How to capture audio from a website? Not even possible in VLC?

[blahblahblahblahblah]

How do you capture (record) audio from a website? I mean when a website plays sound. I want to record that directly. At least one site says VLC can't do this and never will be able to while other sites say it can. Not sure how it can be so unclear whether it's even possible. Many sites have identical instructions and I followed them and they don't work. No matter what I do I get a file which is a video recording using my cam and the sound is from my mic. Here is what the sites say to do and which I've been doing:

1) View > check Advanced Controls
2) Media > Open Capture Device > Capture mode > Direct show
3) " " Audio Device Name > select your device or "Stereo Mix". The only choices I have are Default, Microphone (both of these record the cam and mic), and None (makes no recording at all - no file is saved)
4) Play button
5) Record button to start recording
6) Record button to stop recording

Here's where one site says VLC never has and never will be able to capture desktop audio: "VLC-not-recording-audio is not a recent problem but a long-existing issue that has been there with VLC since a decade ago. It seems that the VLC desktop recorder is made without the audio recording feature in the first place. Many people have reported the bug to the VLC team. But, for certain reasons, the team decided not to fix the problem. And the current bug status is WONTFIX (meaning the bug will never be fixed)."

[Lotesdelere]

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 05#p529905

[Hitchhiker]

@ blahblahblahblahblah,

Please post the URL to the site you want to record audio from. I have Windows 8.1 as well so I'll try to record the audio to see if it can be done.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

You can loopback the audio into Windows VLC:

Code: Select all

vlc.exe wasapi:// :wasapi-loopback

You can then play, record or stream as normal.

[blahblahblahblahblah]

@ blahblahblahblahblah,

Please post the URL to the site you want to record audio from. I have Windows 8.1 as well so I'll try to record the audio to see if it can be done.

Why does the site make any difference? If the computer's making sound can't VLC either record it or not record it? TBH it feels like I'm the first person who's ever asked this and I'm confused by all the caginess and wrong answers and answers to things I didn't ask, such as people keep telling me how to record from the microphone even though I keep saying over and over that I don't want that. Maybe these people don't know the difference between mic and internal sound - ? Anyway the site is https://podtail.com/en/podcast/man-lern ... eni-frost/

[blahblahblahblahblah]

You can loopback the audio into Windows VLC:

Code: Select all

vlc.exe wasapi:// :wasapi-loopback

You can then play, record or stream as normal.

What do I do with this? Sorry I don't know what any of those letters mean.

[Hitchhiker]

@ blahblahblahblahblah,

Please post the URL to the site you want to record audio from. I have Windows 8.1 as well so I'll try to record the audio to see if it can be done.

Anyway the site is https://podtail.com/en/podcast/man-lern ... eni-frost/

Audio on that site is being streamed through Spotify. You need an account on there to listen to anything. VLC can't bypass copyrighted material AFAIK.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Audio on that site is being streamed through Spotify. You need an account on there to listen to anything. VLC can't bypass copyrighted material AFAIK.

I don't know but I doubt thay Spotify has DRM for audio. It should be possible to record it via loopback.

[Hitchhiker]

Audio on that site is being streamed through Spotify. You need an account on there to listen to anything. VLC can't bypass copyrighted material AFAIK.

I don't know but I doubt thay Spotify has DRM for audio.

There are tools to circumvent DRM, so I guess it does: https://codeberg.org/uhwot/XSpotify

[Hitchhiker]

@ blahblahblahblahblah,

Do you have the standard default settings on your Windows 8.1 machine?

If so, do the following:

1. Hit Windows key + E to open "This PC" and click the word "View" on the top toolbar.
2. Click Options at the end of the menu to open "Folder Options".
3. Next, click the "View" tab and in the list of menu options click the radio button where it reads "Show hidden files, folders and drives".
4. Below that remove the checkmark from "Hide empty drives" and from "Hide file extensions for known file types".
5. Click Apply / OK to exit.

Here's a pix to illustrate what that menu will look like after you've made the above changes.


(click to enlarge)

Doing this ensures that Windows settings are not preventing you from seeing menus and file extensions etc.

[Lotesdelere]

You can loopback the audio into Windows VLC:

Code: Select all

vlc.exe wasapi:// :wasapi-loopback

You can then play, record or stream as normal.

What do I do with this? Sorry I don't know what any of those letters mean.

This is a command line to be typed in a command prompt window.

However, it doesn't seem to work for me. When I run it, it launches VLC but the timeline becomes orange and bounces, and nothing happens when I press the record button, no file is created.
But recording through the WASAPI loopback with Audacity is working fine.

Code: Select all

wasapi error: cannot get capture client (error 0x88890003) main debug: using access_demux module "wasapi" main debug: looking for audio decoder module matching "any": 23 candidates araw debug: samplerate:48000Hz channels:2 bits/sample:32 main debug: using audio decoder module "araw" main debug: `wasapi://' successfully opened

I've found a similar report with the same error number in this post:
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph ... 19#p498519

Same result with both "vlc.exe wasapi:// --wasapi-loopback" and "vlc.exe wasapi:// :wasapi-loopback"