Hey Mr H, the good landlord at the Wrestlers mentioned that there's a round of drinks waiting for us in your name - thanks

Rob

by saying "nice car!"

Shucks, you probably say that to *everybody* with a WRX!

Don't worry, I just thought "old users" were being left out of the fun! And witness what might have been a seminal event (Hogan used a smiley! Hogan used a smiley! )

At least you're suitably conscious of the fact that you've "got religion"! (Although, I'd still be careful. If you don't watch it, you'll be wandering around this BBS chanting "Praise The Lord!" like everybody else!)

the Wrestlers...

The pleasure is entirely mine. (Though I suggested to Tom that he just say "the northwest" so there'd be just a hint of mystery while you down that pint! Dang.) Anyhow, hope to sample their Thai food sometime !

It would be rude to reveal the identity of the person, who, when Tom said, "It's from somebody Hogan," and we all said, "That'll be Jim," was heard to say "Hogan? That's Paul Hogan"....

(No, it wasn't me)

It would be rude to reveal the identity of the person...

Tell them not to worry. As I advance in years, I am impressed with how much more understanding I have become when it comes to momentary lapses....

ummm....it wouldn't have been Rod or Hubert, would it???

(NO relation to Ben, Paul or Hulk!)

Is there any way to time record Car Talk to mp3 via MusicMatch?

Your best bet with this is to get an FM tuner for you computer (like $20, I think) and a program that can record on a timer. I think TotalRecorder can...

Your best bet with this is to get an FM tuner for you computer (like $20, I think) and a program that can record on a timer. I think TotalRecorder can...

Yes Total Recorder can do that, but this page at cartalk.com has the show broke down in segments.
Ahh crap, I just double-checked and it's .ram format. Well better get the FM tuner and the Total Recorder. Or you could record the playback with Total Recorder, TR will not record any gaps from buffering pauses.
I'm currently working on getting my comp to capture DirecTv/TiVo feeds so I can archive the fishing shows... And make my own fishing shows with the miniDV camera

Hmm. I was wondering if anyone had yet invented a "realaudio stream recorder" which did the job directly rather than having to go through TotalRecorder. I noticed a program called "Streambox VCR", which does exactly that, but is supposedly hard to find. I wonder if, with some scripting and wrappers, it could be made to grab the latest CarTalk and encode it regularly...

Streambox VCR. It's ``illegal'' to own in the US. Seems to work for me. Can't find a way right now to convert directly from RA to MP3, though. Apparently, all the old WinAMP RA plugins don't work now.

You guys just need to find an old version of the software, called Streambox Ripper. It allowed you to rip RA directly into MP3. I don't think it does streams though.

They took the RA ripping out after ver 2.009. If you can't find it, I'll put it up on FTP or something. I'd put it up here, but it's 1.64MB. Is that too big for the BBS? If someone wants to offer to put it up on their server, I'll email it.

dB Power Amp can convert from .ra, as it turns out, with a plugin available at the same site.

Funny, I was just about to post the same link. Heh.

Spiffy program, that dbPowerAmp. And free, too.

Horrible UI, though. Or lack thereof, really.

Cool, I'm going to have to check the program out. Any other interesting features?

So what program CAN convert an MP3 stream into an MP3 file?

- Jon

Okay, I just tried dbPowerAmp, and it works, but I've got some problems with it:

1) The RA codec seems to do a worse job of decoding the file than simply playing it back in RealPlayer. Even when I convert it to a wave file (no re-compression), the resulting file has different audio characteristics than what I hear when listening in RealPlayer. The dbPowerAmp-decoded file is tinnier, raspier, and seems to have more compression artifacts than when I listen to the original in RealPlayer. I made sure that it wasn't the EQ in WinAmp or in RealPlayer that was the culprit.

2) The decoding is slow. In fact, it's so slow that I wonder if it's real-time (i.e., 5-minute audio clip takes five minutes to decode).

Anyone notice the same thing?

downloaded the lastest promo only cd, and you got the months new tunes simple solution to the radio.

Does your car have windows? Mine does. I can look right through them and see both traffic *AND* weather. Neat, huh? With radio you only get to "hear" about traffic and weather.

