FOT Forum
The Best Show on WFMU => Show Discussion => Topic started by: Joe Rogaine on June 20, 2008, 06:35:04 PM
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I was using the m3u ripper on the old Firefox but the new Firefox doesn't have it, thanks who ever suggested that the last time hopefully they will add it back in near the future. I tried using that Switch converter but couldn't get it to recognize the file.
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Hopefully it's okay if I post this- this is generally the method I use.
Download the playlist file (m3u/ram) and save it to wherever. Open it in a text editor, and you'll see the direct link to the file. If it's a mp3, you can download it normally in Firefox, or if it's a .rm file you can use a program called FlashGet. If it's a .rm, use the program SUPER (it's free- I use it to convert everything) to convert it to a mp3.
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The SUPER program is one awesome piece of software. A little buggy, but for something that can convert any media file to any other media file, I'll take it.
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Have any programs that work on Macs?
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Hopefully it's okay if I post this- this is generally the method I use.
Download the playlist file (m3u/ram) and save it to wherever. Open it in a text editor, and you'll see the direct link to the file. If it's a mp3, you can download it normally in Firefox, or if it's a .rm file you can use a program called FlashGet. If it's a .rm, use the program SUPER (it's free- I use it to convert everything) to convert it to a mp3.
Ive never messed with Text Editors before. Does Windows XP have a text editor if not whats a good one I can download.
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Just any program that makes text- Notepad, Wordpad, etc. They're on any Windows system.
The SUPER program is one awesome piece of software. A little buggy, but for something that can convert any media file to any other media file, I'll take it.
I've pretty much decided to get a MacBook- SUPER is the one thing I'm really going to miss. Speaking of which, I second the request for a Mac program.
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The best free Windows text editor is notepad++ (that I know of), but Notepad works. (The best non-free Mac text editor or text editor on any platform is easily Textmate.)
On the Mac, you can use ffmpegX to convert from .rm in faster than realtime (without having to rip an audio stream) without the command line. It's a bit tricky, though. Very tricky. Google it. A lot of computer tricky. Maybe I'll write up some instructions for FOTs.
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Ok, so most audio editing and converting on the Mac is really easy, but Real's licensing makes converting from .rm a pain-- most of the programs people mention to "convert" the files are really just stream rippers/capturers of one kind or another, which means that a 3 hour show takes 3 hours to convert. Using the method below, you can convert a 3 hour .rm in 5 minutes, depending on the speed of your computer.
The reason it's so complicated to get it done is that you have to take some Real-provided binary files and use them with a Unix program called ffmpeg-- this program actually lies at the core of a lot of software, like VLC.
These instructions tell you how to install ffmpeg, and then use a front end to it called ffmpegX. ffmpegX is a pile of crap, but it's all there is, unless you're comfortable with learning how to use ffmpeg on the command line directly.
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060906153448633
Some little points:
If you have occasion to have to rename a bunch of files at once on the Mac (for some reason .rm files hang ffmpegX unless they're renamed to .rm.wav) and don't want to mess with the command line, just go ahead and turn on the Applescript menu (through Applescript Utility, which is in /Applications/Utilities). Then use the Finder script "Replace Text in item Names" to do batch renaming-- search for .rm and replace with .rm.wav. And you can use a program called "Quick Batcher" to batch a bunch of files through ffmpegX.
Luckily, it's only converting Real files that is a pain on the Mac, and WFMU is about the only place I know that still seriously relies on them. flip4mac and something called Perian together make Quicktime (and thus, Safari) able to read any format under the sun-- and of course you can always use VLC. Also, the Real Player on OS X is actually pretty nice. It uses dumb non-standard widgets and so forth, but it's not bogged down with ads and obsessed with getting you to fork out cash for a non-crippled version.
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Thanks. Most of my experience with ffmpeg involves making its process priority as low as possible in an attempt to use any other program while something's converting, but I'm okay if I have directions to follow.
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Thanks. Most of my experience with ffmpeg involves making its process priority as low as possible in an attempt to use any other program while something's converting, but I'm okay if I have directions to follow.
Ok so my Windows had Notepad and I saved the M3u file to my desktop and then opened it with Notepad. It showed the direct link to the mp3. I tried copying and pasting the link in Firefox and all it did was just open it in Firefox and play it with Quicktime. What do I need to do to download the link in Firefox?
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The simplest way would be to do what you did before, then click on File -> Save Page As.
