Bluegrbutt on the cable tv....

Not too long ago, we switched from analog cable tv to one of those newer "digital" cable tv boxes.

It turns out there are music channels available on them, and one of them is a bluegrbutt channel.

The cable provider where I am (Connecticut) is Comcast and the music is coming from an outfit called "musicchoice.com". I checked their website, only to find that it's really not that informative. They don't seem to take requests or put up playlists - they just play the music. The channel number is 404 here, though probably different elsewhere.

They do provide "real-time" information on what's playing, with the artist, track name, album name, and even some related tidbits of information.

The sound quality is actually quite good. I'm not sure what kind of compression they're using to get the music through the cable lines. Does anyone know?

But you don't have to just listen to it "live". I've got a minidisc recorder, which has analong, digital optical, and digital coaxial inputs. Turns out that the cable box has digital coaxial OUTputs, besides plain analog. By connecting the output to the coax in on the MD recorder, I can record digitally-transferred disc fulls of the "broadcasts", for later listening. The cable box came with the digital audio out configured for "Dolby Digital", and at first that wouldn't work with the MD; I had to change it from Dolby Digital to "other" (whatever "other" represents) in order to get a digital signal that the MD recorder could handle.

For short connections, an ordinary "RCA-phono" audio connecting cable works. For longer cable lengths, you would probably want to use a "coax" type cable, which has a solid core wire instead of the stranded wire used in ordinary RCA-type audio cables. I picked up a 12' coax cable with phono plugs (see below), but if you have a spare "coax" cable laying around with F-type connecters - the kind that are used in most cable tv setups - you can also pick up a couple of low-cost RCA adapters for each end.

If you have an MD portable recorder that has only analog and digital-optical input, and your cable box has only a coax output, you have two choices: use an TOSLINK (digital optical) connecting cable into the portable MD. See the "parts list" below.

It should also be possible to connect a hard-drive based mp3 player and record directly to disk in mp3 format (or uncompressed, if you have a LOT of disk space).

I found the items I needed at a place called partlovepress.com (I have no connection to them other than as a paying customer). Here's a parts list (enter part number at their website): 091-465 F-type to RCA adapter ($1.95) 180-942 6' Optical cable ($3.25) 180-944 12' Optical cable ($4.50) 181-626 6' Digital coax cable w-RCA connectors ($8.20) 181-628 12' Digital coax cable w-RCA connectors ($11.70)

Hope this is useful to someone.... - John