Jul 09 2008

Version 0.42 of get_iplayer was released today. It has some nice new features. Below is an overview of some of them:

  • Channel specific atom feeds from iplayer site are now used; this has the benefit of being faster to download the indexes and (I think) gives a better indication of availability. The downside to this is that there appears to be less programmes available. Also the BBC have a bug in their feeds – they report availability date as being before the programme was even made in some cases!
  • All Radio programmes are now indexed. Just use –type=all or –type=radio to enable this. These are downloaded from the RealAudio streams and transcoded to mp3 on-the-fly for ease of use and for uploading to your mp3 player.
  • All configuration, cookies, named pipes and cache files are stored in $HOME/.get_iplayer/ (remember to re-save your defaults using the –save option)
  • You can now exclude specific channels and categories from your searches using –exclude-channel and –exclude-category options

10 Comments

  • On July 10th, 2008, Ed said:

    Good job – can’t you use the MP3 streams and write them to files? I think the MP3 streams are better quality…. I know the streaming protocol used by flash is not open though :(

    [Reply]
    • On July 10th, 2008, Peter said:

      Hello again,

      Just wanted to say thanks so much for the update, spot on.

      Peter

      [Reply]
      • On July 11th, 2008, linuxcentre said:

        @Ed
        The only accessible mp3 streams I believe are the podcasts (correct me if I’m wrong here – a feed anyone?). These are quite limited compared with the rtmp/flash and realaudio streams. However, I was thinking of adding them to the index also if I can find a consistent way of scanning them.

        [Reply]
        • On July 17th, 2008, Richard said:

          A great bit of software. One slight problem, when downloading a ‘list’ of radio programs, get_iplayer ends after retrieving the first one. Is ok on TV & Podcasts. Running v0.43 on Ubuntu.

          See Below:-
          –type=radio –channel=’radio 3′ jazz -o /home/richard/radio/radio3 -g –wav
          INFO: Getting Index Feeds
          …………..
          Matches:
          INFO: 4 Matching Programmes
          10453: Jazz Library – 11/07/2008, ‘BBC Radio 3′, Music
          10454: Jazz Line-Up – 12/07/2008, ‘BBC Radio 3′, Music
          10455: Jazz Record Requests – 12/07/2008, ‘BBC Radio 3′, Music
          10456: Jazz on 3 – The Bad Plus, ‘BBC Radio 3′, Music

          INFO: Attempting to Download: Jazz Library – 11/07/2008
          Getting iplayer programme page INFO: Checking existence of programme
          INFO: File name prefix = Jazz_Library_-_11_07_2008_b00cdcqq
          INFO: Writing wav format
          MPlayer 1.0rc2-4.2.3 (C) 2000-2007 MPlayer Team
          CPU: Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2130 @ 1.86GHz (Family: 6, Model: 14, Stepping: 12)
          CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 1
          Compiled with runtime CPU detection.
          mplayer: could not connect to socket
          mplayer: No such file or directory
          Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.

          Playing rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/radio3/jazzlib.ra?BBC-UID=74a87789447c983bea158816105070c3e6b012ecd0d0718434cfd9d7b4d30d75&SSO2-UID=.
          Resolving rmv8.bbc.net.uk for AF_INET6…
          Couldn’t resolve name for AF_INET6: rmv8.bbc.net.uk
          Resolving rmv8.bbc.net.uk for AF_INET…
          Connecting to server rmv8.bbc.net.uk[212.58.251.75]: 554…
          Cache size set to 128 KBytes
          Cache fill: 18.75% (24576 bytes)
          REAL file format detected.
          Stream description: audio/x-pn-multirate-realaudio logical stream
          Stream mimetype: audio/x-pn-realaudio
          [real] Audio stream found, -aid 0
          Clip info:
          name: Jazz Library
          author: BBC Radio 3
          copyright: (C) British Broadcasting Corporation 2008
          ==========================================================================
          Forced audio codec: mad
          Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
          AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 64.1 kbit/4.54% (ratio: 8010->176400)
          Selected audio codec: [ffcook] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg COOK audio decoder)
          ==========================================================================
          [AO PCM] File: /home/richard/radio/radio3/Jazz_Library_-_11_07_2008_b00cdcqq.partial.wav (WAVE)
          PCM: Samplerate: 44100Hz Channels: Stereo Format s16le
          [AO PCM] Info: Faster dumping is achieved with -vc null -vo null -ao pcm:fast
          [AO PCM] Info: To write WAVE files use -ao pcm:waveheader (default).
          AO: [pcm] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
          Video: no video
          Starting playback…
          realrtsp: Stream EOF detected.0 ( 1:16:02.0) 13.2% 3%
          A:4560.4 ( 1:16:00.3) of 4562.0 ( 1:16:02.0) 13.2% 0%

