Ripping flac stream

[borgibo]

Hello everybody,

This is a newby and might ask silly questions so forgive me:(

Through the following post:

"Labarum's Avatar
Labarum Labarum is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Southampton, UK and Nicosia, Cyprus
Posts: 623
Default Lossless Internet Radio Stream
This is a FLAC stream

http://radio.cesnet.cz:8000/cro-d-dur.flac

It is discussed here

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showth...highlight=flac

At the moment there is no easy way for a Squeezebox to stream it, but it can be accessed by other means.

I have not listened. I would have to move some hardware around the house, but I would be interested to hear views from others.

Is it a classical music station?
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Brian

In Southampton: my son's Marantz AV amp in Super Direct mode with B&W 684 (Not good!)
In Nicosia: Quad 405-2 refurbished by 405man - Quart 980s German Tower Loudspeakers.
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In both: Squeezebox Classic, Beresford Caiman DAC, Sony MDR-F1 Headphones
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I tried the "ČRo D-dur 128 kb/s ogg 224 kb/s ogg FLAC" a Czeh radio station which streams in flac compressed mode.

The sound quality is stunning with my best multimedia box running AV3.0r1 Linux(based on Debian Lenny)with rt-kernel, at Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2, AMD3800+, 2GB,M-Audio Audiophile 2496, SMxph4 headphone amplifier(€50) and inexpensive headphones(€50);

My best radio station, sound wise, was up to now Hungary's MR3 Bartok Radio streaming at 320kbs/s mp3, with which I was pretty happy and was able to rip the streams as well (record) using kstreamripper. Unfortunately the station went out since about a fortnight ago. So I started googling and came to the above mentioned flac stream which is far superior.

But I cannot rip the streams. Hence my post here. Does anybody know how to rip/record the sound in my HD?

I would be thankful for any suggestions.

Thank you for your attention,

borgibo

[Stratmangler]

Hi borgibo

Welcome to the forum - I see you've managed to evade the "newbie police". They'll be after you to post a hello in the appropriate area.

With regard to recording - if you can play it through your sound card you sure as hell can record it in real time at the same time.

Try googling "rip spotify" then apply a bit of lateral thought.

Chris:)

[borgibo]

Thank you chris for your prompt and concise reply.

The police has not showed up yet.

Unfortunately, googling, I read that to be able to rip with spotify the music must originate from spotify which of course is not the case with the Czech radio station. Or so I understood with my limited technical knowledge.:uhho:

borgibo

[Stratmangler]

Look at this page http://www.spotifyripping.com/?page_id=193 first, then sit back and think laterally.

You do not have to use Audacity, as other recording programs also work (I use Goldwave myself), and the source material does not have to come from the Spotify servers (hence my comment about sound cards - if you can play it through your sound card you sure as hell can record it in real time at the same time).

Chris:)

[Stratmangler]

I'm just capturing the music from http://radio.cesnet.cz:8000/cro-d-dur.flac
which I am playing using Foobar.

Sounds very nice too.

Another approach would be to use a sound card with a Toslink S/PDIF out and hook that up to an external digital recorder - expensive way of doing things though.

Chris:)

[borgibo]

1000 thanks Chris,

Being technically illiterate it will take me some time to understand/find out and will certainly come back!

borgibo:o

[borgibo]

Sorry for the delay as I wrote my message and lost it somehow by clicking to "Go Advanced" !!!

You are right that with Spotify Ripper one can rip music not only from Spotify and the two are not connected in any way. But the sound quality is only up to 128kbps mp3 and the Czech station relays/streams at an average of 800kbps edging to 1280kbps(160kB) for short periods in complex sound movements as I have experienced while listening to music.

See http://www.cesnet.cz/doc/techzpravy/2008/using-flac-encoding/

The second suggestion using Replay Music might work satisfactorily since one can change the bitrate, I have to check it.

My sound card has S/PDIF out but then I do not have the required external digital recorder.

If you like the station here a link for the schedule, albeit only for some hours in advance.
http://www.rozhlas.cz/d-dur/english

borgibo

[Krisbee]

Borgibo,

You said you are running a version of Linux on your multimedia box.

Install the VLC media player software. Go to view, click on "advanced controls" and you will then see a "record" button" appear.

To play the radio station use "media > open network stream" option and enter the station's URL. To rip it, just press the "record" during playback.

There's an option in VLC (Tools, Preferences, Audio, Output, ALSA) to set the ALSA device name used for output and hence get the best quality output on your M-audio card.

You could use mplayer at the CLI in Linux but I think you'll need to open the stream twice, once for playback and once for ripping.

It's playing "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro " right now :)

[borgibo]

@ Krisbee,

Thank you. I did place ALSA in Output.

Now though there is a problem with vlc. On its own vlc does not work and will not play if I put the url in the "media>open network stream" window. I get the following"
Your input can't be opened:

VLC is unable to open the MRL 'http://radio.cesnet.cz:8000/cro-d-dur.flac

'. Check the log for details.


And I have tried in the past to check the log but it is not there where the log files reside I cannot remember now /etc/something....

One thing that might cause the problem is that after the url window there is another small one that states "port 0" and no alternative, it does not change.

Nonetheless using kstreamripper I can hear beautiful music, Antonio Vivaldi presently, with vlc! "vlc<url>" at the left bottom of kstreamripper's window.

The vlc window shows up on top of kstreamripper and I went to view>advanced controls and the record red button appeared but does not work. That is again vlc window on top of kstreamripper registering time playing etc.

Sorry for that it seems my box is witched.

borgibo:(

[borgibo]

@ Krisbee,

Wait, it seems it is being recorded although I did not notice any increase in the download rate, hence I thought it was not being recorded. I have been used in recording a stream with kstreamripper which doubles the download rate once I click on the "rip" window while listening to music.

Yes it is recording while the red record button is pressed. I was able to listen some of the recorded files which were placed in my home directory, using mplayer.

This is wonderful.Mplayer shows a harmful error while playing in a flashing window " [AO_ALSA] Unable to find simple control 'PCM',0" but does not affect the music.

So this has solved the problem, I wonder how I could state that to inform everybody.

Thank you very much Stratmangler and Krisbee.

A very happy borgibo:band:

[Krisbee]

Borgibo,

I'm glad you have VLC working as you want. As you have discovered, the advantage of using VLC for stream ripping is that it does not open two streams like kstreamripper. It's more economical with your download bandwith.

Sunday night's programme is ending with Beethoven's ninth, the slow movement is playing as I type ........... :)

PS You can see a whole week's schedule at a time, just click on the "Hudební pořady" link in the http://www.rozhlas.cz/d-dur/english page.