Record Streaming Audio with Linux: Part II

March 3rd, 2006

I said I was looking into getting FIFOs working so that the filesize requirements would be reduced. It's also more efficient this way. I was heavily influenced by the two scripts created by Daniel Howard.

So here's how it works. You get to create two scripts. The first one is for recording. It's an all-purpose script that I called record.sh. Here is the code:

PLAIN TEXT

BASH:

#!/bin/bash
#
# record.sh
#
# Use mplayer to capture the stream
# at $STREAM to the file $FILE
#
# example: record.sh my_radio_show 60 mms://someserver.com/stream
DIR=/home/shawn/PodCasts #directory where to save the file
TEMPDIR=/tmp
# Don't edit anything below this line
#######################################################
DATE=`date +%d-%b-%Y` # Save the date as DD-Mmm-YYYY
YEAR=`date +%Y` # Save just the year as YYYY
NAME=$1
DURATION=$2 # enough to catch the show, plus a bit
STREAM=$3
TEMPFILE=$TEMPDIR/$NAME-$DATE
FILE=$DIR/$NAME-$DATE # Where to save it
# Capture Stream
mkfifo $TEMPFILE.wav
mkfifo $TEMPFILE-silenced.wav
# The lame settings below are optimized for voice encoding
# The sox command below strips out any silent portions
lame -S -a -m m --ty "$YEAR" --vbr-new -V 9 --lowpass 13.4 --athaa-sensitivity 1 \
--resample 32 $TEMPFILE-silenced.wav $FILE.mp3>/dev/null &
sox $TEMPFILE.wav -c 1 $TEMPFILE-silenced.wav \
silence 1 0.2 0.5% -1 0.2 0.5%>/dev/null&
/usr/bin/mplayer -quiet -cache 500 \
-ao pcm:file="$TEMPFILE.wav" -vc dummy -vo null \
-noframedrop $STREAM>/dev/null&
sleep 5
# get the pid of all processes started in this script.
PIDS=`ps auxww | grep $TEMPFILE | awk '{print $2}'`
# the & turns the capture into a background job
sleep `echo ${DURATION}*60 | bc` # wait for the show to be over
kill $PIDS # kill the stream capture
rm $TEMPFILE.wav
rm $TEMPFILE-silenced.wav

This script takes three args:

the name of the show you're recording. This will be used in the final filename with the current date appended.
the length of the show in minutes
the URI of the stream (often mms:// or http://)

This integrates very well with another script that will hold all the data for the shows we want to record and automatically set the start times for us. Here is my script that I called today.sh

PLAIN TEXT

BASH:

#!/bin/sh
#
# today.sh -- schedule what programs you want to rip today using the
# recorder script.
# Non-obvious paths
RECORDER=$HOME/bin/record.sh
RECORDER_HI=$HOME/bin/record-hi.sh
# Set up stations
KFI="http://a814.l1977144512.c19771.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/814/19771/v0001/reflector:44512?MSWMExt=.asf"
WXNT=mms://wmc1.liquidviewer.net/WXNT
WPGB="http://84.53.144.36:80/D/1046/20063/v0001/reflector:43803?MSWMExt=.asf"
KOZZ=mms://lotusradio-kozz.wm.llnwd.net/lotusradio_kozz
# What day is it?
TODAY=`date +%a`
# EVERY DAY
#everyday() {}
# WEEKDAYS
weekday() {
# "Record John_Ziegler for three hours, starting at 7:00pm."
echo $RECORDER John_Ziegler 180 $KFI | at 7:00pm
echo $RECORDER Glenn_Beck 180 $WPGB | at 6:00am
}
# MONDAY
if [ $TODAY = "Mon" ]; then
# everyday
weekday
fi
# TUESDAY
if [ $TODAY = "Tue" ]; then
# everyday
weekday
fi
# WEDNESDAY
if [ $TODAY = "Wed" ]; then
# everyday
weekday
fi
# THURSDAY
if [ $TODAY = "Thu" ]; then
# everyday
weekday
fi
# FRIDAY
if [ $TODAY = "Fri" ]; then
# everyday
weekday
fi
# SATURDAY
if [ $TODAY = "Sat" ]; then
# everyday
echo $RECORDER Handel_On_The_Law 300 $KFI | at 6:00am
echo $RECORDER Dr_Dean_Edell 60 $KFI | at 2:00pm
fi
# SUNDAY
if [ $TODAY = "Sun" ]; then
# everyday
echo $RECORDER Jesus_Christ_Show 180 $KFI | at 6:00am
echo $RECORDER Glenn_Beck 180 $WPGB | at 10:00am
echo $RECORDER_HI Dr_Demento 120 $KOZZ | at 10:00pm
fi

Using this as a template you might notice another script being referred to. record.sh has audio processing optimized for talk radio. For higher quality and stereo, you need to change a few things. You can download all of the scripts mentioned here at the bottom of this post.

