Radio Downloader

[dearleuk]

No point then, unless you are saying MP3 is an output option because ffmpeg is built in. iPlayer versions still need topping and tailing.

MP3 is an output option.

MP3DirectCut is far better for topping and tailing as is does not need to re-encode after the edit. The interface takes some getting used to, but it's worth the effort

 

[Black Hole]

This is progress, but it doesn't help with my current stock of MP2s.

 

[Deleted member 473]

MP3 is an output option.

MP3DirectCut is far better for topping and tailing as is does not need to re-encode after the edit. The interface takes some getting used to, but it's worth the effort

Coo, that program was an ordeal to install on Win8.1.

First it said there was a problem unpacking it, then it refused to run the installer as administrator, and finally I got it to install in compatibility mode.

After that, it didn't show in Classic Start Menu, and finally I got a pop-up after running it saying it was incompatible with Win8!

 

[MontysEvilTwin]

This is progress, but it doesn't help with my current stock of MP2s.

A program I have used is Wavepad. It is similar to Audacity: you get a waveform you can crop and process. It also transcodes. I've not tried it with Hummy files, but I have used it to convert DAB MP2 files to 'proper' mp3s which play fine on my iPod. The paid for version has a batch processing option, which you may find useful. You can download a 30 day free trial of the full program.
http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/

 

[fenlander]

You might like to look at ocenaudio. It's an Audacity-style editor, but simpler and much quicker to use. In particular, if you top and tail an mp3 file a simple Ctrl-S will save it with no recoding or exporting.

I must add that, for reasons unknown, this very useful program has just stopped working on my W7 laptop, though it is running happily on my Vista media centre. Apart from this glitch it would definitely be my preferred editor (does anyone actually understand all the stuff Audacity can do?).

Another option is Wavosaur. It has many of the advantages of ocenaudio in terms of a slick UI, but it does have to recode when saving to mp3. Like Audacity, it needs a local copy of lame_enc.dll in order to export to mp3. If you use the 64-bit version, be sure to get a 64-bit version of lame, too. Again, for a simple job, I'd use this in preference to Audacity.

I personally avoid Wavepad as it's by NCH software, who are masters of the slippery business of faux-freeware. They fooled me once but I'm not getting caught again...

I've tried MP3DirectCut and while it is a seriously bizarre (stone age?) UI, it does work well and it's very fast for the task of cleaning up downloaded iPlayer files - once you get used to it.

 

[andyk]

I've always been puzzled why the files produced when extracting audio from radio files are labelled 'mp3'. In fact the call to ffmpeg that produces them is wrong. It uses a '-f mp3' parameter which tells ffmpeg to treat the file as mp3 whatever it is. The call should omit this and quote an output file of '$tmp/mp2.mp2'. In fact the current ffmpeg release for Windows rejects the attempt to force it to treat an mp2 format file as mp3 format. I don't know if this 'force mp3' was a faulty attempt to get ffmpeg to transcode the file? Some programs don't take kindly to the resulting output.

Incidentally, mp3DirectCut is really targetted at mp3 rather than mp2 - some features don't work for mp2.

 

[Trajet]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I decided to use VLC and see how it goes.