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jeez
you mac people
well, at least ur computer LOOKS pretty
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Seriously, I've been having to bring my Macbook to work about once a week just to do the kinds of office-related stuff that windows is supposed to be good at, like instantly and intelligently indexing the contents of a bunch of files, editing PDFs, etc. It's amazing shitty XP is-- even tweaked out with Google desktop, it's like using a flint knife. About a dozen extensions have to launch just for stuff like screen-sharing and backup. I guess if you're billing your time, Windows is good for the bottom line. Meanwhile, I recently wrote a 40 page article that in part praises Vista's security model, so I guess Microsoft is very slowly coming along.
It's actually amazing how shitty people in general are at computers in an office/professional environment. I'm working at a law firm this summer, and I recently saved someone about a week's worth of unbillable work by pointing out that a particular spreadsheet could be easily generated from some pre-existing data. Or people will ask me to find something online for them, because they can't construct a google search. They'd rather have the librarian compile and forward some emails to them every day, instead of learning how to use an RSS reader. There's this residual aversion to "secretarial" work which is totally out of place in 2008. I'll never understand the point of pride some people have in asking other people to do this stuff for them, when it would save *them* time in the end to just learn it themselves. It's time for a new Taylorism!
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I followed the instructions on the linked page that was provided by yesno, but I didn't realize until after I tried it that it was for converting already downloaded programs. So how do you download the program? I know how to download the link to the program but that isn't the same thing.
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I followed the instructions on the linked page that was provided by yesno, but I didn't realize until after I tried it that it was for converting already downloaded programs. So how do you download the program? I know how to download the link to the program but that isn't the same thing.
Do the same thing as the first part of my first post in this thread.
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It's actually amazing how shitty people in general are at computers in an office/professional environment. I'm working at a law firm this summer, and I recently saved someone about a week's worth of unbillable work by pointing out that a particular spreadsheet could be easily generated from some pre-existing data. Or people will ask me to find something online for them, because they can't construct a google search. They'd rather have the librarian compile and forward some emails to them every day, instead of learning how to use an RSS reader. There's this residual aversion to "secretarial" work which is totally out of place in 2008. I'll never understand the point of pride some people have in asking other people to do this stuff for them, when it would save *them* time in the end to just learn it themselves. It's time for a new Taylorism!
The network in my office can't handle emails bigger than 5mb. We have an ftp server and sendspace and such exists, but people still send these emails out even though it basically shuts the network down so that no one can do any work for sometimes hours.
Its not just an aversion to secretarial aspects of work, its just a general close-minded-ness to learning how to move beyond the very basic uses of computing.
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The network in my office can't handle emails bigger than 5mb. We have an ftp server and sendspace and such exists, but people still send these emails out even though it basically shuts the network down so that no one can do any work for sometimes hours.
Its not just an aversion to secretarial aspects of work, its just a general close-minded-ness to learning how to move beyond the very basic uses of computing.
There's of course the amazing, fantastical inefficiency of emailing office documents back and forth rather than using something like Google docs or at least just editing something on a shared drive. My overall view is that if you work with documents and online research all day, every day, you should take as much pride in actually learning how your tools work and how to get the most out of them as people with real jobs that use real tools. Not everyone needs to be a hyper-nerd, but damn, you know?
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(see next post)
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Update:
On a mac, installing ffmpegX wasn't really all that difficult. But, I never could figure out how to actually download a .rm file. I tried a few different download tools with no success.
So, i recorded the stream in real time with CocoaJT, used ffmpegX to encode into an mp3 and now have the October 24, 2000 show as a 110 MB mp3 on my ipod. Ugh; i hate computer stuff. :-\
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I have a really stupid Mac question: the proper program to use to listen to the archives is still RealPlayer, right? Assuming it is, I can't figure out how to download just the program- every time I try it takes me to either a free trial of one of their stupid paid radio things or a dead link.
Also, I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like the Mac program AudialHub might be able to convert .rm to mp3.
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I'm not going to even approach the RealPlayer issue as they do everything they can year after year to make using their products as unpleasant as possible to use and as difficult to even download. For a while the Mac RealPlayer was missing a lot of the shit they piled into the Windows version, let's hope they're not fixing to change that.
Unfortunately no, AudialHub does not convert from .rm.
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I use realplayer for the archives.
Looks like they've added that 'radiopass' thing since i've been there. i still have the free realplayergold installer as a 15MB file. PM me if you'd like it.
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I think they might just have a crappy site- I just retried it and the download link worked for the first time. But thanks anyway.