Recently we took a look at 2 new tools that at first didn't sound like something we would normally use, but actually turned out to be pretty cool, and useful! The titles are Audio Xtract from NewStreamMedia and Media Player DVD Maker from ProDVD Corp .

First Audio Xtract. In a nutshell, this is an Internet Radio Player, Recorder, and Audio CD burner. The one think that caught my eye on an otherwise regular ho hum Internet Radio Player, was the ability to record each song in MP3 format while it was playing. Just like when you used to record your favorite radio station on cassettes, but now it's in digital format. To go a step further the software actually splits each mp3 and creates a seperate file for each tune with the Artist and Song Title.

My first test was to record about 30 minutes of whatever, I choose some 80's tunes. After recording I noticed I had about 15 seperate mp3 files. Next I used their Audio CD disc burner to burn these to a CDR for a standard Audio CDR that I can play in my stereo CD player, car CD player etc... To sum up I was quite pleased with the ease of the process and I would recommend this to anyone that likes to listen to their music or talkshows on their time.
Learn more about Audio Xtract

Next we looked at Media Player DVD Maker. This is basically a recorder for any video or streaming video that is viewable though Windows Media Player. Once again I thought "What would this be good for?", but once I started to use it I could see the possibilities. Check this out: movie trailers, film shorts, music videos, ESPN highlights, CNN news headlines all captured and burned on DVD to be played back on your DVD player. And that's just the standard stuff.

The software is a plugin for MediaPlayer and will launch when there is video being played, all you do is click on the "on/off" button. Once you have captured the videos you want you can then burn them to DVD, even create a Title menu from pre made templates. All I can tell you is to take a look and see for yourself, I'm sure you will see the benefits.
Learn more about Media Player DVD Maker