Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: How do you save a real audio file from a website?

This is topic How do you save a real audio file from a website? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 06-21-2004, 06:09 PM:

I already tried right clicking and saving on the link, but it doesn`t work (even though the real player opens and plays the file). The address in the source text triggers a response "address type unknown or unsupported".

Posted by Scott Norwood (Member # 30) on 06-21-2004, 06:25 PM:

Sound card. Line output. Tape recorder.

Seriously.

One of the "selling points" of Real Audio is that the content can be "streamed" and not easily saved. Somehow, this is considered to be a good thing.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 06-21-2004, 06:27 PM:

I agree with Scott! That's the way to save it.

I F*CKING HATE Real Audio! It's spyware and lame and just another scheme to get your $$$!

That is ONE vendor I would gladly bootleg!

>>> Phil

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 06-21-2004, 06:44 PM:

Yup! I hunk of junk. Likes to hog the computer, too.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 06-21-2004, 07:18 PM:

OK then I will record it. My harmon/kardon AV receiver has digital in and out, so there is only one conversion stage, from real to PCM and back to WAV, though since PCM and WAV have the sam data content in different file types, there shouldn`t be any further conversion at this point.
My only problem here is that I don`t have a harddisk recorder program, the "record" function in Windows sucks and records only 60 seconds at a time anyway.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 06-21-2004, 08:06 PM:

All these things simply deliver digitized ("wav") audio to the soundcard. Doesn't anyone offer software that can intercept and record this data? Best of all would be a virtual audio card that Winblows would see as your sound card and let you do what you want with the data and then turn it over to the actual drivers for the actual sound card. It doesn't seem like it would be that difficult.

Edit: Okay, I just brought up streaming Real Audio from WBEZ Chicago Public Radio and at the same time opened Windows Sound Recorder. I could record the sound. I also tried a demo (save disabled) version of Cool Edit 2000. I could record the sound there as well. I don't know if it's getting the digitized audio or if there is some analog cross connection in the sound card but I'd say probably the former. What am I missing as this seemed pretty obvious and easy?

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 06-21-2004, 08:56 PM:

Yes, Steve. If I understand what you are asking about, there are several programs that can be used for that. However, they can be expensive.

As you discovered, the basic Microsoft sound recorder can do that.

If I record some live streaming, I use SAW-32 or the SAWCLASS Program. It works extremely well with the Soundblaster Live! soundcard. Cool Edit is a very good program.

I have Fast Edit - it is a good program, but the version I have will not run under XP.

I record internet stuff right straight to the hard drive in a WAV format. I presume it is analog processing in the sound card, but I cannot be sure of that.

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 06-21-2004, 10:21 PM:

I bought a software program called "Replay Radio" back about six months ago. It is quite an awesome program, it can record any sound that goes through your computer. It's great because you can set it up to automatically wake up and record radio programs off the 'Net. Now that I have a cable modem, I have been filling up my hard drive space with audio files. That is the other thing - it can record to whatever file format you want. [Smile]

www.replay-radio.com

Posted by Wayne Keyser (Member # 2420) on 06-21-2004, 10:33 PM:

As I listen to the Real Audio program, I run "Total Recorder" in "What U Hear" mode, then save the file. I can tweak it (clip dead heads and tails, at least) with Sound Forge and if needed convert it to mp3 with any number of freeware apps.

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 06-21-2004, 11:01 PM:

Tape recorder!?! Once you got a recording on cassette, then what? I don't think they even SELL blank tapes anymore, do they? [Wink]

quote: Wayne Keyser
... in "What U Hear" mode, then save the file. I can tweak it (clip dead heads and tails, at least) with Sound Forge and ...

Sound Forge is great! This is exactly what I do when I want to mix down my multi-track recordings with Environmental Audio reverb/effects (I love Sound Blaster!) However, doing this will also record everything the computer does ... AIM message sounds, Windows clicks, etc. So for general recording of streaming sources, I just select the "Wave" channel as recording source. Even though the source is not a ".wav" file necessarily, it all gets processed through the same part of the sound card, and it's the right stage of the sound card's output that you want to capture.

And yes, the .ra format bites! As for players ... WINAMP 2.80 FOREVER!!!

