Recording a streaming webcast?

February 6, 2008 8:20 PM

Scheduling and recording an ASX webcast with freeware?

In a few weeks, I will be on my college's radio show. My family and friends have expressed interest in listening to it, but aren't available for my time slot. There is an .ASX webcast, but it isn't recorded, merely streamed. I'm looking for a free (I am a college student) software to record the webcast as an MP3 (or not, as I've found many free converters). The webcast will be an hour long, and as I won't be on my computer to set it up, it needs to be able to schedule when to record. I have Vista on my desktop and Windows XP on my laptop though I'd much rather use the desktop as the laptop is extremely slow and prone to freezing at crucial moments. I found a program that can schedule and record here, but it's $18 (I'm really trying to avoid spending any money) and the trial inserts noise every 60 seconds.

Any suggestions appreciated.

posted by alcopop to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Windows' sound recorder should be able to do this (to .wav... you can compress to mp3 however you normally would).
posted by pompomtom at 8:38 PM on February 6, 2008

mplayer has a -dumpstream option you can use for this. I'm on linux but I believe it runs on windows as well.
posted by theothersteve at 10:20 PM on February 6, 2008

A second nod for mplayer, I use it to create podcasts of streamed audio files. Look at the cygwin project and see if they have a port. If it's unstable, you could always run linux under the free version of vmware server.

Another option is to use icecast/oddcast to capture the output of the audio card to a file. See here for setup details.
posted by beowulf573 at 5:36 AM on February 7, 2008

1) Download and install VLC media player. It's free. (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)
2) File -> open network stream.
3) Put the .ASX stream URL in the HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/MMS field.
4) Under "Advanced options", set the "Save stream".

Done.

I also believe this can be scripted, so you should be able to schedule this in Windows with something like schtasks.

Also: most college radio stations have their own in-studio setup where they can capture to DAT, CD, iPod, whayever, specifically because lots of DJ's want/need to record their own shows. Some even capture their own mp3 streams in hourly chunks for later listening.

So ask them = I think it'd be the rare station that couldn't give you your own copy of show audio that you participated in.
posted by bhance at 10:27 AM on February 7, 2008

As an alternative, you could also ask the DJ of the show if the station can record it for you. Most reasonably equipped college stations should have a way to record Air to a computer at the station. At least mine did when I was around 7 years ago.
posted by soy_renfield at 12:25 PM on February 7, 2008

I'm the DJ of the show and they don't go to any trouble at all for the AM station.
posted by alcopop at 7:14 PM on May 3, 2008