If I go out (at lunch or some other small run) without the empeg, I don't listen to anything. I would rather keep my head unit stuck on aux, listening to silence, than turn on the radio. I don't know of any radio station anywhere in the world that would make me change my mind. Well, I suppose if I were in the UK and they had a good indy station, I'd be into that.

Bruno

And what would you do if Canada was being overtaken by polar bears armed with machine guns? How would you know about it?

lol your funny hybrid.. ya accuklly the $70 i spent is well useless i turned it on 2 times for testing the fm tuner.. but too much work to sell it since its in the car, oh well... maybe ill seell it i can tear my dash apart again for $300 bones..

Does your car have windows? Mine does
nope sorry mine dosnt.. it has linux

When will one of you guys post some pics of this pub? Then we can see exactly where the beer will go. You guy's keep a regular spot in there?

I'm going to have to see if I can get a cheap flight over there some time just to come and buy you guys a few rounds in person.

Bruno

I believe that the dBPowerAmp plugin uses the DLLs from RealPlayer, which might explain the real-time decoding, but would tend to refute the worse decoding. It may be that you've ended up resampling it. Does anyone know at what sample rate RA is encoded, or how to determine it, if it has multiple sample rates? Maybe you could try all the sample rates that the WAV generator allows? I thought that the LAME plugin did a pretty good job, but I was just testing the CarTalk, and not looking for remarkably high fidelity.

Good one, Justin, ROFL.

It may be that you've ended up resampling it.

That sounds like a reasonable explanation to the effect I was hearing.

Does anyone know at what sample rate RA is encoded, or how to determine it, if it has multiple sample rates?

Yeah, in messing around with RealPlayer, I was unable to see any detailed data on the track format that it was playing.

but I was just testing the CarTalk, and not looking for remarkably high fidelity.

Me too, but in going back and forth with a simple A/B between the source RA file and the generated WAV file, it was a pretty obvious problem.

And if the real-time decoding thing is actually true, then it's time to start shopping for a different RA-to-MP3 converter program. If I want to batch-encode CarTalk episodes, I don't want to have to wait an hour for each one.

In reply to:

---

it wouldn't have been Rod or Hubert, would it???

---

ROTFL - priceless!

Or perhaps people can not live without talk radio and traffic reports? My Durango is not double din, and the Supra has electronics in the second din location.

re:My guess is that the only people who would pay over $100 for a tuner are the same people that didn't "get" what the empeg truley was. Not because the total price (clearence price + ebay tuner) is still cheaper than original MSRP though. If you really understand the empeg, and know that it was designed to carry your entire music collection, there is no need for radio. If you love radio so much, then you probably don't own many CD's because you are happy hearing Linkin Park 20 times a day (ie, mp3 isn't really for you.)

Bruno,

I totally agree with you! Traffic updates don't do me any good once I'm driving because I've already decided what route to take. In contrast, watching traffic updates on the TV or listening on the alarm clock/radio allows me to leave a bit earlier or plan another route. Same thing goes for weather. I already KNOW what the weather is once I leave the house. It only helps when I see a winter storm coming in the night before (evening news) because then I can actually do something about it! (ie, get up earlier.)

I've been using the Wireless Web on my phone to get detailed local forecasts... that's kinda neat.

Anyone think we can convince the Car Talk folks to use mp3 or wma?

To discover new music, I go by friend's recommendations, MTV2 or internet radio, etc.

Anyone think we can convince the Car Talk folks to use mp3 or wma?

Nope. They sell their old episodes through audible.com, so they really don't want you to download the shows, which is likely why they use rtsp-based RealAudio for the free (latest) episode.

So what program CAN convert an MP3 stream into an MP3 file?

My favorite is Ultra Player. It allows you to open a URL to a MP3 stream and then record it at the same bitrate. So, if you're listening to a 128kbps stream, it'll record it to a 128kbps MP3 file. I think it basically just copies the bytes straight to a file.

As for the RA to MP3 conversion, I think the StreamRipper is faster than 1x. Everybody used it while it was still available. I'm just not too sure about the availability of it now. I'm still happy to email it to anybody that wants to give it a shot. The version I have only allows 10 trials. But, I'm sure you can probably find a crack for it. Of course, I'm not advocating piracy...I just don't think it's possible to buy the older version anymore.