TiVo-Like Devices for Radio? 96
crank asks: "I've recently hoisted an antenna high upon my roof, since I'm bored with listening to the mega-watt corporate radio stations and instead and enjoying great, niche college and NPR stations. What I need is some sort of TiVo-like radio device, which will tune to the appropriate radio station and record to the hard drive (ideally to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis formats). Then, I could dump these to one of the many portable devices or stream from a computer for later listening. This is especially important with stations that change format frequently throughout the day, such as KFJC. Any suggestions? I think the tricky part would be integration of the FM tuner. I've had limited success with leaving the radio station pre-tuned to the station I want to tape, but I'd like something smarter that would power up, capture the program, and then power down."
I know what this is for (Score:3, Funny)
radio (Score:1, Offtopic)
Start with a recorder. (Score:2, Insightful)
About a year ago, I did a search for digital recorders. I was unable to find anything suitable. For example, most did not have a Pause button.
MESSER works very well (Score:1, Informative)
http://www.dago.pmp.com.pl/messer/
TV-Tuner board, D-Link USB tuner (Score:4, Informative)
There are numerous devices that can get you a tuner on your computer. Many Hauppauge TV-Tuner boards work quite well, and as they are the BT878 chip, run well under linux. D-Link sells a USB-based tuner.
With that and some perl and encoder software, you should be able to slap something together. Cron could be helpful.
Re:TV-Tuner board, D-Link USB tuner (Score:2, Informative)
There's various bits of freeware that you can use to timer recording of audio. In Linux you could probably use vsound to record the audio and pass it to whatever other program you wanted.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:TV-Tuner board, D-Link USB tuner (Score:2)
As far as tuning goes, the TV signal is extremely bad through the antenna for me, but it acceptably fine with cable (well, as good as crummy AT&T wiring can be).
Shouldn't be hard... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Shouldn't be hard... (Score:3)
use a vcr (Score:5, Informative)
alternatively, there are several radios with built in cassette decks that will record on a timer basis. I just hit google on it, tons of hits, several brands and models.
ultra engineering geek, get a programmable thermostat and mod and hack away.
never owned a tivo, but won't it work on an audio input? or does it require secret hidden signals to work? No idea on that really.
Re:use a vcr (Score:1)
Have you tried NPR.org (Score:1)
NPR.org (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, I see they're a little slow to pick up the Illinois death penalty pardons story on their web page -- though I did hear it on the air as fast as anyone else had the story. (No, this isn't an invitation for anyone's views on the DP -- it's just a major breaking story.)
Re:NPR.org (Score:2)
Sounds like you're confused about what "NPR" is. NPR is a content producer/syndicator (similar to a tv network such as NBC) not a station in and of itself. NPR syndicates its content to local stations all over the country (and the world).
So when you're listening to a particular program, you want to listen to who produced it (NPR, PRI, your local station, or whomever). The other option is to check out your local station's website. They should have links to the program's homepage.
Re:NPR.org (Score:1)
When I Lived in the UK I Wanted To Timeshift (Score:2)
Of course... now I've moved to the US which means I don't need to bother with the timeshifting by virtue of geographic location
But on the down side I only have access to lousy real audio - especially since the bbc is lacking manpower to do this in ogg
Re:When I Lived in the UK I Wanted To Timeshift (Score:1)
There's a hardcore of home-tapers over there who have huge archives of BBC shows on MP3.
Dr. Matt...
How bout a winamp plugin? (Score:5, Interesting)
If the winamp plugin system won't do, how about heading over to the xmms dev mailing list and asking a few questions there.
This already exists... (Score:5, Informative)
It runs on win9x, *nix, and OS X. I found it yesterday after reading an article on sfgate.com.
I've been using is since yesterday - works great!
Re:This already exists... (Score:3, Informative)
57 17 * * 0 screen -m -d
The above line creates an unattached screen running streamripper that runs for 110 minutes that starts up every week on Sunday just before 6pm (notice the fudge time, 3 min before, 7 min after). Why run it in screen? Well, it lets you call streamripper from a user's crontab file (crontab -e). Also, streamripper does not exit cleanly under linux (known problem under 1.32) and using screen gives you a way to reattach, check the status, and kill the process with a few well placed ctrl-cs.
A nice mod would be to have a followup script to change the name of the saved file (which ends up in the "incomplete" directory, when recording live streams.) Either that, or rewrite streamripper into more of a timeshifting program for live streams (user-specified name for the stream, turn off silence detection routines, turn off overwrite.) Streamshifter anybody?
