Hi Folks, Hoping you've been enjoying the Statutory Idleness!
A query for any of you who use get_iplayer.
I wanted to download the programme "Thinking Allowed" from Radio 4, first broadcast 08/04/2009, last broadcast last night at 00:15-00:45 (i.e. this morning), which is when I first heard it. It is the one about a Leeds art exhibition in which classic artists depict the social order (I found it very interesting, and recommend it to you even if you don't want anything to do with this query).
The following refers to my latest attempt, this morning, to download the programme. It is similar to what happened last night -- a few incidental details differ.
1. I did the usual get_iplayer search, with a standard result:
get_iplayer --type radio "Thinking Allowed" Matches: 12855: Thinking Allowed - 08/04/2009, 'BBC Radio 4', Factual, Science, Nature & Environment,Radio INFO: 1 Matching Programmes
2. I did a standard download request, using its index 12855:
get_iplayer --get 12855 INFO: Additionally getting cached programme data for radio Matches: 12855: radio, Thinking Allowed - 08/04/2009, 'BBC Radio 4', Factual,Science, Nature & Environment,Radio
INFO: 1 Matching Programmes INFO: Attempting to Download: Thinking Allowed - 08/04/2009 INFO: Getting version pids for programme b00jj0f6 INFO: Getting media stream metadata for Thinking Allowed - 08/04/2009, b00jj025 INFO: iPhone stream URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/3/auth/stream/ httpdl_iphone/direct/radio4/ secure_auth/RBN2_radio_4_fm_-_wednesday_1600_b00jj025_\ 2009_04_09_14_31_37.mp3 INFO: Checking existence of default version INFO: File name prefix = Thinking_Allowed_-_08_04_2009_b00jj0f6_default
WARNING: Retrying download for 'Thinking Allowed - 08/04/2009' INFO: Attempting to Download: Thinking Allowed - 08/04/2009 INFO: Getting version pids for programme b00jj0f6 ERROR: Required mplayer does not exist, skipping
which was unexpected -- usually such a command simply downloads the MP3 without more ado, and doesn't witter on about mplayer not existing!
3. As a test of get_iplayer, I tried another of yesterday's programmes. First, find its index:
get_iplayer --type radio "The Reunion" Matches: 12793: The Reunion - 12/04/2009, 'BBC Radio 4', Factual,Entertainment,Life Stories,Radio INFO: 1 Matching Programmes
4. Do the download (exactly the same syntax as before):
get_iplayer --get 12793 INFO: Additionally getting cached programme data for radio Matches: 12793: radio, The Reunion - 12/04/2009, 'BBC Radio 4', Factual,Entertainment,Life Stories,Radio
INFO: 1 Matching Programmes INFO: Attempting to Download: The Reunion - 12/04/2009 INFO: Getting version pids for programme b00jlxjp INFO: Getting media stream metadata for The Reunion - 12/04/2009, b00jlwpw INFO: iPhone stream URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/3/auth/stream/ httpdl_iphone/direct/radio4/ secure_auth/RBN2_radio_4_fm_-_s unday_\ 1115_b00jlwpw_2009_04_12_11_20_37.mp3 INFO: Checking existence of default version INFO: File name prefix = The_Reunion_-_12_04_2009_b00jlxjp_default
and then it happily started to download. Stopped it, since I don't want to keep that programme.
The above info is essentially the same as for "Thinking Allowed" until the former gets to the "WARNING" line.
5. Went back to "Thinking Allowed" and proceeded as before. Same result as before.
So, QUERY: Can anyone explain why one programme ("The Reunion") downloads without problems. while the other (by all appearances on the same sort of footing) fails to donwload?
Is there possibly some hidden "flag", planted by the BBC for some programmes, which allows them to be listened to (which one can do for "Thinking Allowed") but not downloaded, that get_iplayer picks up but does not tell you about?
Or is there a bug in the version (1.03) of get_iplayer I'm using?
With thanks, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-Apr-09 Time: 10:38:16 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 10:38:24AM +0100, Ted Harding wrote:
which was unexpected -- usually such a command simply downloads the MP3 without more ado, and doesn't witter on about mplayer not existing!
I'm downloading the one you are after right now, get_iplayer goes through a few attempts at various file formats (I think) and then finally settles on a realaudio version which it is apparently turning into a .wav for me as i don't have lame installed (which would create the mp3). The use of mplayer is to download the realplayer stream and convert it to mp3, so basically, it is complaining about some aspect of your (or lack of) mplayer install.
Or is there a bug in the version (1.03) of get_iplayer I'm using?
1.59 is available ;)
Adam
On 13-Apr-09 10:22:12, Adam Bower wrote:
On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 10:38:24AM +0100, Ted Harding wrote:
which was unexpected -- usually such a command simply downloads the MP3 without more ado, and doesn't witter on about mplayer not existing!
I'm downloading the one you are after right now, get_iplayer goes through a few attempts at various file formats (I think) and then finally settles on a realaudio version which it is apparently turning into a .wav for me as i don't have lame installed (which would create the mp3). The use of mplayer is to download the realplayer stream and convert it to mp3, so basically, it is complaining about some aspect of your (or lack of) mplayer install.
