Transferring audio to a CD

[Denny]

Hi,

I would like to use my digital video camera as a digital recording device for a book narration. (My computer does not have a microphone). I would like to edit it in Premiere elements then burn it to a CD in a format that would be useable on a boombox CD player. Is this do-able? Any suggestions on this. Thanks.:confused:

[ATR]

Denny,

What specific "digital movie camera" make and model do you have? And, what is the audio format of the recording, .wav, .mp3, other?

What exactly is going to be on that CD for playback in the boom box CD player, just the narration? Do I assume correctly that this boom box CD player supports only mp3? I am assuming that it does.

I need more information to make this complete, but here goes the plan, gaps to be filled in and adjustments made if necessary:

1. Let us assume that your camera records in .wav audio format. And, that your boom box CD player supports only mp3.
2. I have Premiere Elements 2, 4, and 7, not 3. Let us assume that 3 is like 4; then you could bring your .wav audio file into Premiere Elements 3, edit, and then go to:
Share
Mobile Phones & Players
Audio Podcast
MP3 Audio (High Quality)
and save that to the Desktop.
3. If you had Nero (StartSmart Interface) burn software set for CD, you could burn that saved .MP3 (your edited narration from the camera) to CD using the Nero category "Make Audio CD". That will play your MP3 narration on a boom box CD player.

With Premiere Elements 4, two important audio export routes are:
1. File/Menu/Audio, you end up with .wav
2. Share/Mobile Phones & Players/Audio Podcast/MP3 Audio (High Quality), you end up with .mp3.

If your Premiere Elements 3 features are different in this respect, you may need to transfer the .wav audio from the digital movie camera to the computer hard drive, then into Premiere Elements via Get Media, edit it, export File/Export/Audio as .wav, then convert the .wav to .mp3 with iTune, and then burn the .mp3 to CD with Nero (Make Audio CD). All of this is going to depend on the features of Premiere Elements 3.

To be continued.....

ATR

[Denny]

ATR,

Thanks. I will check the camera info. and post another reply.

[Denny]

Hi,

It appears that there is not a choice to output audio to an MP3 format in version 3.0. I did see that you can output audio only in the custom output section but again there is no mention of an output to MP3. Have I hit a wall here?

[ATR]

Denny,

Never give up. It would have been nice if you had the Premiere Elements 4 MP3 export, but this makes it even more interesting. But we do need to know what we are starting with.

So, what audio format does your camcorder record. If you do not know, let me know the brand and model and I will try to find out.


ATR

[Denny]

ATR,

The camcorder I use is a Sony Handycam DCR-HC38.The operation manual does not tell me what the recording format is. I have completed a number of projects in Premiere Elements 3.0 with both audio and video files from the camera. Can I check a file some place to see the audio file type?

[ATR]

Denny,

This is what I would like you to try:

Part 1. Premiere Elements 3. Export .wav audio.
1. Get your camcorder recording to the Premiere Elements 3 Timeline. If you have edits to do, you may want to unlink the video track from the audio track and then delete the video. If not, then just go onto the next step without unlinking the video and audio tracks.
2. With your Timeline content highlighted, go File Menu/Export/Audio and save the audio to a hard drive location (this will save only your audio;be sure to name it so that it will be easier to recognize).

Part 2. .wav to mp3 Conversion with iTunes
After you open iTunes, you may want to check out Edit Menu/Preferences/Advanced. Depending on the Advanced settings, you should find the mp3 created via the following path:
C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music
You will probably have to keep clicking folders to get to your file. This information is important since you will be burning the mp3 located here to your CD.

1. Open iTunes and go to Library/Music.
2. Then File Menu/Add File To Library
3. In the "Add to Library" dialog, open your .wav from it saved hard drive location.
4. There are two possibilities:
a. If you end up with just a thumbnail for your .wav in Library/Music, then
go to the Advanced Tab at the top and click on "Create MP3 Version". That will get you your mp3 in the location cited above.
b. If you end up with a message about an automatic conversion from .wav to .mp3 and continue to respond to the dialog, then you bypass the Advanced Tab/"Create MP3 Version" step. If all this is your scenario, then that will also get you your mp3 in the location cited above.

Part 3. Burning the .mp3 audio to CD with a software such as Nero.
1. With the Nero StartSmart interface (Header for CD), burn the mp3 from its saved hard drive location (cited above) to CD, using Nero specific category Burn Audio CD.

Comments: I have just road tested this with a Sony Boom Box and the sound is good. I think that you can do the .wav to .mp3 conversion with Windows Media Player, but I think that first you would have to burn the .wav to CD, followed by ripping the .wav from the CD with Windows Media Player (beforehand set to mp3 for ripping via Tools Menu/Options). I have not done a road test on that yet. More details on that route, if necessary.

