The simplest way is to play it and stick a microphone in front old school style like recording top of the pops in the 70s. Otherwise can you connect the DVR to the PC? Once you've got it on the hard drive there are loads of conversion programmes. Or if it's on YouTube there are plenty of website that let you download an MP3 at whatever bitrate you fancy.

Brrr...looks cold.
Rain here and lots of it. No snow at all but the occasional sleet shower.

You can use a video player (eg the free VLC Media Player) which will export mp3 from mp4. It is very straightforward!

Ah - the problem is the files are in VOB format, which is really hard to convert to another format due to VOB being a 'container' of lots of different sources of info.

Hi Tim
what actually happens is that after copying the hard drive VR files onto a disc and finalising that disc to be used 'on any DVD' it produces 2 folders of 9 files including VOB, DAT, FOB etc. When run you call up a VOB file which then has a menu as would appear on your regular DVD player and which then links to other files. There is one large VOB file which I beieve is the one containing the important stuff but it won't run by itself and appears to include all the info for the 4 programmes recorded rather than 1 per show, so isn't simply convertable. I am now trying to use an editor to digitally 'extract' the audio from the video file but again it isn't playing nice and, whilst it doesn't give us flexibility to play the audio from any MP3 player, I can simply play the video on my laptop and I have things to make in the workshop, so looking at a 'computer says no' screen has little to hold my attention.

Phew, think I have sorted it. Having cleared my head with a few hours making a rollable carding machine stand for BW I have had another go. It is not perfect in that it does run everything on, so what I appear to have extracted is an 8 hour MP3 rather than 4 separate 2 hour shows which seem to exist fine as separate shows it you run it from the 'master' VOB. Appreciate I can now chop it up in to bits but it's another process. All in all, with about 200 2 hour JWs to take from the recorder and convert I have a feeling I will be at it a while...

VLC will extract audio (and video if required) from VOB files. Under "Media" select "Convert/Save". In the dialogue box that follows, press "Add" and select your VOB file. Then select "Convert/Save". You can select MP3 as the output, give it a destination filename, and Robert is your mother's brother as they used to say!

People throw away Christmas decorations? This has surprised me - the thought of doing that never even crossed my mind.

Tim - thanks, I think that's what he is now doing, albeit on another software package, and it's working. I can now play it on my little portable USB/CD/etc player, and in Zebra (which sadly doesn't have a CD player).

Sarah - look at the number of decs for sale in charity shops every autumn, and look at the volume sold every year new... there is no way that most people store them between years these days. I blame Gen X, Y, Z, A... anyone but the Boomers...