Re:How bout a winamp plugin? (Score:4, Informative)
http://ostermiller.org/shoutgrab/
NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:5, Informative)
The nice thing is that, for NPR at least and most college stations - the ones you say you're interested in, it's easy - they all broadcast MP3 streams which can be nabbed with a simple mpg123 -s url >file.mp3 &, and then sleep 3720; killall mpg123. At that point, you're a simple cronjob away from being done (I start one minute early, end one minute late).
One amusing sidenote - I moved cross country this year, and I now live in an area with a lousy NPR station. I now listen to WUNC in North Carolina, a few thousand miles away, and gave to them during pledge drive. Hell, they played Heather Alexander on thier local music show. Anybody who plays filk is ok in my book.
--
Evan
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:1)
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you can only listen to the past week's cartalk show, but most other npr shows let you listen to archived shows as well.
In fact, I don't listen to an actual NPR station anymore, I just listen to Morning Edition, All things Considered, and Wait Wait don't tell me online, that way I have the same advantages as having a pvr for radio. (prr?)
Doug
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:2)
Though, from the original poster, I found that WUNC is shoutcasting in mp3 format -- maybe I can whip up a crontab script to catch cartalk from them...
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:2)
No, it's not as nice as being able to download the file and listen from your harddrive, but I can understand NPR and cartalk's desire to maintain distribution control over their content. All you need for the system they have now is an internet connection.
Doug
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:1)
I saw the stuff on cartalk's site, but why must they break it into 15 little segments? Frustrating.
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:2)
Doug
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:1)
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:1)
All I can see is WMA,QT and Real audio ?
Any pointers ?
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:2)
The key is that NPR has authorized broadcast of their content for free (unlike Clear Channel, Infinity and whatever Art Bell is on), and activly encouraged their affiliates to use the web (where web=internet). This is a Good Thing for them to be doing. Clear Channel, meanwhile, has anti-mp3 psas in heavy rotation. Me? I'm listening to NPR and donating to two groups in different parts of the country (WUNC and MPR). I figure I just *might* be the leading edge of the New Way of entertainment.
--
Evan
Re:NPR broadcasts in MP3 (Score:2)
WUGA (Athens, Georgia) - live.wuga.org/hi [prairie home companion, thistle and shamrock]
KCSN (Cal State Northridge, Los Angeles) - s072n114.csun.edu:8002 [the swingin years with chuck cecil]
And one in Alaska (64k mono, 44.1)
KCSM (california) - hifi.kcsm.org:8002 [riverwalk, live from the landing]
I've been assembling the Saturday schedule I used to be able to find on my local station, KUSC (which is now all classical all the time
PublicRadioFan.com [publicradiofan.com]
which maintains a listing of public radio stations (mp3, real, winmedia, ogg, qt, etc.) across the world.
I really wish more stations would stream higher quality mp3s, although KCSM does offer a 128k ogg stream. Really, if you want to get pledge money, you need to provide a high quality stream in addition to your low-quality streams. You also need to know what you're doing - streaming a 64k 22khz stereo connection is a waste of bandwidth, use that extra 32k channel and stream a much better sounding 64k mono 22khz!
Done and done. (Score:1, Informative)
Cybercorder (Score:3, Informative)
FM Radio cards (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a list of radio tuner apps for linux [ibiblio.org] and here's another [google.com]. Also try googling for "linux FM radio tuner card". These apps, along with a sound card (depending on what kind of FM tuner you get) and oggenc/lame and a little scripting (hint: cron job), and you should be in business.
-- Bob
dlink dsb-r100 usb device is all you need (Score:3, Informative)
Use fmio to tune the device, sox to grab the stream, lame to encode it and cron to orchestrate the whole thing.
Re:dlink dsb-r100 usb device is all you need (Score:1)
I already have a DSB-R100, and tried using a Win2K installation for this. I gave up and uninstalled all the related software, because the driver made my machine too flaky. I guess it's time to try again on a Linux machine.
Here's some dedicated hardware that could be used for a radio TiVo.
Re:dlink dsb-r100 usb device is all you need (Score:1)
I've been looking for this type of device too. If anyone who has actually done this could post a detailed HOWTO, I would really appreciate it.