          Exiting… (End of file)
          richard@kagyu-linux:~$

          [Reply]
          • On July 17th, 2008, Richard said:

            OOPS! Am running 0.53.

            [Reply]
            • On July 17th, 2008, linuxcentre said:

              @Richard,
              Try updating to 0.54. Should be fixed now. Thanks!

              [Reply]
              • On July 17th, 2008, Richard said:

                Thanks Phil, works ok now, however, have noticed that podcast download broken.
                Just retrieves the index:-

                richard@kagyu-linux:~$ get_iplayer -g –type=podcast –channel=\\\’world service\\\’ -o /home/richard/podcasts/radio3
                INFO: Getting Podcast Index
                Index subset for example only—-

                20261: World Book Club – WBC: Patricia Cornwell, \\\’Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:10:00 +0000\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, Arts
                20262: World Book Club – WBC: Jane Smiley, \\\’Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:59:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, Arts
                20263: World Book Club – WBC: Sebastian Faulks, \\\’Fri, 02 May 2008 10:50:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, Arts
                20264: World Book Club – WBC: Khaled Hosseini, \\\’Tue, 27 May 2008 15:54:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, Arts
                20265: World Book Club – WBC: John Irving, \\\’Wed, 25 Jun 2008 17:01:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, Arts
                20266: World Football – WF: Zimbabwe Football 12 Jul 08, \\\’Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:25:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, Sports & Recreation
                20267: World Football – WF: World football podcast, 12th July 2008, \\\’Sat, 12 Jul 2008 04:02:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, Sports & Recreation
                20268: World Have Your Say – WHYS: 11 Jul 08: Tanzania Special: When is a child old enough to work?, \\\’Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:00:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, News & Politics
                20269: World Have Your Say – WHYS: 15 Jul 08: Zimbabweans in South Africa, \\\’Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:04:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, News & Politics
                20270: World Have Your Say – WHYS: 16 Jul 08: Cultural imperialism?, \\\’Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:18:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, News & Politics
                20271: World Have Your Say – WHYS: Human Hostages, \\\’Thu, 17 Jul 2008 19:53:00 +0100\\\’, \\\’BBC World Service\\\’, News & Politics

                [Reply]
                • On July 17th, 2008, linuxcentre said:

                  @richard,
                  –channel only narrows the search – you still need a match term – try adding ‘.’ as a search term
                  Maybe your assumption would be better behaviour though. I’ll have a go at that some time :-)

                  [Reply]
                  • On July 17th, 2008, Richard said:

                    Oh, I understand! Thanks.

                    [Reply]
                    • On September 20th, 2008, RA said:

                      Hi,

                      Nice work on iPlayer hackery, just wondering if youve seen the java based rtmp ripper at

                      http://rtmprip.jtvlan.org/ and http://ptrthomas.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/how-to-record-rtmp-flash-video-streams-using-red5/

                      ive got it working with some content but nothing from the beeb yet, it seems to succesfully grab the first packet but then die.

                      [Reply]

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