recording DAB radio stations

zippy75

Brilliant thanks for the extra tips; I've got quite a few bits of software that convert and crop etc., and I'll give your suggestions a go too.

Thanks!

Zippy

buglawton

I am following this with interest as I'm also looking for a dead simple method to make Listen Again proggies portable like they oughtta be.

Couple of points: Those DAB radios that can do timed recordings record in MP2 format... so you cannot take the SD card out and pop it into a portable or car player... have to do a file conversion, bummer. Prev experience of file conversion is it takes nearly as long as the download and is fiddly.

Then looking at the above post about SMPlayer, really interesting, I assume it saves in either Realplayer of MS Media Player formats, again have to convert those hefty files... or..?

[ Just had a more careful read and can se how you suggest to convert ot MP3... in the past it seems to lose a lot of quality so is sounding quite unnatural by the time it gets to my ears, however I also will download the suggest converter & try the bit rate suggested ]

bat999

Yeah, go for it buglawton.
The BBC streams are encoded at 64Kbps using Real Audio G2/cook codec (Real Audio 6).
The sound is just about acceptable to listen to on small speakers or earbuds.
When you convert to mp3 or m4a (lossy to lossy) you're going to lose out.
But 128Kbps mp3 still sounds 'reasonable' to my ears.
And encoding mp3 at any higher bitrate won't put anything back. It just takes longer to convert and takes up more space.
:cool:

buglawton

Done all the instructions, can play things fine using the example urls, then after pasting those parameters into Options, closing then reopening SMPlayer and trying again (eg the 1.9mb clip) I just don't seem to get any dump file as described. Is there an indication that it is saving, and that the saving has completed? Will have another try tomorrow after a reboot.

bat999

Hi
When you paste in the options you gotta click apply and ok.
Maybe do a file search for stream.dump see if it's been saved in an unusual place.
Is .smplayer folder hidden?

Walk in zippy's footprints :D

buglawton

OK I have decided on a different approach. The real key is that beebotron website. Now I used to use Flashget quite a bit with Internet Explorer, but have since moved to Firefox.

So, installed Flashget first. Then installed the Flashgot addin to FF, and gave Flashget as the default downloader in Flashgot's options.

To get a ra file onto my computer I do ALT-Click on the link in beebotron and. Flashget instantly fires up to commence downloading using the default 5 parallel streams method. (With IE, same thing works without any special browser Addin, just need Flashget).

I will have a look at the smplayer for other purposes though.

A rewarding thread this has been!

Edit: one thing I'm curious about : How would you get some of the super fast download times quoted above in this thread? The server at the other end seems to limit download speed to real audio playing time. So with 5 streams I can download an hour of ra in 12 mins.

bat999

Hi
I have tried using the Flashget and Flashgot method.:)
But my OS is Linux.:cool:
So I couldn't get it to work properly - or maybe I didn't have enough patience.:rolleyes:

I don't know what speeds are achievable with Flashget, but I know that when I download with SMPlayer it maxes out my cable modem at 250KBps.:eek:

bat999

Here's a screenshot:-

Lakeuk

I use NetTransport and get 800KBps, I also use it to get the iplayer tv programmes I've not got time to watch within the 7/30day limit

Kronalias

buglawton wrote: »

OK I have decided on a different approach. The real key is that beebotron website. Now I used to use Flashget quite a bit with Internet Explorer, but have since moved to Firefox.

Glad you like the Beebotron - http://beebotron.timeforabrew.com/

You may like to know that the servers that the Beebotron lives on are being migrated to a new data centre - so there may be some, errm, disruption to the service

There'll be information out the outages here:
http://forums.cyberhostpro.com/forumdisplay.php?f=38

and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible :j

All the best, Kronalias