I did this, and I found this howto extremely helpful. I made some simple changes to their scripts (lame parameters mainly), but this should give you what you need:
Linux Radio Timeshift HOWTO:
http://osl.iu.edu/~tveldhui/radio/ [iu.edu]
Dlink dsb-r100 usb device in OSX (Score:1)
I've done this. (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't at all difficult, though I did spend way too much time optimizing the commandline for LAME and setting levels correctly. I just put a YMF724-based sound card into my headless, does-everything FreeBSD box, plugged it into a 1980s-vintage standalone Kenwood digital tuner (find something similar at a pawnshop or Ebay), and made some cron jobs to run things. The 724 was nice because its ADC stage generally sounded very good, and it had a loopback mode that it could be massaged into which would let you hear immediately if you had clipped the input.
The box, a K6-2 350, isn't quite fast enough to do VBR MP3 encoding in realtime, and I was dead-set on VBR. So, I had it record the entire program as standard 44.1KHz 16-bit PCM, and then run a nice'd encode process on the file after the radio program had finished.
Sometimes, usually on the weekends, this meant that 2 or 3 processes of LAME were running at a time trying to catch up. Not that FreeBSD ever broke a sweat...
It ran extremely reliably, and with an NTP-synced clock, the start- and stop-times were consistantly dead on.
Every few months, I'd burn a CD or two of Car Talk for archiving and nuke whatever was left over.
Of course, there was no way to change stations. I considered briefly the notion of building a machine from mindstorms that would push the radio's preset buttons, but then I realized that nothing but NPR had any programming which I actually wanted to listen to.
Hint: Use lame's lowpass filter to cut everything above 15KHz. There's nothing there but noise with commercial FM broadcasts, which are already band-limited to 15KHz anyway per FCC rules. That said, resist the temptation to use a 32KHz sampling rate and stick with 44.1. It's what the Nyquist filters and samplerate converters in consumer gear are optimized to work with, and makes burning audio CDs easier. These translate to better sound, overall.
Good luck.
Re:I've done this. (Score:1)
Re:I've done this. (Score:2)
I'm vaguely familiar with lirc, having first looked into it to see if anyone had recorded the output of my Carver cd player's remote, which I'd lost. (Nobody had, but a chance search on Ebay came through with an identical remote several years later, so I stopped looking.)
I used to make money programming Crestron control systems, so I'm fairly well-versed about IR control.
Thing is, that Kenwood tuner has no infrared capability, nor any externally-accessible control circuitry. It is rather braindead, as is.
I considered Mindstorms just because I thought it'd be fun to build and watch, and the parts could be easily recycled into something different.
But it was too expensive to pursue at the time, thus I left it locked on NPR.
I'd almost decided to use a few relays connected to a parallel port and wired into the unit's front panel, but I moved into an apartment with terrible reception before that got very far off the ground. It'd have been a pretty trivial hack, though.
I'm now doing research on building a Yagi antenna, tuned right between the three stations I want to listen to (all of which are in the same direction and close to eachother on the dial - yay).
Once I figure out an aesthetic (or at least interesting-looking) way to hang it without driving screws into the ceiling I'll probably start recording radio again.
That is, if I can figure out how to tune the impedance using a folded dipole driven element...
How many stations? (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been thinking about doing something similar, but I only have 2 stations I want to record off of, which is convenient since my soundcard has 2 inputs. My plan is to get 2 cheap radios with line out and tune each to one of the stations, hook each to one of my line ins, and set up cron jobs to record the shows I want. Seems pretty simple to me.
If I really wanted the radios to be powered down when I'm not recording I could hook theirpower up to relays also controlled by the cron jobs.
I'm sure there are more elegant solutions, but I don't really care that much since this whole assembly will just be stuffed in a closet with my server.
Re:How many stations? (Score:1)
Re:How many stations? (Score:2)
The main reason I've been thinking of stand-alone radios, though, is ease of setup. I can tune them in using speakers and attach big ass powered antennas as needed (reception really sucks at my house). It just seems easier to do that on a stand-alone box and then just route the sound the the line-in on the sound card.
Re:How many stations? (Score:1)
Yer all thinkin the wrong way (Score:2, Informative)
Know your schedule (Score:1)
DAB radios (Score:3, Interesting)
DigiGuide is a pay service (something like 5 pounds a year for all TV and radio listing) - you don't need this if you want to set up the time and channel to record manually, but with DigiGuide (and a free 3rd party add on the details of which I forget) you can click on the listings and it will add them to the recording.
