so that's where I'm going to run GoldWave.

If I ever need to use the new computer, I'll get a USB device.

Thanks again,
Matt