Frequently Asked Questions

These are questions people ask about my site, CBSRMT, trading OTR, etc.

This FAQ last updated on Sun Jan 28 16:40:44 CST 2007.

Trading OTR
Do you trade OTR shows?
Where can I find other people to trade with?

About MP3
What are MP3s?
How do you fit so many shows on a CD?
Where can I learn more about MP3s?
Where can I find out more about the MP3 format?

Listening to OTR MP3s
How do I listen to MP3s?
Will these discs play on my portable MP3 player?
Can I play MP3 files on my stereo?
But my CD player / DVD says it will play CD-R!
Is there anything special about OTR MP3s?
Do you suggest any particular portable player?
Are there any playback settings I should know about?

Converting MP3
How do I make an audio CD from an MP3?
How do I make a cassette tape from an mp3?
How do I make an mp3 from a wav?
How do I make a .wav from a cassette or other source?
How can I change bitrates on my mp3s?

OTR Audio Defects
Why does some OTR sound bad?
What are the steps in making an OTR mp3 file?
Low volume
Pops, crackles
Muffled sound
Shimmer, electronic, or robot sounds
Chirps and bloops, burbles
Why don't OTR traders/sellers make the shows sound perfect?

About CD-R
How should I care for my CD?
How can I make an audio CD of an MP3 show?
How can I copy an OTR CD?
What is Joliet?
Where can I find out more about CD-R?

About tapes
Do you make OTR cassettes?
How can I make a tape from an MP3?

About recording
How do I encode this old show I have on cassette or reel?

Freebie OTR CDs
What's up with these freebie CD-Rs of OTR?
How do you select the recipient?
How often do you give away a CD-R?
Do you restrict who can win?
Can I pick the shows on the CD-R?

CBSRMT
Where can I download audiofiles of cbsrmt?
Is there a list of shows, actors, plots?
Are there any RMT reference books available?
Will you email me a certain show?
Can I buy RMT shows?
How many CBSRMT shows do you have?
Are you affiliated with NPR, CBS, Himan Brown, etc?
Are there any official CBSRMT clubs?
Have there been any documentaries about CBSRMT?
Is CBSRMT being rebroadcast anytime soon?

RMT Show of the Week
Can WebTV people listen to the shows?
I can stream but I can't play downloaded shows.
I can download ok but streaming is unstable.
The audio sounds muffled.

Misc
What if I ask you a question that's already in this FAQ?
My RealPlayer/Napster/WinAmp/etc doesn't work. Can you help?

Trading OTR

Do you trade OTR shows?
Sure. Here's what I'm looking for and what I have to trade.

CD-R should be mastered (ie, burned with ECDC, Nero, WinOnCD, etc) in Joliet (preferred) or iso9660 format rather than packet-written (like DirectCD). Both our cds will be in a sleeve or case and mailed in a secure, sturdy mailer.

After you receive the disc, please let me know so I can tell it got to you. Also, I appreciate feedback on anything like damage to the mailer, etc. I want to provide quality trades, and I need your feedback to correct anything that might go wrong.
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Where can I find other people to trade with?
See my links and my list of traders.
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About MP3

What are MP3s?
MP3s are the de facto standard file format for listening to audio files.
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How do you fit so many shows on a CD?
MP3 is a highly compressed format. You can fit about 10 hours of music on a CD in MP3 format, a little over an hour (74-80 minutes) in CD-DA (audio) format or about 45-50 (3000 minutes) hours of OTR because it is less complex and doesn't require as large a file.
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Where can I learn more about MP3s?
See Xory's MP3 FAQ or mp3.com.
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Where can I find out more about the MP3 format?
See The Official FAQ for alt.binaries.sounds.mp3
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Listening to OTR MP3s

How do I listen to MP3s?
The standard way used to be to use a freeware MP3 player (like winamp) to play them on your PC. Recent technology in MP3 CD players mean that there are now MP3-playing DVDs, jamboxes, and portables on the market.
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Will these discs play on my portable MP3 player?
They will work with any player that can play normal OTR rates like 32k/22kHz. The Volt seems to the the darling of the OTR community. Older players like the MpTrip require CD-style 44.1kHz sampling rates, so they choke on OTR. And of course they will play on any PC-based player like WinAmp. They will not, I promise you, play on your stereo: they are MP3 not audio CD.
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Can I play MP3 files on my stereo?
No, normal CDs are CD-DA format; MP3s are in (yes!) MP3 format. Some new Discman-type players will play MP3s, but most don't like low-bitrate files.
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But my CD player / DVD says it will play CD-R!
That means it will play audio CD-Rs (and even then you might expect hardware/media incompatibility due to different wavelengths used on DVD and CD media). Unless your unit specifically claims to play low-bitrate MP3 files you can assume it will not be able to play them at all. Consult your manual for specifics.
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Is there anything special about OTR MP3s?
Not really, except that they are encoded at very low bitrates (usually 32k/22kHz) which results in files about 4x smaller than music MP3s. Some MP3 players cannot play low bit- or sampling rates. Check out the unit's specs before you buy it.
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Do you suggest any particular portable player?
Personally, I have a Rio Volt and I love it. It's perfect, IMO, for OTR MP3s.
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Are there any playback settings I should know about?
The most common defect in OTR shows is a "muffled" sound (ie, the treble is deficient). You can make MP3s easier to listen to by playing with the equalizer function of whatever playback device or software you are using.
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Converting MP3