ATR

[Chuck Engels]

I would like to suggest the capture and export to WAV using Premiere Elements, and then the actual editing and conversion to MP3 using Audacity (free audio program). Then you can use the CD burning software that came with your burner to burn to a CD. This should not be very difficult, just depends on what kind of quality you want to achieve.

[ATR]

CE

I have not had time to evaluate the quality and editing aspects of your suggestion, however I did run into a snag.

Say you import your audio into Audacity, you edit the audio, and then you go File Menu/Export As MP3. After you hit "Save", you are confronted by a message
"Audacity does not export MP3 file directly, but instead uses the freely available LAME library to handle MP3 encoding......"
Apparently you need the "lame_enc.dll" It does say that you will only have to do this download once.

Is it worth it?

ATR

[Chuck Engels]

I have used Audacity to create over 10,000 MP3 files; I would say 'yes' it is worth it :)
The Lame encoder is also free and is available from the same site that you download the Audacity software. There is a complete explanation of how to install everything, but it is very easy to do anyway. You simply download and extract the Lame Encoder DLL and then from within the Audacity preferences you tell the program where the DLL is located, done.

There isn't a better, or easier, free audio editing program anywhere.

[ATR]

CE

Thanks. I just wanted to avoid (minimize) any surprises for Denny if that was the route explored.

Denny,

By the way, I never did ask, what kind of edits are you planning for your audio from the camcorder? Can the edits be done in the camcorder? Just curious.

ATR

[Denny]

ATR and Chuck,Thanks to your guidance I was able to convert the audio from my digital camcorder into a file that plays on both my computer CD ROM drive and the boom boxes that we have in the family. The objective was to get it to play on a children's (Dora the Explorer) boom box product. The audio clip was a reading of a children's book by my mother that was recorded for her great-granddaughter.I used a combination of your suggestions to achieve the result. First I captured the audio/video from my Sony camcorder in Premiere Elements 3.0. Then I edited it and added sounds effects and a sound track. Next I deleted the video portion. I then exported the audio as .wav file to the My Music folder. I opened the file in i-tunes and converted it to an mp3 format. I then used Windows Media Player to open the file and after selecting it burned it to disk as an audio file. The quality is more than adequate for my purposes.I did not have success burning it to CD from i-Tunes. It played on my computer's CD-ROM drive but not on the boom boxes. I did not have the Nero product handy so I experimented with what I had. Maybe Nero and other prodcucts would yield a better result. Thanks a million!

[ATR]

Denny,

I am so pleased with your success. Thanks for the how you did it details.

I am glad that iTunes worked for the conversion of .wav to .mp3. I have done that so I know that works fine. But I have never tried burning an audio file to CD directly from iTunes. One of these days I will look into that out just to dot the i's and cross the t's.

Good job.

ATR

[ATR]

Denny,

I took a look at iTunes and burning mp3 to CD from there. It did work, including good quality playback on my Sony Boom Box. I am not sure why that route did not work for you. Although you did find Windows Media Player route that did the job for you, you may want to explore the iTune path again.

These are the details which got the job done for me.
Beforehand, placed CD-R in the drive tray of the DVD/CD burner.
1. iTunes File Menu/Add File to Library...mp3.
2. Once in the Library/Music, right clicked the mp3 file there and selected "Add to Playlist" (beforehand created a Playlist for the location of this mp3).
3. I was in Library/Music. Then I went down the column on the left to the Playlist header and clicked on the Playlist to which I had just added my mp3. Then I selected my mp3 from the list to the right of the categories column.
4. "Burn Disc" at bottom right of interface. Clicked on that.
5. The Burn Settings dialog appeared, offering 3 choices:
Audio CD
MP3 CD
Data CD or DVD
I got it too work using either Audio CD or MP3 CD, but I started out with an MP3 in the Library/Music.


I did not realize that iTunes had this feature. Thanks for the lead. I learned a lot in the process.

ATR

[Chuck Engels]

It could be the MP3 CD and Audio CD options that caused the problem. If you set it to create an MP3 CD the resulting CD will not play in a standard CD player.

Glad you got what you needed though :)

[ATR]

CE

Both Denny and I were using Boom Boxes for playback of the end product. I do not know the distinction between Boom Boxes and standard CD player.

"With iTunes, an mp3, mp3 burned to CD" I got a high quality end product that played on a Sony Boom Box that I have (using either iTunes' Audio CD or mp3 CD options).

It would be interesting to see what would happen if Denny tried this a second time and if he would get the same "does not work". Although interesting to iron out the wrinkles, I think that he would prefer to get onto other things. So much for my curiosity, the important thing is that he is now the proud creator of a family treasure that he put together with his own workaround.

ATR

[Chuck Engels]

No difference between a boom box and a standard CD player. Some CD players can play MP3 files on a CD, most standard players do not. You can tell if yours will play MP3 files or not, there should be a MP3 logo on the player somewhere, if not then it probably doesn't play them, only music CDs.

[ATR]

CE

Thanks for the update.

ATR