Unfortunately the main downsides are that WaveFinders are now only available 2nd hand (e.g. on eBay) and that the software for them only works on Windows (works best on 98) and they are somewhat flakey. There are now new DAB cards for about 100 pounds which are hopefully better behaved, but I don't know what software there is for them.
Nonetheless I am hopeful that fairly soon this will all work properly.
Re:DAB radios (Score:1)
Re:DAB radios (Score:1)
Did this for AM broadcasts (Score:4, Informative)
There are some talk radio shows broadcast on AM that I'd like to listen to. However, they're broadcast during the day, and I can't listen to them while I'm at work, so I was in a similar situation.
Unfortunately, none of the PC tuner cards have AM tuners on them, only FM. Makes sense, since my computer equipment seems to generate a lot of interference on the AM frequencies. So, what I ended up doing was buying a GE SuperRadio III and a long headphone extension cord so that I could keep the radio in a separate room and minimize the interference.
Since I'm only running Win2K at the moment, I bought Total Recorder [highcriteria.com] for US$12, which lets me make timed recordings in just about any format. (Unfortunately, no VBR for MP3, though, so I record to WAV and then convert using LAME.)
Using the "--present mw-us" flag with LAME, I can compress a three hour show down to 51.5 MB. A full week of both my favorite shows fits nicely on a CD for archiving or sharing.
Get a shortwave radio (Score:3, Informative)
SW users have been doing this for years, they are the people you should be consulting.
I have been wishing for the same.. (Score:1)
Check their Website (Score:4, Informative)
I have this working with Replay TV (Score:2, Interesting)
I set the universal remote (AllInOne Producer)to tune the receiver to 104.1 to record a talk show at 10:00 AM. The remote sends powering-1-0-4-1 to the receiver at 10am.
It sends a simple power off command at 3:00 pm.
I have my ReplayTV set up to record channel 813 (on of the Music Choice Channels on DTV) for the same interval.
The replay records the video signal from the DTV tuner (a screen-saver) and the audio signal from the tape outs of the receiver.
I use a scheduled task in DVarchive to unload it from the ReplayTV unit to my pc via my home network, and listen to it on my pc using the real player.
I use Total Recorder and MP3 Splitter (Score:2, Informative)
Total Recorder for Windows is excellent and inexpensive software to do this. I have an old Sony FM tuner/amp connected to the line-in on my Sound Blaster Live. Total Recorder does scheduled recordings straight to MP3 from the line in. It does this with the line-in muted so I can listen to MP3's, play games, whatever while it's recording radio from the line-in. I wrote a small app to rename the MP3 files from my own radio show listings file. I record at 64K so one hour of radio is about 28 meg. I use MP3Splitter to split the one hour MP3 file into 30 pieces of two minutes each. I edit out commercials and/or NPR newsbreaks and then copy to my MP3 player or burn on to audio CD. The splitting is a big convenience since most MP3/CD players were made to play 3 minute pop songs, not hour long radio shows.
Total Recorder is available from http://HighCriteria.com [highcriteria.com] is $12 for the basic version and $35 for the advanced version. I use the basic version. The advanced version now has better automatic file naming, stream recording, etc.
MP3Splitter is from http://www.codevisions.de [codevisions.de]. It's lacking in command line options, but I use the defaults and the shell extension "Quick Splitter" from the right click in Win Explorer to minimize input. Their download seems to be down right now. Try left menu "Downloads" then choose mirrors. Here is a working download link:
http://hj.dusnet.de/codevisions/mp3splitter.zip [dusnet.de]
Try VCRadio (Score:1)
It is a non-free solution, but supports most of the radio pci/isa cards and external radio tuners.
I am not affiliated with this company, but I was doing research on this and found this to be one of the better solutions. I hope it works for your needs.
FM and AM plus Software to do what you want. (Score:1)
Radio TiVO for Windows (Score:2, Interesting)
Dr. Matt...
Digital Radio (Score:1)
Re:Digital Radio (Score:1)
It also tries to schedule into some other apps including DVB stuff and Leadtek Winfast.
Others might work - if they support TVPI/TVVI (TitanTV format)
CC Radio VersaCorder (Score:2, Informative)
I'm doing it now, but it's a pain in the (#(*$& (Score:2, Informative)
-- First you have to schedule an event to kill any radio processes currently running.
-- Then you have to schedule a process to start the tuner on the station you need.
-- Then you have to start recording. I've yet to find a utility which will record at a specified time with no user interaction which is both free and runs on Windows. The "Absolute MP3 Player" is the closest thing I've found requiring you to only click a button. But you have to add your schedule to it too! And you don't get to tell it where to put the MP3's.
