BBC Webcasts

[Tosh McCaber]

Another head scratcher- Is there any way to record a repeat programme featured on the BBC website onto my computer, so I can then put them onto a CD/ DVD, to pass on to a friend, who is temporarily without Internet facilities?

[planecrazy.eu]

You would need a stream-ripper...

They save the stream as its been saved, not sure if there is any other way to do it???

HI-Download does it pretty well, thats what i use, i use the demo untill its ran out, then just re-install it, i am sure the'll patch that some day...

[Tosh McCaber]

Thanks for that, pc. I've downloaded Hi-Download. But I'm not sure how to connect the programme, which is in a small box on the BBC website called BBC Radio Player, into the Hi-Download application. There's no URL as such. Any suggestions?

[Bushfiva]

Just to throw another product into the mix, I use Totalrecorder Pro which can grab any audio (because it emulates a pass-through sound card) the computer is playing. It can also has a scheduler, so it can visit a URL at a certain time and record for a certain period. It also does silence detection.

I used it for several years to record BBC7, save the files as WAV and MP3, everything in 15-minute chunks. There's an add-on which does the same thing with video. Totalrecorder Pro can be as simple or as complicated as you want. I ran scripts to play things such that I could listen to a weekly or daily serial all on one day after the last episode was broadcast.

If your audio pops up in BBC Radio Player, then in a URL such as http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/brixmisstory, it's the rightmost part you want: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/brixmisstory

If it's something on BBC7, then the URL is of the form http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/sunday/rams/1800.ram. The "1800" means 30 minutes of audio from 1800-1830. The day of the week is there, too. So if you look at the schedule, you can copy the URL by right-clicking on "listen again" for the item you want to record, or you can quickly craft your own URLs.

There are a zillion ways of skinning this particular cat, the above is simply my way.