'Listen Again' and iplayer

o_t_e

Has anyone heard anything about the BBC radio's Listen Again feature being replaced by an equivalent iplayer feature running at 128Kbps? Just read this on The Register and as I often listen on a 48Kbps dial up connection I'd be pretty well stuffed if they didn't offer an alternative.

Hungerdunger

I can't answer your question directly, but if it did happen and you couldn't use the Listen Again feature satisfactorily, I can suggest a workaround.

There is a piece of software called Net Transport. This program will download the radio programme as a Real Audio file which you can then play on your computer or, if you're prepared to spend more time converting it to mp3 format, you can move it to an mp3 player.

Net Transport is not that intuitive to start with, so if you do decide to use it, pm me and I can send you my idiots guide (no offence meant) to get you started.

Kazzajr

They are going to be updating iplayer with beta and will be incorporating the radio stations into this new version. There is some more info here http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/2008/06/bbc_iplayer_20_sneak_preview.html

o_t_e

Thanks. I actually use something similar now - VCR Streambox - I used use this to download wmv's of the likes of The Mighty Boosh before iplayer put a stop to that. I guess I might be able to find the location of the mp3 stream if I dig around enough; unfortunately it sounds like they're dropping real audio which I was quite happy with when combined with the Real Alternative player.

o_t_e

Well, having tried it I can confirm that the flash-based iplayer is unusable if you want to use dial-up to 'Listen Again'; there may be a way of identifying the 128kbps mp3 file that's being used and record it but that's not something I know how to do.

Fortunately I discovered an easy workaround - the new 'improved' service is based on flash; go to the new 'listen again' iplayer pages with a web browser that doesn't have flash loaded and you'll get a real audio file which will output a lower bitrate stream that can be listened to over dial-up.

Interesting that the BBC Iplayer could relay this information but choose not to:

"In the UK can I play radio programmes with RealPlayer or Windows Media Player rather than Flash?

No, because BBC iPlayer detects whether you are in the UK and selects the appropriate player as described here. We aim to give you Flash as this gives the best sound quality."

Hungerdunger

I've just tried it, and unfortunately Net Transport (which I referred to above) doesn't identify the mp3 file.

o_t_e - if you do find a way of identifying the file, please post it here.

o_t_e

I must admit I didn't try as I don't like flash so I only have it installed on explorer, which I rarely use; as I don't have flash installed on firefox I get the real audio stream rather than the flash stream - if you have flash installed on both you could try installing a third browser like Opera or maybe there is an easy way of disabling flash.

Once flash isn't available, you get a real audio player on the screen; if your click (right click?) on the realplayer symbol to the right you get the option to play the stream on an realplayer itself which for me opens The Real Alternative/Media Player Classic. Within that if you go 'file' then 'properties' you can see the source and file name eg just downloaded the now show:

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio4/1830_fri.ra

This is all vcr streambox needs but I'm not sure about net transport - I imagine it would be similar.