Howto: BBC Radio, realplayer, Firefox and Mplayer.

**SilverWave** · January 5th, 2009

This is a howto to help anyone who has had problems trying to listen to various BBC Radio programs that are streamed in realplayer format.
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Linux x86_64
Ubuntu/8.10 (intrepid)
Firefox/3.0.5
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The default Firefox plugin "Totem Web Browser Plugin" is no good for this so I install mozilla-mplayer.

Install the following packages:

mplayer
mozilla-mplayer
mplayer-fonts
mplayer-skin-blue
mplayer-skins

Restart Firefox and you should be good to go.

Here is a good place to test that its working:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/...e_20060629.ram

If all goes well the mplayer plugin should, after a pause, start playing the episode regarding GALAXIES.

If not try typing...

Code:

 about:plugins

...in the address bar and check that it has been installed.

BBC URL's
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/...ive_home.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/
Useful URL's
http://computerperson.wordpress.com/...f_inet6-error/
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu...question/49509

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Tips:
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1. If you stop or pause a stream it will probably start again from the begining

Workaround
You can right click and "Copy URL" then paste this in mplayer direct to allow you to go to a particular time, its a bit of a pain but it does work... here is how:

The initial url is:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/...e_20060629.ram

This actual relates to:

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20060629.ra?BBC-UID=7blah5608d0***1b74ec06c2718aa3f41f5blaha9040b1 eaa4bbfa05e28115e4&SSO2-UID=

Remove all after .ra? like so:

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20060629.ra?

Add your start time to the end of the url:

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20060629.ra?start="20:39"

Now open mplayer up and right click "Open" > "play url" paste your link in and wait a couple of minutes.

If you get mplayer error: "Couldn't resolve name for AF_INET6" add...

Code:

prefer-ipv4 = yes

...to the configuration file /etc/mplayer/mplayer.conf.

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2. RA/RAM to MP3 conversion
Based on Bhavani Shankar's post here:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu...question/49509

you can also use:

mplayer -dumpstream <stream>

to record streaming audio and video. The song will then be inside "stream.dump" (same format as the stream)

then use:
mplayer stream.dump -ao pcm:file=ripped_audio.wav

to convert to wav.

Then you can use Audacity (or similar) to convert to mp3 (/ogg).

Hope that helped & Good Luck!

**SilverWave** · January 10th, 2009

Here is a worked example of saving a realplayer stream to disk, then converting it to MP3 via the command line.

Prerequisites:
1. You will need to install mplayer and lame.

2. You will need a temp folder to save the files to - the one used in this example is

/home/tmp/stream1

Worked Example:
Open a terminal up and enter the following:

cd /home/tmp/stream1

mplayer -dumpstream 'rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio4/science/sci9_thu_20040318.ra?start="0:32"&title="Cosmic_Oc ean"&BBC-UID=4439968289dedb6879300a7b70f0971a4d7f75c670f021 b4342f966f22250800&SSO2-UID='

mplayer stream.dump -ao pcm:file=ripped_audio.wav

lame --vbr-new ripped_audio.wav output_low.mp3

lame -h -b 160 --vbr-new ripped_audio.wav output_high.mp3

Note:
To load mp3 on to my iPod I use...

gtkpod

... which allows you to manage songs and playlists on your Apple iPod.