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$Id: ThisLife.izu,v 1.3 2005/06/20 03:02:35 ralf Exp $

Important: see the legal note at the end.

It works under Linux by using RealPlayer to actually play the stream in normal time (that is 59 mn of show will take 59 mn to record followed by whatever time is necessary to encode) whilst using vsound to record the audio output in a WAV file then using 'lame'' to make an mp3 out of it.

Debian setup:

• You can get vsound by simply using apt-get install vsound.
• RealPlayer is not free and thus not in the Debian archives.
• Lame is not in the Debian archives either.

The main script that performs the recording is right below. Notes on the script:

• It does not erase the final mp3 if it already exists. This also means that if you need to interrupt it in the middle you will have to manually remove the temporary WAV or mp3 to rebuild it.
• The variable $DELAY is set to 70 minutes. After this delay the first instance of RealPlayer will be terminated by an asynchronous job. The show is actually only 59 minutes long, I use 70 just to for safety.
• Lame is set to encode in mono, 64 kbps VBR. This works OK for my portable mp3 player, YMMV.
• vsound starts realplay.

Basically the script will block for $DELAY minutes, recording whatever comes out of RealPlayer, then start encoding the mp3 in the background which means that when the script exists, the mp3 is not finished. This may sound odd but the purpose is to start recording the next show whilst the previous mp3 is still being encoded :-)

This is the _get.sh script:

I then call the _get.sh script like this:

./_get.sh 125 "Apocalypse"
./_get.sh 124 "Welcome to America"
./_get.sh 123 "High Cost of Living"
./_get.sh 122 "Valentine's Day '99"
./_get.sh 121 "Twentieth Century Man"
./_get.sh 120 "Be Careful Who You Pretend to Be"
./_get.sh 119 "Lock-up"
etc.

Well of course I'm lazy so I wrote a Perl script to filter the episode index from the web site. For example if you get the complete list of show for 2004 and save it as index.html you can then run this script to generate the one above to get all the episodes:

Legal Note: As all broadcasted media, This American Life is copyrighted. Please check their web site for more information on this.

==> I clearly do not condone illegal usage made with this script.

As far as I know it is illegal to sell, broadcast or distribute on the Internet episodes that you got using this script unless you have the copyright holder's approval.
On the other hand, you can express your fair use of this material, i.e. it is acceptable to record shows for your own usage to play them at a differed time.
Have a look at this link about fair use.
IANAL, so you're on your own here.
If you really enjoy This American Life, you may want to check their web sites to find out how you can express your support.

Site License

This work is licensed by Raphaël Moll under a Creative Commons License.

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