To finish off this solution you need to run today.sh at some point after 12:00am and before the start of the earliest program you wish to record. I set mine to run daily at 1:00am.

PLAIN TEXT

CODE:

# Schedule recordings for today from radio streams
0 1 * * * /home/shawn/bin/today.sh>& /dev/null

Downloads:

Possibly Related

This entry was posted on Friday, March 3rd, 2006 at 7:00 am and is filed under Linux. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

11 Responses to “Record Streaming Audio with Linux: Part II”

Danny Howard says:
March 3rd, 2006 at 11:06 am
SWEET! My prior work has been recycled and improved upon! :)

:) :) :)

Thanks,
-danny
dannyman.toldme.com / HOWTO: Archive Audio Streams in to mp3 Files says:
March 3rd, 2006 at 11:10 am
[...] check out the comments that follow for tips and tricks, especially Shawn Dowler who has gone and wrote a page about his revised versions of thescripts. [...]
Shawn Dowler says:
March 3rd, 2006 at 11:15 am
I was working on my own solution, but I knew it was lacking some things, so when I found your implementation I was very impressed. I especially liked the way you killed all the processes. That was what I was looking for when I found your scripts. Your scripts were great, so I merged what I had with what you had done and I'm very pleased with the results.

I especially like your today script. It is so much nicer than what I was doing before. Now I have a central human-readable place to keep all the program scheduling data outside of my crontab.
jmfv says:
May 10th, 2006 at 5:37 am
Beautiful! Easy to understand the code, easy to implement, very useful results. Just what every Linux user dreams of. Thank you and congrats!
Michael Brehm says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:51 am
Thanks for this solution the scheduling of online programs was one of the items causing me to dual boot. Now I have one less reason to keep my XP partition. I just wish that it did not take me 5 days to find this solution after I started looking for it on the net! Again THANK YOU and also to all the authors of the pages that were referenced.

The only problem I am having getting this to work in Ubuntu is with RECORD_HI, but RECORD works great. I will figure that our soon enough, but this was a great start.
Shawn Dowler says:
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:24 pm
@Michael Brehm:
I'm glad that I could help you find a way to solve your problems using Free Software. I love to hear stories like yours, and the thanks are always appreciated!
mxwlpxwl says:
March 18th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Your script is great, I'm trying to implement now, but I have a question as to why you are running lame, then sox, and finally mplayer. I'm sure this is correct, I am just wondering why?

Again, your script is tight, good work :-)

mxwlpxwl
Shawn Dowler says:
March 19th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
@mxwlpxwl:
The sox command was a late addition as I noticed some of the stations were including long periods of silence in place of certain commercials. It doesn't happen as much anymore, but it still happens every now and again. The sox command just strips out silence, nothing more. You could leave it out, but it doesn't change much if you leave it in, so I just put it in for all of them.

I'm glad you like the scripts. Remember, I didn't come up with the concept, I just improved upon the original design.
Xwang says:
August 6th, 2008 at 1:01 am
Hi,
how can I add a simple frontend which permits to insert:
1) the location where to save the stream
2) the url
2) the recording time
Moreover I would like to be able to start and stop the recording using a record and a stop button.
I've done in the past a simple gui using perl, but I don't know how to modify the script in order to stop the registration using the gui
Xwang says:
August 8th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Hi,
I've done the following script which acts as a "wizard" with some pop up that enables the user to pass the input to the recorder.
Do you like it?
Do you think is it possible to modify it in order to pause the recording?
Thank you,
Xwang