Well, normally this works (as exemplified by "The Reunion"). Doesn't seem to need mplayer (which is not installed anyway).
Or is there a bug in the version (1.03) of get_iplayer I'm using?
1.59 is available ;)
Adam
Thanks, Adam! I'll look into your suggestions. Meanwhile (for reference): Could you confirm what command you used to start the download?
Thanks, Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-Apr-09 Time: 11:45:02 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:45:05AM +0100, Ted Harding wrote:
Well, normally this works (as exemplified by "The Reunion"). Doesn't seem to need mplayer (which is not installed anyway).
Yes, but that's because The Reunion is available in mp3 format (at least, it isn't doing the same thing as with the other one), the one you want is only available as a real stream which I'm guessing isn't as common as what you've downloaded up until now.
Or is there a bug in the version (1.03) of get_iplayer I'm using?
1.59 is available ;)
Adam
Thanks, Adam! I'll look into your suggestions. Meanwhile (for reference): Could you confirm what command you used to start the download?
get_iplayer --get 12840
it appears to be turning the real stream into a .wav and then re-encoding to mp3. I'd look at getting a working mplayer setup installed.
Thanks Adam
On Mon, 2009-04-13 at 12:29 +0100, Adam Bower wrote:
it appears to be turning the real stream into a .wav and then re-encoding to mp3. I'd look at getting a working mplayer setup installed.
That seems a strange thing to do as it has both the quality penalty of re-encoding and the final format is still not a free one.
I can see the point of re-encoding to Ogg/Vorbis or FLAC (free codec) or leaving the stream in real format (no re-encoding quality loss).
Steve.
On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 02:49:11PM +0100, Steve Fosdick wrote:
That seems a strange thing to do as it has both the quality penalty of re-encoding and the final format is still not a free one.
I'm guessing that it makes more sense as most things come down in mp3 format in the first place. If it was to encode the few things that come as real format into a Free format then it might cause problems for people especially if you wanted to put them onto a media player device given most of them seem to do mp3 and not much else that is useful.
Adam
Adam Bower adam@thebowery.co.uk wrote:
[...] especially if you wanted to put them onto a media player device given most of them seem to do mp3 and not much else that is useful.
Anything based on s1mp3 plays Vorbis these days (sold as about 70 different brands). Samsung, Symbian, Apple, ... too. See http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers
Anyone want to take a shot whether that's "most" yet?
Regards,
On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 08:10:30PM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
Anything based on s1mp3 plays Vorbis these days (sold as about 70 different brands). Samsung, Symbian, Apple, ... too. See http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/PortablePlayers
^^^^ some of them only if you change the default firmware supplied (especially so for Apple) and it seems that many people use their phones as their music players (It seems Sony Ericsson walkman phones are popular).
Anyone want to take a shot whether that's "most" yet?
I'd say it isn't anywhere near most :)
Adam
On 13-Apr-09 11:29:27, Adam Bower wrote:
On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 11:45:05AM +0100, Ted Harding wrote:
Well, normally this works (as exemplified by "The Reunion"). Doesn't seem to need mplayer (which is not installed anyway).
Yes, but that's because The Reunion is available in mp3 format (at least, it isn't doing the same thing as with the other one), the one you want is only available as a real stream which I'm guessing isn't as common as what you've downloaded up until now.
Or is there a bug in the version (1.03) of get_iplayer I'm using?
1.59 is available ;)
Adam
Thanks, Adam! I'll look into your suggestions. Meanwhile (for reference): Could you confirm what command you used to start the download?
get_iplayer --get 12840
it appears to be turning the real stream into a .wav and then re-encoding to mp3. I'd look at getting a working mplayer setup installed.
Thanks Adam -- jabberid = quinophex@jabber.earth.li
Well, thanks, Adam! It looks as though I'm getting there.in I installed get_iplayer (latest) from get-iplayer-current.deb on my recent provisional installation of Debian Lenny, and also the binary file rtmpdump (from the get_iplayer download page); ran it from there. It balked again at not having mplayer, so I then installed that. Then I ran get_iplayer as before, and this time things worked!
What I got as well, however, was a series of warnings that "WARNING: iphone version not available". After a few retries, it announced "INFO: Trying flashaudio mode to download radio: Thinking Allowed - 08/04/2009" and then downloaded, converting into wav.
What's interesting is that apparently get_iplayer "pretends to be an Iphone", and that Iphone versions are not always available for some BBC programmes. So that is probably the source of my problems. What get_iplayer seems to have done in this case is find a downloadable realaudio stream (presumably the one you listen to if you click on "Listen" in the BBC web page), and convert it, since it's not in MP3 (which the Iplayer-compatible BBC programmes are).
So far, so good!
Unfortunalely, this won't work on my stock Debian Etch installation since when I try to install the .deb on that, it tells me that it needs the id3v2 libraries, and the Etch repository won't let me have id3v2 (presumably no longer being updated).
Well, that's it so far! I now have the programme I wanted to have, so thanks for all the help!
Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 13-Apr-09 Time: 16:37:34 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------
-
Adam Bower -
MJ Ray -
Steve Fosdick -
Ted.Harding＠manchester.ac.uk