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Anyone know a good free program to record streaming audio?

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wolf7:
Thanks very much guys (& gals?) for the recommendations. :)

Mouser, wow! Thanks for all those links!  Looks like some good stuff there. I'll have to look through all the programs, may take some time, but that's ok. :Thmbsup:

I'm not sure, but I think Total Recorder will just record the sounds going through your soundcard and not just the stream. This is what I want to avoid, incase I'm doing something else on my computer while I'm recording a stream, because all the other Windows sounds will be recorded also along with the stream. Plus it's not free. :(

StreamRipper and StationRipper are useful for recording Shoutcast and Icecast streams, but I can't usually get them to work for much else.

Here's some of the other programs I've tried that can record streams and I didn't see posted about here so far, or in any of the links :

Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ will record any sound going through your sound card and save as wav or mp3. So you could use it to record any streams that you can hear, but again it will record all other sounds on your computer as well. It also has a long conversion time and no timer function that I'm aware of.

Audio Grabber http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net/ I'm sure many of you have already heard of it, but may not be aware it can be used to record any sound going through your soundcard, like streaming audio. ;)  I can't use this for my ops because it will record every other sound on your computer as well as the stream, but it is still very useful in some cases. And a plus with Audio Grabber is it has a nice timer feature to start and stop your recordings.

Jet Audio http://www.jetaudio.com/products/jetaudio/ free version can be used to record streams, but you can't save as mp3, you have to purchase that option for $9.US  It also has a timer feature. But not a freebie if you want to save as mp3 like I do, and it doesn't seem to lock on to the streams as well as some of the other media players I've tested, e.g. it often rebuffers with some streams. Also I can't get it to work with rtsp.

Quintessential Player http://www.quinnware.com/ is a nice one! I really like this one, but again it only seems to be able to get Shoutcast/Icecast streams, for the most part, and I am looking for a stream recorder that will play and record more than just Shoutcast, mainly Windows Media Streams(mms, http and rtsp). I would highly recommend trying this free program though for anyone who wants a real nice free media player with many options.

Screamer Radio http://www.screamer-radio.com/ is another nice freebie. It is simple and records direct to mp3, but it has no timer of any kind. But what I do like about it is you can set it to play the last stream you were listening to when you open the program, but it won't open and "record" the last stream. So you have to manually click record every time. Still this little gem is great at recording a variety of audio streams direct to mp3. It won't record real media though and some others I suppose, I haven't tested it that much yet to know for sure.

I've tried quite a few other Media players also, but most are lacking all the features I want in a free player. I'll probably just have to breakdown and finally pay for one, I'm such a cheapskate. :D  But till then the search goes on for the ideal free stream recorder. :)

m_s:
You mention that some of the free tools don't record to MP3, Wolf: how about using DWPowerAmp to convert - this is a great free tool that I rely upon in my work (for converting WMA recordings from an Olympus digital voice recorder to WAV for voice-recognition, and to MP3 for distribution).  Search on Google for Version 10, which was the last one to include free MP3 encoding - nowadays you have to pay for this (due to some conflict with the Lame developers).

kfitting:
Correction on the Audacity info: Audacity will record the channel you set the record setting in windows for.  Granted, if this happens to be wav then it will record all things going through that channel (which makes the statement above MOSTLY correct since this is where most of the sound is coming from for streams).  But it will not record all sound coming into your computer (unless you tell it to).  Minor caveat but dont want to mislead anyone.

The bigger problem with audacity for recording streams is that it will also record any jumps or skips.

Kevin

mouser:
kfitting has hinted at the key differences between the 2 major different kinds of apps. there really are 2 classes of apps for doing this stuff.

one kind of app records any sounds playing through your sound card.  the advantage of this is that its easy to record any stream, regardless of source.  easy to record in mp3 or any format.  the problem is you have to be listening to it in real time as it records.  any bandwidth congestion, skips, pauses, etc. are all reflected in the recording.  total recorder is the quintisential app of this type.

the second kind of app is specific code to record a specific kind of stream.  the programs like streambox vcr to reacord real media streams are the best example of this type.  advantages are they may be able to download many streams at the same time (like streambox vcr can), they can download them at faster than real time, they are pure downloads with no loss of quality, no skips, no problems if you have bandwidth glitches or if you are on dial up etc.  the disadvantages are only that the complexity of this process means having different tools for different streams and that it can be hard sometimes to configure these programs correctly, and find the urls for recording (see our own url snooper program for that), etc.

so bottom line is usally if there is a specific recorder for a specifc kind of stream, you usually would want to prefer an app in the 2nd class.  failing that, a general purpose program like total recorder that records direct from the audio playback is your solution.

tsaint:
Wolf7, you can turn off system sounds while recording using total recorder. From their help file:
"System sounds
To prevent system sounds from interrupting your recording, check "Turn off sounds assigned to system events". This is the default and the recommended setting. Your system sounds will return when you close Total Recorder."
tony

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