Posted by Dominic Espinosa (Member # 2122) on 06-22-2004, 12:54 AM:

You could use cooledit, winamp, whatever you want. Recording from the WAV output in your soundcards record properties does exactly that.
Also, some sites don't actually stream the real data, they just have you click on a link which sends a .ram file containing the url of the actual file. Opening a .ram file in notepad would give you the url.
I don't think is very common anymore, but hey. Worth a shot.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 06-22-2004, 03:07 AM:

On the Mac there is an awesome and extraordinarily simple freeware program called WireTap that records any sound generated by the computer to a standard 44.1Khz AIFF file on your desktop. You can record ANYTHING! There simply must be something available like that for Windows, right? Right? Probably not.
[av=k]
Anyway, you could just buy a 1/8" mini to mini stereo cable and loop the sound out to the sound in. I wouldn't worry about conversion or generation loss, since RealAudio is gonna sound like absolute shit on a stick in the first place anyway. it ain't gettin' any better, and if it gets worse, nobody on the planet could possibly tell.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 06-22-2004, 11:59 AM:

There's also a simular program for the mac called Audio Hijack It can record audio isolated from any program. Whats really cool about it is that while it records the audio from one program, it ignors other sounds from other programs. It also has a timer function, so you can "TiVo" your favorite internet stream.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 06-22-2004, 01:09 PM:

You sometimes can trick a windows computer into allowing you to save it. Just dis-associate the .ra or .ram file extensions from any application before clicking on it. Windows IE will then not know what to do with the file and prompt you to save it, as it would any other unknown file type.

This may or may not work depending upon how the web page is set up. Some web pages are set up so that you click on an application that opens the file, so that above will not work.

/Mitchell

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-22-2004, 03:22 PM:

Nero (both 5.5 and 6) comes with a recording program thrown in ('Nero wave editor'). The capture, editing and noise reduction features on it are actually quite sophisticated - its only real limitation is that you're limited to mixing two channels.

Simply wind up the wave slider in your sound card's record settings, start your Real audio playing, hit record on Nero and off you go.

Posted by Steve Kraus (Member # 476) on 06-23-2004, 07:16 AM:

How would you determine if this sort of self record process is fully digital or not?

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-23-2004, 11:40 AM:

Hmmm... an interesting one. It would depend on what goes on inside the sound card, I guess. The audio data stream enters the PC through the modem, router or LAN card and is then passed to the sound card. It is captured by the audio recording program as it comes out of the sound card, and obviously it has to be in the form of digital data by that point. The question is whether the sound card performs a digital to analogue conversion and then back again, or if the conversion is only done as the last stage before passing the the signal to the line level speaker jacks and everything else remains totally digital. At any rate there would be some transcoding taking place, as the data arrives in Real audio format but is captured by the recording program as a PCM wave.

My guess would be that the specifics vary from card to card.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 06-23-2004, 09:47 PM:

Before the audio is converted to analog, it has to be unfolded from whatever compressed format it comes to a series of samples to feed the d/a converter. I would imagine the recording program takes the data at that stage. But that is just a guess.
Thanks for mentioning Nero. I have it but never used the wave editor so far. Yes, I see the record function. But when I click the red button it says "cannot generate temporary file". Great. Now I have to figure that out too. But then I can finally record the webcast!

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-24-2004, 01:55 AM:

In Nero wave editor, try looking at options - editor options - directories. It could be that one of the default folders it points to doesn't exist on your PC for some reason (or has another problem, e.g. is full). This is on version 5.5 - I imagine it's similar for 6 if that's what you have.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 06-24-2004, 10:20 PM:

You are right. I checked that right after I wrote my last post. Now the mystery is solved. One more question, since you seem to be more familiar with the program: I didn`t see an option to create track marks. The file I am going to record is 2 hours and I want to define some tracks befor I burn it on a CD (actually 2 CDs, so the file has to be divided anyway). I also have Feurio which allows to set tracks, but I was wondering if the option isn`t right there hidden in Nero somewhere.

Posted by Wayne Keyser (Member # 2420) on 06-25-2004, 12:36 AM:

Okay, REALLY arcane method:

Copy the .ra "pointer" file (1kb) and change its extension to .txt - read the text file and you will get the name and internet path of the RealAudio file. Paste that internet address including filename into a blank browser address-bar. When the file ceases playing, close the browser and "Search" for files with the extension of the RealAudio file in question (NOT the full name, because it may change slightly in storage) - you'll probably find the file you want somewhere in one or another Windows Temporary Files folder.

Sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but it got me the RealVideo "Commando Cody" spoofs (6 episodes and loads of fun) from Twisted Mojo.

Posted by Leo Enticknap (Member # 534) on 06-25-2004, 04:20 AM:

Michael: I'm 99% sure that there isn't a track or index mark facility in Nero Wave Editor. There might be in the main CD burning part of Nero, though, if you save the file as a .WAV and then import it. I've never used the wave editor on files which are more than a few minutes long, and so have never had the need for such a feature.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 06-25-2004, 06:02 AM:

No problem, then I will set the track marks with Feurio.
Wayne - where do I find the "pointer file"?

Posted by Mark Hajducki (Member # 1732) on 06-25-2004, 07:08 AM:

The pointer file is the one you click on (on the website). The easiest way to get it onto disk is to right click then use the save as option. If the file is embeded into an HTML page then you will have to do some digging into the page source.

One other way of getting the main file to disk is to use one of those 'quick downloader' programs (just insert the address you found from the pointer). I last tried this in 2001/2002 so it may not still work.

If you need to install Realplayer you can get a less commercialised version from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3284115.stm