The VideoLAN Forums

For some reason I can't figure out how to set up recording for my radio stream. I previously used an older version that had a Wizard for setting up recording and everything I've found out on the net has either not addressed the lack of the Wizard button or has confused me.

Could someone give me some guidance ...I'd really like to set things up to record at a certain time, but lets just get me heading in the right direction first. LOL

I will also mention that I have no interest in high quality recordings of the radio feed, since it will be a listen to it once and delete type thing. The feed I'll be recording is (http://www.mainstreamnetwork.com/listen ... on=wccp-fm) in case that makes things easier. It's a asp stream in case the details don't show in the link.

I'm using 0.9.4 and I'm aware that I could get a newer version, but I'm using Ubuntu (linux) and that is the suggested version for now, so I need to stay with 0.9.4.

Thanks in advance!

Go to:
Media >> Convert / Save...

Click on the "Network" tab. Enter the URL there, then press "Convert / Save". If you are happy with e.g. 128kbps MP3 select "MP3" from the Profile drop-down box. Tick "File" and enter a destination (with *.mp3 extension ideally). If you want to listen to it at the same time tick "Play locally".

Then press "Stream" and it should stream to a file.

Arite.

Thank you for the reply! I'm still having some issues getting the file to save though. I have tried to name it multiple ways (thinking that it might not like spaces in the file name or numbers,) but I've still not had any luck getting to save. I'm aware that the problem has to be "operator error," but maybe I'm missing a small part of the steps. I would prefer to save the stream at a very low quality like 20kbps or so, but I went ahead and stayed with the default settings (128kbps) for my testing, so it's not about that either. I have gotten it to save files, but none of them show any info in them (bytes.) I've went ahead and tried to play them just in case it was not showing the correct file size, but when totem or VLC tries to play them it confirms that they are empty. The stream IS playing because I can hear it playing, but it's not compiling any info.

Sorry to ask for more hand holding, but I'm a little frustrated and I'm sure it's something simple.

The method above work both fine on Linux (Debian sid) and Windows for me. Post VLC's messages output. Go to "Tools >> Messages..." and set the "Verbosity Level" to "2". Then open/setup your stream etc. Paste the message here (use "Code" tags prefably).

If you want to change the bitrate etc. to e.g. 32kbps then don't select a profile, select "RAW" as the Encapsulation and e.g. "MP3" with 32kbps for the Audio codec. Or you can change the sout string directly (at the bottom of the window).

VLC 1.0.0 (not released yet) should be able to stream to Speex which is ideal for low bitrate encoding for speech.

Arite.

I hope this is the correct info you are asking for. I set it to make a message of the short recording I did and then I changed the encap. to raw, 32kbps and then recorded 10 seconds or so.

main info: Running vlc with the default interface. Use 'cvlc' to use vlc without interface.
access_mms info: selecting stream[0x1] audio (20 kb/s)
access_mms info: connection successful
access_mms debug: recv command start_sequence:0x4a000001 command_id:0xb00bface length:32 len8:4 sequence 0x00000025 len8_II:2 dir_comm:0x0004001b

Did you set the "Verbosity Level" to 2? There should be a lot more debug info that than if you did.

Cheers, Arite.

I did set it to 2 and made a file name ...now when I made that recording it was only a few seconds, but after I shut down the recording I went and c&p'ed the info from the file and that was all it had.

Just leave the messages window open for the duration of the streaming/conversion. The key bit is what happens after it has parsed the ASF source and streams out.

Arite.

Ok, maybe this will shed some light on things ...do I need to have "dump raw file checked?"

The disappointing thing is ...I need to run some errands, but I'll be in about 8pm EST tonight.

Ok, maybe this will shed some light on things ...do I need to have "dump raw file checked?"

No, that will just dump the stream as-is (i.e. will not transcode it).

The messages output looks OK - so did VLC just generate an empty file called "WCCPtest7.mp3" (presumably that is in your home directory?)? Try entering the full path to it - i.e. /home/(your-username)/WCCPtest7.mp3 or something similar (where (your-username) is your username).

Arite.

