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Re: capture real audio stream



Lorenzo Bettini wrote:

> cothrige wrote:
>> This is pretty easy if you have either mplayer or audacity installed.
>> If you happen to be playing from BBC 7 it is particularly easy, and all
>> you have to do is right click on the listen link and save the ram file
>> to your drive.  Then you just read it as it is plain text, and inside
>> you will find something like:
>> 
>>
rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/bbc7/0930_sun.ra?BBC-UID=34f67dd2ff9daa4baac9cd5c20f0b659244a9c75a07060437bfa8149d4698951&SSO2-UID=
>> 
> 
> I'm trying with this one
> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/events_andrewlloydwebber.shtml
> 
> and can't find such links, not even with Page Info (as suggested by
> Joachim); could it be they changed something in their site?
> 
>> 
>> BTW, if all of that fails for some reason then you can always open
>> audacity (before the audio player to make sure your sound card is
>> available for recording), adjust your input to volume and set the volume
>> levels.  Then you can open the browser and start the player, and begin
>> the recording in audacity.  This will record the stream as a wav as
>> well, though if your signal drops out you will have to clean up any
>> silent patches in the file.  The mplayer way is much, much better as it
>> will automatically correct any failures in the feed and so the resulting
>> file will have no blank patches in it, so I really would recommend that
>> way first.
> 
> I'll also try with audacity, but I'd like to use mplayer as you suggest...
> 
> thanks in advance
> Lorenzo
> 
The reason you couldn't find the link was that you need to click on the
left hand side - the grey "Now Playing" section.  This is a separate frame
from the rest of the page and obviously gives different results to the right
hand side, when using Firefox/Iceweasel's View Page Info.  The media tab
now shows the required link:

  /radio/aod/shows/rpms/radio2/fridaymusic.rpm

Append this to the BBC website address and use curl in a terminal window to
identify the direct 
realaudio link, ie: 

  curl http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/shows/rpms/radio2/fridaymusic.rpm

The BBC isn't deliberately hiding the link - some pages come with a "Open in
standalone player" link, others don't.

I would also reiterate the need for saving the stream in .wav format as
there is usually dross (news/announcements etc) at the beginning and end of
the file that needs deleting.  This is best done on the lossless .wav file
rather than the lossy .mp3 - the latter is akin to re-editing a jpg file. 
And the source audio isn't exactly CD quality to start with.
Audacity does a good job and offers many editing options and features.

To avoid having to remember the lengthy mplayer command line switches, I
generally record the stream then convert it, ie:

  mplayer -dumpstream URL         (this is .ra format and can be played with
helix/realplayer)
  mplayer -ao pcm stream.dump     (this is .wav format and can be opened in
audacity)

Incidently, others have already created direct links to many of the BBC
progs, see:

  http://www.2blu.co.uk
  http://beebotron.timeforabrew.com/#listenagainlinks

Funnily enough, your Friday Night is Music Night link is different in
each! Oh well, that's why we're using Linux - choice!

HTH

Cotton







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