How to Record Audio Streams 

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This all started when I tried out a (now defunct) beta product from StreamBox;
StreamBox-VCR allowed me to:

• record multiple audio streams, simultaneously!
• record Real audio streams, even if the stream's "disable recording" flag was set
• on a lossy connection, SB-VCR would "rewind" across lost data and append

the file where it left off, resulting in complete stream captures with no dropouts!

Successes:

• Create a means of recording a list of archived audio programs with minimal setup

and no interaction
• Create a means of recording a live audio program at a scheduled time
• Record streams direct to MP3 format (to avoid a separate encoding step)

• Find a means of automatically correcting for dropouts
• This requires decoding the stream, e.g. writing your own Real player, the

courts have already ruled on this in the StreamBox case
• Find a way to detect that a stream has ended and kill the current record session

(the purpose of this is only to move on to the next session as soon as possible)
• This is something that HighCriteria could add, e.g. stop recording after

N minutes of silence
• Find a way to re-record a (non-live) stream if it died (network congestion...) before

completion

This is where things stand today:

• Installed TotalRecorder from HighCriteria
• This program records any single stream by intercepting the audio samples going

to the audio adapter (i.e. recording the digital version of what you're hearing on
your speakers)
• Downloaded the free Lame DLL MP3 encoder to record directly to MP3 format;

configured it to record 24 kbps at 16 khz mono (sufficient for many streams).
• Created batch files, using the lesser known "start" command to launch the stream and

the recorder simultaneously
• Used an OS dependent scheduler to launch the batch file

Feel free to modify my batch files to match your favorite site's requirements. This zip file
contains a batch file for current and older Fresh Airprograms and another for
John Schaefer's New Sounds program from WNYC.

For shows dated 2001 January 01 and later the show segments are currently in this form:
     http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/fa/20010501.fa.02.ram
where "20010501" refers to the date in YYYYMMDD format, and the "02" refers to
the segment within that show. If you want the entire show not just one segment, then
this is the form to use:
     http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/fa/20010501.fa.ram
The latter form must be used for archives dated between 1998 Jan 02 and 2000 Dec 29,
since those shows only exist in their entirety.

Using the fa.bat batch file several shows can be recorded serially. For example

    fa 20010501 02 60sBandLove 20010424 00 NSA

will record the segment on the 60's band Love (I actually owned their first two
albums) and the Apr. 24th show with featuring an NSA investigator (to separate
files).

Using the batch file ns.bat in a similar fashion

    ns 1633 PaulineOliveros 1531 JoanOfArc

will record two one hour programs to separate files. Here the four digit numbers are
the program number and again the text is a short description.

FILE NAMES: The created sound files include the date-code, segment, and text
description fields, but this can be simplified as you see fit.

SCHEDULER: Using a scheduler (I use the native one on Win 2000) to launch is left
as an exercise for interested audio streaming enthusiasts.

CAVEAT: All audio programs tend to move around with regard to the URL that launches
them. This is because their host sites reorganize and/or farm out their audio streaming
services to other host sites. When the batch files no longer work, it's time to edit the
URLs within.