Well I had a brain cloud ...I had been saving my test streams into a specific folder, but some how had forgotten to run the last 3 attempts into that same folder. LOL

It looks like it is working fine and thank you!

Now ...is there a way to start the recording by schedule? I'm usually away every day at the time a certain show starts and I'd like to set it up to start recording while I'm away.

Well I had a brain cloud ...I had been saving my test streams into a specific folder, but some how had forgotten to run the last 3 attempts into that same folder. LOL

It looks like it is working fine and thank you!

Ah OK - glad it is working .

Now ...is there a way to start the recording by schedule? I'm usually away every day at the time a certain show starts and I'd like to set it up to start recording while I'm away.

Yes, you can set up scheduled streams etc. using VLM:
http://wiki.videolan.org/VLM

See some of the examples in the wiki. You can use e.g. the HTTP interface or the telnet one.

Arite.

Does anyone have any opinions on whether it is easier to set up timed recordings with HTTP or Telnet?

The telnet interface with a text file is good, however you might fine the Web interface easier to handle.

To use the telnet interface, for example open a text editor and do something like this (this is based on the example in the wiki): Where (YOUR_USERNAME) is your username. Save it as e.g. "test-schedule.conf"

Then open up a terminal and enter: Where test-schedule.conf is the path/name of you *.conf file, and 2009/02/13-14:34:00 is the time you want to start the stream.

Then at the specified time and date VLC should start steaming 32kbps MP3 to ~/out.mp3. Note I used the actual mms:// stream that VLC derived from the ASP file as just linking to the ASP file didn't work.

You should be able to expand on that to e.g. stop, set up repeat schedules etc. at a certain times. Look at the wiki for more info.

Arite.

Arite,

I've had a similar issue as this one. Because of your reposonses on this thread I've finally realized to un-check the "dump raw input" box to save the stream. (When it WAS checked, the file a specified to convert/save to never showed up in windows explorer).

THANK YOU!!!
]\

This is probably a newb question, but even after looking thru this thread I'm having trouble figuring out how to properly capture this radio stream:

http://94.23.8.96:8030
CODEC DETAILS:
Codec: mp4a
Type: Audio
Channels: 2
Sample rate: 44100
AAC extension: SBR
(Stream bitrate 62-64kb/s)

I use Convert/Save with profile MPEG-4 audio AAC with Codec as MPEG 4 Audio (AAC) and Bitrate = 64kb/s, but the sound is all distorted. Play locally is checked.
When use Convert/Save with the MP3 profile it works as expected and the sound quality is fine.

It's probably a simple setting I'm missing here. Thanks for any help in advance!

Bear in mind that LC-AAC at 64kbps is significantly lower quality than HE-AAC (AAC with SBR).

Try adding: To the transcode part of sout string.

For example: Where OUTPUT is you destination.

Arite.

Arite, that one fix solved my entire (AAC) sound quality problem; like magic. Very helpful.

Glad it worked .

Arite.

I had a similar problem.

In my case, the problem was that i was trying to save to a folder name "$music", and somehow, vlc doesn't likes the $ in it.

I took it out, and all is fine now.

Anyway, is it possible to tell VLC to create MP3s from radio streams, but to cut them each our?

I want it to automatically record each day, from 10 AM to 12PM, and to generate something like

YYYYMMDD-10-11
YYYYMMDD-11-12

Is it possible?

Arite,

I've had a similar issue as this one. Because of your reposonses on this thread I've finally realized to un-check the "dump raw input" box to save the stream. (When it WAS checked, the file a specified to convert/save to never showed up in windows explorer).

THANK YOU!!!
]\

I observed the same behaviour.

Is it a bug ? (it seems it worked with previous versions).
Or is it a voluntary limitation so that to force downgrade of audio quality by transcoding ?

Forget about my post. There's no downgrade of audio quality since there no need to transcode. It's just necessary to specify "raw" for the muxer.

Now another bug in 0.9.9
I saved the playlist in a file (.m3u).
I quit VLC then reopen the playlist.
The problem is that the streaming to disk doesn't work.
Quite annoying to repeat the convert procedure each time one want to record a Web radio stream

Same scenario and same bug with saving the playlist in a .xspf file.
Will bug be fixed in 1.0.0 ?