S00per seekr1t project iFetch
iFetch is designed to download BBC radio shows from the BBC iPlayer radio site.
Personally, I like BBC Radio Four and BBC Seven (which only pretends to be a radio station).
With iFetch, you can select a radio station, Fetch the list of programs, and then (when the Fetch button comes back) select various radio programs to record. Hit "Process", and the checked programs will record.
Requirements
iFetch requires MPlayer, to download WMA streams (and RealAudio streams if they are offered); it will also require both MPlayer and LAME to convert downloaded streams (FLV, WMA or RA) to MP3s. It will put the title, description and background image into the MP3 file.
A new ancillary program, FlvStreamer, can be used if you want to stream the two Flash formats - AAC and MP3. Note that even the Flash MP3 format still requires MPlayer and LAME in order to convert to a regular MP3 file.
The three ancillary programs, FlvStreamer, MPlayer and LAME aren't mine, but the last time I downloaded them I got them from the following sites:
- FlvStreamer - required for Flash streams (faster, way faster, than WMAs)
- MPlayer - required for WMA streams, and for converting downloaded streams through LAME
- LAME - required to convert streams to MP3
New Features
New features: Many options can now be saved, and actually work. The dialog can be resized, and the grid resizes along with it. After you have successfully transferred a program and converted it to MP3, it will be marked with a grey background.
Newer features (2009/03/26): More options should work. The progress bar now works (but slowly, because it takes a long time to download radio and convert it). The Hide button works. After saving several files, the successful ones are highlighted green, the unsuccessful ones are highlighted red. The MPlayer and LAME windows now run hidden.
Even newer features (2009/06/20): Hide / Auto-hide Brand, Mark / Auto-mark Brand - a Brand is what was previously called a "series", but now in line with BBC's labeling, I draw a distinction between brands and series, so that, for instance, a brand might be "Nebulous", and a series within that brand might be "Series 1" or "Series 2". Hiding a brand stops it from displaying in this session - auto-hiding it stops it from ever displaying again. Marking a brand selects all episodes from that brand in this session - auto-marking it selects all episodes from that brand (that haven't yet been recorded) every time you open the software.
Also new this time around - once you've fetched a channel, and the Fetch button turns solid again, press Fetch again and you'll be asked if you want to auto-fetch that channel. Channels are populated dynamically from the BBC Feeds site, so that Channels now include Genres.
The program now checks for new versions whenever you run it, which should prevent me having to email everyone with a new version - however, because this installs the software differently, you may lose all your settings the first time you install it. If you want to keep your settings, you will need to find the new user.config file and replace it with your old user.config file.
Still newer features (2009/09/13): You can mark brands and series - there's a difference. For instance, "Woman's Hour Drama" is a brand; "Woman's Hour Drama: Au Pairs" is a series.
I've added a proper icon for the software, so that should make life more pleasant on the eyes.
Even more excitingly new features (2009/11/28): I've added a dialog allowing you to edit the auto-marked brands and series, in case you accidentally hide a brand you now want to see, or if you want to see which brands are already marked.
There's now support for Flash streams, using FlvStreamer, which you will need to download. The link here is to the copy I downloaded - there may be newer versions available over time to fix various problems. As with all external programs, please take great care in what you download, and don't trust the program just on my recommendation. [Maybe I got fooled into downloading some malware.]
With all the streams available now - RealAudio, Flash AAC, Flash MP3, WMA, you may wish to tell iFetch which you prefer - and indeed, the program now features a dialog allowing you to sort the streams by preference. I would suggest not choosing WMA as anything other than a last resort, because WMAs only download in realtime using MPlayer - a half-hour programme will take half an hour to download!
More newer features (2010/07/26, version 1.2.0.63): I've fixed the FLV streaming, as well as added parallelisation on the streaming, to cope with the fact that WMA streaming is done in real-time. You can alter the number of simultaneous streams, if you find that quality is a problem, from the Options page.
I've also added the version number in the top right-hand corner, so you know which version you're running.
I'm hoping to add the ability, soon, to select programmes from future schedules, so that you can set up to record ahead of time. Not sure yet how that feature will work.
Known issues:The program will crash with a "system.stackoverflow" exception in mscorlib.dll when trying to sort the DataGrid, if rows are hidden and you are using a PC with Tablet input (either external or internal). Microsoft is aware of this bug, but I have not yet heard whether or when they plan to fix it. In the meantime, either unplug your Tablet, if it's an external one, or temporarily pause the Tablet Input Service while you are using this program (or any other .NET program that crashes like this).
Here's a picture of the program in action:
And here is where you can download the current version: