'Ripping' MP3s for use with Light-O-Rama Products 

The Light-O-Rama ShowTime Software Suite is used to create musical sequences and it uses Microsoft’s Windows Media Player to play and retrieve song timing.  The ShowTime Directors DC-MP3  and mDM-MP3 have their own mp3 players.  To achieve maximum flexibility using Light-O-Rama products you must use Constant Bit Rate (CBR) MP3 files and they should be recorded at 128 Kbps. These settings produce a CD quality recording.  

Microsoft Media Player

Microsoft's Windows Media Player 11 can be used to rip CDs for both the PC ShowTime software and Show directors.  Here's how to do it: http://www.lightorama.com/Documents/Ripping_Media_Player_11.pdf

Warning: Windows Media Player 10 has the ability to rip CDs to MP3s, unfortunately, this is not done correctly if the CD is ripped to 128 Kbps MP3 files.  Media Player returns different timings when the song is played in its entirety as opposed to playing a small part of it while working in the Sequence Editor.  If you are not going to use the song on a ShowTime Director, you can rip the song at 192 Kbps with Windows Media Player 10. Here's how to do it: http://lightorama.com/PDF/Ripping_Media_Player_10_192Kbps.pdf 

Apple iTunes

Apple's iTunes: Later versions of iTunes can rip CDs and convert internal formats to MP3.  Bring up iTunes and do the following:

Edit -> Preferences -> General tab -> Import Settings... button. 

In the Import Setting box, choose MP3 Encoder, 128kbps and click OK. 

To convert songs in the library to MP3s, select the song, do the following:

Advanced -> Create MP3 Version. You can Click File -> Show in Windows Explorer

to bring up an Explorer window for the album. You should see the internal format and the MP3 version of the song. 

Music from On-Line Stores

If you buy songs from an online music service, these are often delivered in a proprietary format.  If you do not have a utility or function that will convert these into MP3 files, you can burn the song(s) onto a CD and rip the song(s) from that CD to MP3s as shown above.



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