-- Then you have to stop recording.
-- Then kill the tuner app.
Worst of all, you have to listen to what's being recorded. There may be a solution for Linux, but unless you're ready to move your tuner card off your Windows box, there isn't a solution for Windows that works very well.
If you plan to change the schedule often, then my advice would be to forget about it, or start developing your own.
I submitted this exact same question several months ago but was rejected
Re:I'm doing it now, but it's a pain in the (#(*$& (Score:1)
TiVos do not just record. (Score:1)
So chances are, connecting an FM radio to the line-in on a soundcard and scheduling LAME from cron is not quite what was intended here. The original poster notes that some of the stations in question change format frequently during the day, in which case it is doubly important to have some intelligence in the recorder so that it can adapt and pick out the diamonds in the radio rough.
As for my own suggestions, I've actually been giving this some thought recently after getting a radio again (had mine stolen). Something like the GNURadio project, a wideband multichannel receiver, could pull down RDS streams (Radio Data Service, which transmits at least station identification and sometimes program names) and parse them for TiVo-like functionality. Alternatively, you could see if any of the stations in question export their schedules using RSS or some such (some college stations do) or pull down and parse their coming-up-next webpages.
I agree! (Score:2)
Heck, I've even missed a word or part of a song (busy driving, or passenger saying something), and had the itch to hit some imaginary 'instant replay button' like I have on my TiVo remote.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of this... frankly, I thought maybe I was just odd.
Replay Radio! (Score:2)
This works great for any internet streaming radio shows!
joe.
Use SoX and fmtools (Score:3, Informative)
Using the 'fm' utility from fmtools [exploits.org], my script tunes to the proper FM station and sets the volume.
Then I call SoX [sourceforge.net] to grab the output stream in WAV format from the soundcard, and pipe it through to lame, which turns it into a mp3 in realtime (takes about 40% CPU time on my 1GHz P3).
The command looks something like this:
Put all that together in a script that's called by at or cron, and you're in business!
Tivo-like? (Score:1)
Tivo ... npr (Score:1)
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:4CQY1kw1nD0C
and
http://www.publicradiofan.com
8-second rewind feature (Score:1)
The Tivo feature I wish I had for radio was the pause and the 8-second instant rewind feature. In addition to recording programs, the box is always recording a rolling 30-minute (or more--dunno, mine's old) period to its memory/disk buffer. If you need to pause the program you are watching, or if you missed something and want to rewind, the option is available at all times, not just when you had the foresight to hit the record button.
The various ways of capturing sound card input are fine for archiving scheduled programs, but what kind of setup allows for buffering of a live audio stream?
What if you just connect the FM receiver output to the Tivo input? Will it complain about the lack of a video signal?
Give Messer a try (Score:2)
Big $$$ to be made (Score:1)
We know we all like listening to talk shows, NPR, Rush Limbaugh, lawyer or home and garden shows, including ART BELL's Coast-To-Coast (I know, Art is gone, but I still feel it's Art's baby) for use day-walkers who can't stay up at night and listen about the latest government conspiracy or alien abduction.
the final feature: CD-R/W offloading :) (Score:1)
b) some of us like Art Bell / heirs to be late for insomnia cure. Best way to dream about aliens
c) I'd really like such a recorder to have a CD writer either included or attachable, so shows could be offloaded. With a CD-RW and ogg format for files, talk radio in particular could put *many* hours on one disk.
c') Of course, since there is not (yet!) a portable hardware player that will play ogg files from CD-RW, this is still pide-dreamish, but not a complete pipe dream
The hardware already exists - may require hacking (Score:1)
Re:The hardware already exists - may require hacki (Score:1)
Never heard anything.
Some companies don't see a good idea when it's staring them in the face !
Existing Radio's and software (Score:1)
This is a start... (Score:2)
I don't believe it can do timed recording, but it seems like something it could be upgraded to do...
Portable, Digital, and Automatic Radio VCR (Score:3, Informative)
The model RPR-X340 (5.6 hour capacity) has a USB link and software for uploading a recorded broadcast talk radio show from the recorder to your computer. You can also translate audio files from the computer to the recorder for listening on the go.
You can leave the RPR in your car while you're at work and it will record your favorite talk show. When you get in the car to go home you can listen to the show through your car radio just as if it were on at that time. You can also remove the tiny recorder and put it in your pocket for listening while on a walk or jog.