How do I make an audio CD from an MP3?
Use the software that came with your burner. Specify that the burn will be an "audio CD". Drag the mp3(s) to your layout. That's it. Note that you will get a maximum of 74 or 80 minutes of audio on each CD-R; this boils down to two 30-minute shows or one 60-minute show. Use 74min CD-R media for maximum playability. Some players have problems with CD-R, more with 80min media, and still more with CD-RW.
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How do I make a cassette tape from an mp3?
LINE OUT from your soundcard or player to LINE IN on your tape recorder.tape.
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How do I make an mp3 from a wav?
Use an mp3 encoder like LAME. 32k is a normal bitrate for OTR. LAME and Fraunhofer are usually considered the best for low bitrates.
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How do I make a .wav from a cassette or other source?
LINE OUT from your recorder or player to LINE IN on soundcard. Use whatever sound recording software you like. I like Cool Edit.
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How can I change bitrates on my mp3s?
Use WinLama, a batching frontend for LAME.
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OTR Audio Defects

Why does some OTR sound bad?
There are many reasons why series in general or shows in particular sound bad. It may be helpful to describe the defects and what could/can be done about them. See below... It's really a miracle that the shows sound as good as they do.
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What are the steps in making an OTR mp3 file?
To oversimplify, there are two steps: capture from the original analog medium (digitization to .wav) and mp3 encoding.
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Low volume
This is caused by the material being digitized at too low a volume. "Normalizing" the volume to a peak of 0db usually causes a generational-type loss for mathematical reasons. Some specific (and expensive) utilities can losslessly correct this defect. All my shows have been losslessly normalized.
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Pops, crackles
The nature of the beast: the original medium was likely an album-like platter called a transcription disc. Played with a needle like a record is played, scratches and defects on the transcription disc will be present in the digitized file. It is theoretically possible to digitally process a file to decrease these defects, but it takes a very light touch or the process will introduce other, shimmery/robot sounds.
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Muffled sound
Muffled shows are the result of missing upper ranges (treble). This may be a problem with the original medium (particularly old tapes), but also may be associated with too low a sampling rate, too low a bitrate, or a crummy encoder. You can offset this problem somewhat by fiddling with the equalizer function of your mp3 player.
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Shimmer, electronic, or robot sounds
Usually a function of digital over-processing, although it may also be an indication that the .mp3 was originally a RealAudio conversion. Irreversible.
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Chirps and bloops, burbles
An encoding artifact, usually the result of a really bad MP3 encoder like Xing. A utility will usually associate those bloops with missing frame headers. Fatal, impossible to eliminate once they're in the file.
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Why don't OTR traders/sellers make the shows sound perfect?
Because it's not pragmatic to do so. It makes no sense to spend 150 hours reworking the audio on an OTR disc that isn't intended for audiophiles anyway . And some source media is in such bad shape it's a "sow's ear" situation.
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About CD-R

How should I care for my CD?
Treat it like you would any other CD. Keep it in a sleeve or case when not in use, and keep it out of the heat and direct sunlight.
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How can I make an audio CD of an MP3 show?
That's really beyond the scope of what I'm trying to do here, but you can generally do it with the software that came with your CD burner. There are two basic types of CDs you can burn, data and audio. You want audio in this case. Note that you may have to convert the MP3 file to .wav before your CD burning software will see it.
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How can I copy an OTR CD?
If you have a CD-ROM and CD-RW on the same box, you can use the Copy CD function of your burner. If not, you can copy the MP3s to your hard disc and make a Data CD from those files.
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What is Joliet?
Joliet is the standard CD-R format. If you want technical details, it is an extension to the iso9660 format which allows for greater than the normal 8+3 filenaming conventions, etc.
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Where can I find out more about CD-R?
Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ is what you need.
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About tapes

