Mac People: Saving Air America Stream to CD or iPod

[Jane Austin]

*

For those of us not lucky enough to have Air America on a radio station, Clever Husband has found a program to save Franken, Rhodes, Garafalo, et al to computer, and from there to CD or iPod.

First, you need to have Mac OS X (specifically OS 10.2.6 or better).

The program is called iRecordMusic and it's down loadable from bitcartel.com

Cost is $20, but the trial version is full-featured, just stops
recording after 15 minutes.

You also need to download the latest (free) version of RealPlayer to record AA.

In practice, iRecordMusic works like a browser. You open it,
navigate to Air America's homepage, click on "listen live" and Real Player opens in a browser-like window and begins playing the stream.

In the corner of the window is a blue button - click on it, and the
stream starts recording, giving you a chance to name it.

You need some space. My experience is that it requires about a
megabyte of space per minute of recording - so recording three hours of Franken takes about 180 megabytes of hard drive space. (equivalent to less than a third of the capacity of a standard CD).

Once the recording is stopped, (by clicking the button again) the
program uses Mac OS X's built-in iTunes program to encode it.

From that point, you can download it to an iPod, you can play it directly from your computer, or you can transfer it to CD and play it on any CD player that can play the MP3 format.

The program also integrates with Apple's iCal calendar program to allow unattended recording, but I haven't gotten that working
flawlessly yet - I think part of the problem is the early-days
flakiness of the Air America stream that breaks the scheduled
recording.

Now, I'm off to feed the puppies, accompanied by my iPod and Randi Rhodes from yesterday. :)

[bif]

1. Is there a way to do this with OS9?

Just wondering.

[Jane Austin]

5. I don't think so.

I have both on my iBook and prefer OS 9.

CH keeps telling me I'm going to have to switch over.

Fortunately for me, he downloads AA on his, and I can transfer it to my iPod from there.

[Jane Austin]

6. Deleted due to duplication. Sorry!

n/t

[cheezus]

2. cool. but i think http://www.whiterosesociety.org/ is doing it

still, I appreciate the hack. Looks like that progam you got it just hijacking the audio before it hits the speakers. If you do something during the show that rasises the alert sound ( I like the quack on macs ) does that sound show up in the recording?

[benburch]

4. Correction; WANTS to do it.

Check this thread, please;

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1363775&mesg_id=1363775

Thanks!

[evworldeditor]

3. Saving to PC and Converting to MP3

You can do the same thing with a number of PC-based programs that capture streaming internet audio off your PC and convert it to MP3 format. Just do a search on Download.com for MP3 or audio editor.

I use a program from AVS, but there are a number of others that are either free or shareware.

Also, AA apparently is planning to archive its past programs, but I suspect it will be in .RM format instead of MP3.

http://www.evworld.com

[tomreedtoon]

7. And for PC people...

I mentioned this in the other repeat of this thread, but go to this web address...

http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/finalbuilds.htm

...and get the package called "Real Alternative." It contains a player and codecs that let you listen to RealMedia content without all the continual ads, promotions and upgrades that the official RealPlayer slams you with. It works just fine on my Win XP machine with DSL connection (while I'm doing other Internet stuff on my other machines).

[BGrier]

8. Windows Tip

I just set my windows audio mixer for recording to "What You Hear" and then use any program that records WAVs or MP3s in real-time to record. I do WAV and then convert to MP3 (or Ogg) later.

[benburch]

9. A much better OSX Solution

Check out "Audio Hijack Pro" from http://www.RogueAmoeba.com/

It will encode directly to an MP-3.

I use it for several of the shows I put on White Rose.

Other shows, those streamed as MP3s, I record directly using "iNet Stream Archiver"

I also use TotalRecorder on the PC for some content.

I paid for both of these, and if you use them, you should too rather than pirating them.

-Ben Burch
White Rose Society Webmaster
http://www.WhiteRoseSociety.org/

[htuttle]

10. I second that about Audio Hijack

Works great, and only records a single program's audio at a time (so alert sounds, etc...are no issue).

BTW, for 'ripping' MP3 streams, I use the open source command line program 'streamripper'. It's free, can provide a local 'relay' server so that you can listen to what you are recording (without having to grab a second stream to monitor), and it's nice to be able to use a command line program to do it, since you can just move it off to the background and nearly forget about it (but don't, since you will end up with a HUGE MP3 if you leave it run for 4 days...take my word for it). Look on sourceforge (via google) for it.

Finally, for doing the same thing with videos (like from CSPAN), look at SnapzPro from Ambrosia. I use it and it works okay, but is kind of sensitive to CPU loading (although Version 2 is supposed handle this better).

[Jane Austin]

11. Darn

Looks like I shouldn't have said anything.

[htuttle]

12. Au Contraire!

I hadn't heard of iRecordMusic before. I'll check it out.


Thanks

[Jane Austin]

13. Well, thanks. :)

I hadn't seen anyone post how to make the audio stream portable, so I thought I was being helpful.

[benburch]

14. Nonsense

You did great! And it needed to be brought up. I do this every day for White Rose, so it is no mystery to me, and I forget that not everybody else has figured all of this out.

-Ben

[Jane Austin]

15. Thanks.

This stuff is all a mystery to me, and I am thrilled that I can now take AA with me to work, the gym, and in the car!