Comments on: Real media streams: Saving, splitting, converting to mp3?

Question: Real media streams: Saving, splitting, converting to mp3?

dobbs — Sun, 19 Sep 2004 23:10:31 -0800

My own blue thread makes me want to know how I can record these concerts (Real media streams) to my hard drive and then convert to MP3 and then break them up into individual tracks. I'm on OS X Panther and prefer iTunes but will download whatever.

By: skylar

skylar — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:32:55 -0800

There's a piece of software called Replay Music which should do it all for you, automagically.

By: jjg

jjg — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:37:11 -0800

Note the part where said he was using a Mac.

The answer to just about every Mac audio question around these parts is either (a) Audio Hijack, (b) Audacity, or (c) both. In your case, the answer is (c): Audio Hijack to grab the streams, then Audacity to chop them up. After that, you can use Audacity or iTunes to convert to MP3.

By: jjg

jjg — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 00:42:04 -0800

Or you could use Audacity to convert the whole concert to MP3, then chop it up post-conversion.

By: cogat

cogat — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 01:34:51 -0800

and then? and then? andthenandthenandthen?

Surely it would be better to convert to mp3 last, namely after splitting? - like converting to jpg last in web graphics, you keep the quality drop as late as possible in the process to avoid multiple recompression removing more information.

By: zsazsa

zsazsa — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 05:31:35 -0800

Actually, MP3s can be split losslessly along frame boundaries, and if your MP3 player is smart enough, there won't be any gaps in between track transitions. This may not be the case if you split then encode, as MP3 fills up what's left of the last frame with silence, resulting in annoying track gaps which are harder to get rid of.

By: jeremias

jeremias — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 05:57:59 -0800

There's also Audion which will do all your conversion and editing. Added benefit of being able to edit and play in the same app.

By: Quinbus Flestrin

Quinbus Flestrin — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 06:34:04 -0800

Another thing to look at is I Record Music which uses the libraries installed by RA (without actually running RA) to record RA streams to mp3/aac/aiff. It integrates with iCal for scheduled recording.

Audio Hijack is impressive for general purpose sound capture, but for recording RA streams this suited me better.

By: waldo

waldo — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 07:18:27 -0800

I often do this with KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic, for studio appearances by various artists.

First, I play the stream clear through, capturing it with Ambrosia's excellent (and free) Wiretap. Then I use QuickTime to chop it up into tracks, manually. I save each of these tracks as AIFFs, and then I convert them to MP3s in iTunes.

It's a bit time-consuming, I suppose -- maybe a minute of my time per track -- but I find it's well worth the trouble. :)

By: dobbs

dobbs — Mon, 20 Sep 2004 22:39:28 -0800

Thanks, all!