Do you make OTR cassettes?
No, I work with MP3s on CD-R exclusively. Digital formats, for all their problems, eliminate generational loss. This is a major leap forward for traders.
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How can I make a tape from an MP3?
Plug the LINE OUT of your PC soundcard into the LINE IN on your cassette deck and tape to your heart's content...
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About recording

How do I encode this old show I have on cassette or reel?
Run the LINE OUT of your source into the LINE IN of your PC. Record with teh software of your choice, even the one built into Windows. Encode to mp3 using a suitable encoder like Frauenhofer or LAME. 32kbps is fine for OTR, althought if it's a particularly good source you might encode at 64k or VBR.
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Freebie OTR CDs

What's up with these freebie CD-Rs of OTR?
Every once in a while I end up with an extra OTR disc. There are a few basic scenarios:

Retiring a disc: I don't need that directory of MP3s backed up any more, etc. Or maybe I was using that cd-r to temporarily shuttle a bunch of OTR shows from place to place.
Dent and Ding sale: maybe I closed the disc before I wanted to and re-burned that session again on a fresh disk. Maybe I put the same file on twice or something else goofy like that. These are like "cosmetic damage" - the CD will work just fine, the contents are just not what I wanted them to be for my own usage.
the universe blessed me that day with some surplus, and I decided to pass it along (I got some free postage stamps the other day, for example). If I'm doing one of these it'll probably be an archive (see below).

So I pass it along to some OTR fan.
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How do you select the recipient?
Sometimes I post to the guestbook, sometimes to the newsgroups. The first email reply gets it. Please don't send a shipping address until you are tapped as the winner; I don't want to know where all y'all live. :-)
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How often do you give away a CD-R?
It'll be pretty random, as you might guess from the above.
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Do you restrict who can win?
No, although I'd say it'd be nice for high-powered collectors to sit back and let the leetle fish get their collections jump-started. And once a month ought to be enough for anyone.
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Can I pick the shows on the CD-R?
No, they were burned onto the CD-R before I made the offer; I'll usually tell you roughly what's on the CD. It'll definitely be OTR.
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CBSRMT

Where can I download audiofiles of cbsrmt?
See my RMT links. Take note of the links that mention MP3 or RA. You can also download RMT and other OTR off the binary newsgroups. Or search for sites that may have downloads.

You may find that it is considerably faster to trade with someone that has a complete set of RMT.
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Is there a list of shows, actors, plots?
See the RMT database.
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Are there any RMT reference books available?
Yes, the The CBS Radio Mystery Theater : An Episode Guide and Handbook to Nine Years of Broadcasting, 1974-1982 by Gordon Payton, Martin, Jr. Grams
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Will you email me a certain show?
No. A 10MB-25MB file is far too big to email. You may be able to request a file on the binary groups.
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Can I buy RMT shows?
It looks like HB is getting ready to sell shows, but the information is sketchy so far. The day he starts to sell RMT will be a great day for all RMT people. That said, I'm not holding my breath.
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How many CBSRMT shows do you have?
All 1399/1400, archived onto CD-R. My ISP hates me, I'm sure.
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Are you affiliated with NPR, CBS, Himan Brown, etc?
Not at all. I'm a fan like you.
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Are there any official CBSRMT clubs?
Not that I know of. Probably the biggest group of serious fans and collectors can be found at Yahoo cbsrmt mailing list.
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Have there been any documentaries about CBSRMT?
Not that I know of. If I'm wrong, please let me know.
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Is CBSRMT being rebroadcast anytime soon?
There was a HB-narrated revival in 1998, and some NPR stations broadcast RMT in 2000. The latter project seems like it fell through.
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RMT Show of the Week

Can WebTV people listen to the shows?
I don't really know, although I have been told that WebTV has the G2 player. If any WebTV user can successfully listen to these shows, please let me know so I can update this section.
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I can stream but I can't play downloaded shows.
I had been using the traditional .ra (realaudio) extension on my files, but the newer player wants .rm (realmedia?). I changed to .rm on 5/12/2000.
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I can download ok but streaming is unstable.
If bandwidth seems to be choking your stream, download and play it locally instead.
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The audio sounds muffled.
You can use RealPlayer's equalizer to correct this. (View | Equalizer). It's a function of the quality of the original file, not of RealAudio itself.
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Misc

What if I ask you a question that's already in this FAQ?
Because of my schedule, I'll probably just paste the URL of the answer into a reply. I try to answer personal email within week or so, depending.
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My RealPlayer/Napster/WinAmp/etc doesn't work. Can you help?
Nope, I'm an idiot about this stuff. Make sure you're using a relatively new version of the software in question. That's the limit of my knowledge.
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