Mozart Fest - can we record it?

[Dave2002]

The thought of having to listen to all 12 days of Mozart on R3 does not fill everyone with glee, and even dedicated enthusiasts will find it hard to stay awake.

Firstly, does anyone know if the BBC is planning to make this available on the iPlayer for an extended period, or will each item disappear after 7 days, so that we won't be able to compare the end with the beginning?

Secondly, how feasible is it to record some or all of this, for later listening? I did that with some of the earlier Bach and Beethoven series, though I actually hardly ever listen to them. There were, however, some interesting performances, and it's possible that the Beeb's Mozart Fest will have some unusual and difficult to obtain recordings, which could make it worthwhile at least to record those for future listening.

A brute force approach might be to use a dedicated PVR, such as a Humax Freesat box. Although the audio should be compressed, these PVRs tend to get confused with audio, and often think they've got to allocate Gigabytes of storage for each hour - whereas for audio much less storage is required. A modern PVR should have enough space assuming 288 hours at 1 Gigabyte should be enough to fool them into working. The next problem would be actually programming such a device to work.

Alternatives would be to run an audio capture programme from a feed from an FM or DAB set through a computer, and dump everything on to hard disc. That way the material would be captured, but it'd not be in structured chunks - just time indexed by date and time.

I'm guessing that an 80 Gbyte drive would be sufficient - for example to record using FLAC - though it might be easier to use a larger drive and do any compression later, and in any case small drives with 160+Gbytes are really rather common and cheap nowadays.

I won't be able to do this myself for some of the time as I'll be away for part of this, though I could risk leaving a system going for a day or so at a time. Is anyone else even thinking of doing anything like this?

[Bryn]

Dave, why FLAC? I suppose it might make some sort of sense if one is particularly fond of the Optimoded and frequency range limited sound of FM, but the on demand version of the iPlayer is at 192kbps and in a choice of mp3 or aac=lc format, both of which are ewasy enough to capture. DAB, of course, is also at 192kbps max. but only in mp2 format. I suppose you could try capturing the 'live' 320kbps iPlayer stream to WAV with something like High Criteria's Total Recorder and then encode that to FLAC. I have found that more reliable than trying to capture the aac-lc stream itself, but I still find it bombs out every now ad then.

On the whole I think one or other of the 192kbps versions of the on demand iPlayer facility is the best option and for 12 days that would need a little under 24GB. That's around 6 DVD's worth.

[johnb]

I'm not sure about the legalities, especially with capturing iPlayer streams but:-

If you want to save individual programmes the obviously solution is, as Bryn said, to capture the Listen Again iPlayer.

As for capturing the whole 12 days - using iPlayer live is just too unreliable, capturing all the individual programmes from Listen Again is way too tedious.

That leaves DAB/Freeview or FM as as feasible options

One possibility would be to use a TV USB tuner and capture the FV mp2 stream to your hard drive. Possibly stopping and restarting again during the 1pm news bulletin so there is at least one file per day. (Roughly 2GB per day.)

A second possibility would be to do the same but using a DAB USB tuner.

Both of those tie up a computer to some extent.

A third option, if you happen to have a Yamaha CDR-HD1300 or CDR-HD1500, would be to stick a new PATA HDD in it (or a PATA HDD which you are happy to erase) and set the Yamaha to record the digital output of a DAB tuner or the analogue output of an FM tuner. (The CDR-HD1300 would need a change of HDD part way through.)

What ever option someone chooses - editing that amount of stuff would be a total nightmare. Much easier to buy the music in budget CD boxes.

(Luckily I'm not tempted by the Mozart-Fest.)

[french frank]

I'm not sure about the legalities, especially with capturing iPlayer streams but:-

My attention has been drawn to this thread!

There are implications to this kind of 'immersion' broadcasting, especially when it goes on for 12 solid days. The implication being that, unlike with the normal, 24-hour Radio 3 output, people may be interested in the entire 12 days of programming. Listen Again, for example, is simply not an option in those circumstances. And when it's okay to record from your radio (for your own private use), I don't see it as reasonable to be providing programmes which it's almost impossible to hear without using some of the more obvious alternative methods of recording.

I'm all in favour of testing the grey areas. Do it until you're told not to (I do it all the time with images). But I won't pay your legal bills!

[Bryn]

In response to both John and frenchie, I would point out that the average Radio 3 day comprises approximately a baker's dozen of programmes. It really isn't that much hassle to use the iPhone emulating program to grab those from the on demand aspect of the iPlayer. If using one of the several available recievers which can save the DAB mp2 stream to SD card, bear in mind that each 2GB card (the largest size that those I have come across can handle), can take around 23 hours. That means making quick change-overs during brief news bulletins, etc. It also means making two such changes every day, (say, at 7 a.m. and 5 p.m.), due to the less than 24 hour capacity of the cards. Editing mp2s or mp3s with programs such as Mp3DirectCut is not really that much of a hassle, but editing the FLVs which carry the aac-lc offerings is. It involves a multi-stage process with two different programs and the timing of the edits is not as accurate at that of mpeg audio files with Mp3DirectCut.

Regarding legality, my understanding is that recording the DAB mp2 for personal use has been cleared in terms of rights issues by the Beeb, but that no such clearance applied regarding the iPlayer mp3 or aac-lc offerings beyond the standard 7 day limit.

[french frank]

Regarding legality, my understanding is that recording the DAB mp2 for personal use has been cleared in terms of rights issues by the Beeb, but that no such clearance applied regarding the iPlayer mp3 or aac-lc offerings beyond the standard 7 day limit.

That will do me, Bryn . Thanks for the clarification.