PLAIN TEXT
BASH:
1. #!/bin/bash
2. # radioRecoder.sh
3. # v0.2.0 - 20080808 :-)
4. # Xwang
5. # Released under GPL 2.0 and following (can you help me and tell if it is GPL3 compliant?)
7. # This script acts as a wizard enabling the user to select the URL to listen and eventually rip it after having specified
8. # the directory and the file name
9. # The cancel button is used to go to the previous page
10. # To exit the program press cancel in the URL page and follow the instruction
13. # TBD
14. # check if parameter is passed or not
15. # modify parmeters so that recording can be done without user iteration
16. # capture Ctrl-C in order to clean all temporary files and kill opened processes before closing
17. # put confirmation on registration stop
18. # open the directory where last file has been saved (maybe asking for it) at the end of the recording
19. # translate messanges
20. #
24. # assign as default stream value the one passed ad first parameters if any (check TBD)
25. STREAM=$1
27. TEMPDIR=/tmp
28. # inizialize variables
29. EXIT=1
30. STATE=1
31. PIDlistener2=""
32. PIDrecorder2=""
34. while [ $EXIT -eq 1 ]
35. do
36. case $STATE in
37. 0)
38. kdialog --title "RadioRecorder" --yesno "Do you want to exit the program?"
39. EXIT=$?
40. if [ $EXIT -eq 1 ]
41. then
42. STATE=1
43. fi
44. ;;
45. 1)
46. # ask radio stream URL
47. STREAM=`kdialog --title "RadioRecorder" --inputbox "Insert the radio stream url" $1 `
48. STREAMBUTTON=$?
49. if [ $STREAMBUTTON -eq 1 ]
50. then
51. STATE=0
52. else
53. # start mplayer in background to listen to the radio only if the ok button has been selected else exit
54. # xterm -e mplayer -vo null -vc null -cache 512 $STREAM&#38;
55. mplayer -vo null -vc null -cache 512 $STREAM&#38;
56. PIDlistener=$! # listener PID
57. while [ -z $PIDlistener2 ]
58. do
59. #repeat the check till PIDlistener2 is correctly detected
60. PIDlistener2=`ps -ef| awk '$3 == '$PIDlistener' { print $2 }'`
61. done
62. STATE=2
63. fi
64. ;;
65. 2)
66. # select action to do
67. ACTION=`kdialog --title "RadioRecorder" --menu "Select an action:" 1 "Change URL" 2 "Record stream"`
68. ACTIONBUTTON=$?
70. if [ $ACTIONBUTTON -eq 1 ]
71. then
72. ACTION=$ACTIONBUTTON # if cancel is selected go back to url dialog
73. fi
74. if [ $ACTION -eq 1 ]
75. then
76. #if Change URL or Cancel has been selected kill listener and go back to URL page
77. #kill listener processes
78. kill -9 $PIDlistener2
79. kill -9 $PIDlistener
80. # reinitialize PID variables
81. PIDlistener=""
82. PIDlistener2=""
83. STATE=1
84. else
85. STATE=3
86. fi
87. ;;
88. 3)
89. # ask destination directory -- default home
91. DIR=$HOME
92. DIR=`kdialog --title "RadioRecorder - Select destination directory" --getexistingdirectory $DIR` #default destination directory is the user home
93. DIRBUTTON=$?
94. if [ $DIRBUTTON -eq 1 ]
95. then
96. #if Cancel has been selected go back to action page
97. STATE=2
98. else
99. STATE=4
100. fi
101. ;;
102. 4)
103. # ask file name at which will be added the date and eventually record stream
104. FILENAME="radio"
105. FILENAME=`kdialog --title "RadioRecorder - Save as" --inputbox "Insert the file name (date will be automatically added)" $FILENAME`
106. FILENAMEBUTTON=$?
107. if [ $FILENAMEBUTTON -eq 1 ]
108. then
109. #if Cancel has been selected go back to action page
110. STATE=3
111. else
112. #capture stream
113. DATE=`date +%Y_%m_%d_%H%M%S`
114. TEMPFILE=$TEMPDIR/$FILENAME-$DATE
115. FILE=$DIR/$FILENAME-$DATE
116. mkfifo $TEMPFILE.wav
117. lame $TEMPFILE.wav $FILE.mp3&gt;/dev/null&#38;
118. PIDconverter=$! #converter PIN
119. # xterm -e mplayer -cache 512 -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:fast:file="$TEMPFILE.wav" $STREAM&gt;/dev/null&#38;
120. mplayer -cache 512 -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:fast:file="$TEMPFILE.wav" $STREAM&gt;/dev/null&#38;
121. PIDrecorder=$! #recorder PIN
122. while [ -z $PIDrecorder2 ]
123. do
124. #repeat the check till PIDrecorder2 is correctly detected
125. PIDrecorder2=`ps -ef| awk '$3 == '$PIDrecorder' { print $2 }'`
126. done
127. kdialog --msgbox "Press OK button to stop recording"
128. #stop recording
129. #kill converter
131. kill -9 $PIDconverter
132. #kill recorder processes
133. kill -9 $PIDrecorder2
134. kill -9 $PIDrecorder
135. # reinitialize PID variables
136. PIDconverter=""
137. PIDrecorder=""
138. PIDrecorder2=""
139. #removing temporary file
140. rm $TEMPFILE.wav
141. #go back to action page
142. STATE=2
143. fi
144. ;;
145. esac
146. done
148. kdialog --title "RadioRecorder" --msgbox "Thank you for using radioRecorder"
149. echo "Bye Bye"
150. exit
Shawn Dowler says:
August 8th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Quite honestly, I don't know how you would accomplish pausing the recording. It's streaming live, so you certainly can't stop that part, but it may be possible to divert the stream through the fifos to /dev/null when a button is pressed and go back again afterward.

I honestly don't have the "code fu" to do anything like that or to answer your question without a lot of fiddling and researching. I'm glad that you find the code useful, and I do appreciate your posting here with updates when you make interesting modifications.

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