[johnb]

Bryn,

Bye the way, if you want to go to the bother, the aac file can ben converted to mp4 which can then be opened by Soundforge to get accurate timings. These can then be used with BeSplit to split the file. (If I happen to be doing all that I use DOS utilities in batch files.)

As far as the hassle of editing many days of one of R3 composer-fests is concerned - it depends what you define as 'hassle'. Been there, done that - don't want to go there again!

[Eudaimonia]

If you're looking for a free, easy way to record from the I-player, try Freecorder:

http://www.applian.com/freecorder4/

It always works for me! As I'm listening from the States, no less.

[Dave2002]

Dave, why FLAC? On the whole I think one or other of the 192kbps versions of the on demand iPlayer facility is the best option and for 12 days that would need a little under 24GB. That's around 6 DVD's worth.

Bryn
I think we both know that there's really no point in using FLAC or WAV to record material which is already digitally compressed, but not all of us have the technical expertise to pick up a digital stream and record that. Messing about with transcoding may lead to poor results, if the bit rates and/or codecs are changed. I was simply trying to raise awareness of some possibilities, and some of the issues which might arise.

If in doubt I generally prefer to record in the least lossy mode possible, then deal with any arising issues later, rather than fixing a lower than optimum encoding rate. If you can get a digital stream ( ) then the best thing for that stream is simply to leave it alone - though some people may need a change of codec depending what playback devices they use.

I am also getting less bothered by storage as it's getting cheaper, so I might prefer to simply buy a 500 Gbyte drive (they're now available in small packages for about £50), and use the simplest possible software interface. Of course if someone has an easy to use software package with a good interface which will do the job with more effective use of storage they should use that, but I'm less and less enamoured of having to play around with software to reformat media than I once was. Those with Humax Freesat boxes will find that each recorded program will give rise to 3 files. One is a .ts (Transport Stream) file, which essentially has the music, while I think the other two have program related info. The files can be backed up to an external hard drive. If the original PVR is used to play the recordings back, they can either be reloaded or I think they can be played directly from the external drive. The .ts file will play in the VLC media player on PCs and iMacs, and can probably be demultiplexed to other formats by those who know how to do that.

However this is more complex technically than I think many visiting here will want to know about.

[Dave2002]

What ever option someone chooses - editing that amount of stuff would be a total nightmare. Much easier to buy the music in budget CD boxes.

(Luckily I'm not tempted by the Mozart-Fest.)

If the other immersion projects are anything to go by, there will be some unusual material, and some of it will be very good, possibly in the middle of the night, and possibly not obtainable in any other way. Some of us have already "invested" in some huge CD boxes, but I suspect the reality is that less than 10% of the CDs actually get played, as there are almost always better, or more interesting performances available elsewhere. I do indeed have the Brilliant Mozart box - many of the CDs have not yet been played.

The Beeb is good at finding and presenting such worthwhile performances, and it is those that could make some form of recording project of interest.

Regarding rights etc., this is a tricky area. The simplest thing would simply be to ban any recordings, but that would make listening to items broadcast in the middle of the night impossible for most of us. They could emphasise that recording material which is commercially available for repeated use would be illegal, but then enforcement would become an issue. They could issue that part of the 12 day marathon which does not derive from commercial discs which are currently available, as some form of commercial venture, but that would cause additional difficulties and problems.

Possibly the best solution would be to have an extended, but limited, period during which the whole Fest could be accessed on demand - say for 3 months after the broadcast. Whether that would be provided as a free to licence payer service or charged for would also be up for discussion.

[johnb]

The .ts file will play in the VLC media player on PCs and iMacs, and can probably be demultiplexed to other formats by those who know how to do that.

Dave,

From my own limited experience, ProjectX works pretty well in demuxing .ts files. Also, the demuxed mp2 file is a lot smaller, at least that is what I found.

(I've used ProjectX on the odd occasions when I have captured Radio 3 from FreeView, using a Hauppauge USB tuner stick.)

[Dave2002]

John

I have used ProjectX before, though currently I only have a version running on one PC. As I recall, ProjectX is written in Java, so should work on most platforms. Someone has produced a ready to run version for Mac OS, which I may get working. Also for those who don't know, there is also other software called ProjectX - which seems to be project management software. Not what we're using here.

The added confusion/complication with demuxing out the .mp2 is that not all mp3 players will do that, though some can be fooled by changing the file extension to .mp3. There may also be a need to demux other formats (e.g aac or related, if for example demuxing a sound track from BBC HD or BBC 1 HD), though probably not for the upcoming Mozart sessions. Not sure if ProjectX could do other formats.

For the moment I'd probably be happy to just use VLC as "good enough for purpose", and only demux if I wanted to play back on CD players or streaming software systems. [Can the Squeezebox play files such as .ts directly, or do they have to be converted to mp2/mp3?]

[Dave2002]

It occurs to me that there is another solution to the availability issue, which was followed by Swedish Radio when they had a Mozart Radio stream in 2006. They basically broadcast on a continuous revolving loop for the period of operation, so that if you missed, say, the Clarinet Concerto, it'd come round again a few days later. For the Beeb to do this they'd need to have a separate Internet stream, but it would perhaps allow them to overcome some of the rights issues of an on demand system. They'd probably need to allow it to run for around 1 month for everyone to be able to access most of it, and ideally they'd also need to shuffle pieces/programmes so that programmes did not always go out in the middle of the night etc. It'd be no good simply doing the repeats starting at the same start time.

[Spatny]

I can't understand anyone recording 12 days of continuous radio. I guess it will be around 7am to say 9.30pm each day. Surely TTN won't be 100% Mozart too?

Its one thing to record this mammoth broadcast, but to replay it again, and maybe again in years to come. My recording limit are the Proms, but I rarely replay a proms concert of over 3 years old. Is it worth the effort?