(I've been unable to find freeware software to replace the last two applications above, which are not freeware. If you know of freeware that can replace them please contact me and I'll get this list updated with all freeware applications!!)
Why Download And Not Record Directly From The Show?
A lot of people seem to be hung-up on using real-time recording programs, thinking it is the best methods to acquire wma (and other formats of audio) from the internet.
Here are the two biggest reasons that is not an acceptable method:
- Quality Loss. Each time audio get's (re)recorded you are going to have audio-loss (even if you claim to be an audiophile who has exceptional hearing).
- Time Management. Using the methods I explain below you will have your audio in a matter of minutes, rather then waiting for the entire program/show to play in real-time.
I have yet to come across an internet audio feed I could not download or record in such a way as to force me to download and/or buy any other programs then the ones listed on this website page.
GETTING STARTED, STEP #1:
First you will need to be a Streamlink ( http://www.coasttocoastam.com/streamlink/about.html ) member.Once you are logged into the website as a Streamlink member you can begin the process of this whole process.
What we first need to do once we are logged into the website is to acquire the content file with all of the direct links to the MSS locations. This normally get's downloaded to your computer (and thus not a violation of the Privacy Policy or ToS, as best as I can tell) when you first click on the "Full Show Streams" link for "Win" streaming, when viewing any C2C Website Classic Show page.
To acquire this file (without digging through hundreds or thousands of "temporary" files stored in directories of Windows you probably didn't even know existed) we will use "HiDownload". Once HiDownload is properly installed all you need to do is right-hand-mouse-click on the "Win" link (If you use Window Internet Explorer) for the given Classic Show streaming file, as shown in the screen shot below.
Save this file to a directory on your desktop called "C2C" (or anything else you want to call it, but I'll be using "C2C" from here out).
The file is normally around 10KB and does NOT have a file extension. The name of the file is normally around 126-characters in length.
We do not need to be concerned with all the stuff within the file name, but I'll explain it for those wondering.
ARTBELLWIN20021231&site=coast&token=XXXXXX.XXXXXXXXXXXXXX-XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXXXX&type=win_show&clips=1-16&v=&start=&stop=&RL=
ARTBELLWIN20021231 = Host + Audio type + date-stamp
site = coast to coast am
token = a unique key identifying details I cannot disclose or I'd be violating my own membership Privacy Policy. (sorry)
type = Windows media, rather than Real Audio
clips = The total number of audio clips for this given Classic Show
v, start, stop, rl = this are all commands sent to the Windows Media Player
Ok, now that we covered this (for no real applicable reason except entertainment) what do we do with this file?
I would suggest you open the file in Windows Notepad or any other Text Editor program you might happen to have.
This file is basically a "XML" template for those of you aware of internet programming.
First we see the introduction: Title, Author, Copyright.
< TITLE >Coast to Coast< /TITLE> < AUTHOR >Premiere Radio Networks< /AUTHOR> < COPYRIGHT >Copyright 2005< /COPYRIGHT>Next you will see 16 (in the case of the file I'm using) "Entries" which consist of:
< ENTRY>
< TITLE>Coast to Coast 1< /TITLE>
< AUTHOR>Premiere Radio Networks< /AUTHOR>
< COPYRIGHT>Copyright 2005< /COPYRIGHT>
< REF HREF="mms://SOME-REALLY-LONG-FILE-NAME" />
< REF HREF="http://SOME-REALLY-LONG-FILE-NAME" />
< /ENTRY>
You are going to want to clean up this file to look like the below screen shot (this just saves us time later)
Now if you are observant (which I hope you are) you will notice that the first link is 200-characters in length, while the rest of them are 207-characters in length.
The difference being that whoever came up with this method decided to not name the first clip in the format as the rest.
Here's how the first two files look:
ARTBELLWIN20021231.WMA
ARTBELLWIN20021231_CLIP01.WMA
If you ask me they should have named the first clip (ARTBELLWIN20021231_CLIP00.WMA), but they didn't ask me....
I mention all of this because it will save you a lot of headache in Step #2, below.
Step #2:
Once we have acquired all of the .wma links we need to download for this full Classic Shows we can download them to our computer.
Copy the first link (mms:...) to your clip-board (Crtl+C) then open up HiDownload.
Press the "Add" button on the top-left.
HiDownload should pre-populate the values (if you correctly copied the mms link) and look something like the below screen shot:
Now, here is where we correct the issue I presented at the end of Step #1 about the filename.
Where the field "Rename" says: ARTBELLWIN20021231.WMA
Rename this to: ARTBELLWIN20021231_CLIP00.WMA
This is going to be very important once we start the conversion process over to .mp3 and combining all the files together.
You do not have to do this, but experience has taught me it will save you time down the road.
Once you have changed the "Rename" file to include _CLIP00 then press the "OK" button.
This will begin the download process of the file.
Step #3:
Repeat the process above for the other 15 files.
I do NOT recommend using the "Batch URL" features of HiDownload for this process (until you learn how to do all this) as it can really screws things up for you.
This process will take however long (or fast) your internet connection allows. If you are on DSL expect it to take about 10 minutes.
Once you have completed downloading all 16 files we can proceed to step 4. Most of the Classic Shows I have downloaded end up around the 22-26 meg range in .WMA format. This will increase slightly once we convert them over to .mp3 to keep a decent sound quality. The average 4-hour show when you download the files individually from the website or the Podcasting tool is 50-55 megs. Using the method I describe within this how-to will cause the overall size of the show to be slightly larger because we are also acquiring the "bumper music" ;) which takes a few more megs worth of diskspace.
Once you are done downloading all the files via HiDownload you can close HiDownload as we won't be using it again. You can also close the text file with all the mms file names.
Step #4:
Ok, so now we have all of our .wma files and at this point if you want to stop and keep them in .wma format you're done ;) And, let's not forget that going through this process of acquiring the files you will end up with all the "bumper music"! So for those of you who were upset about not getting the Bumper Music in the Podcast files... well, now you can still have your music! So if you really like to use .wma files and like your bumper music, you've just acquired your entire Class Shows audio files!
However for those who like .mp3 files we need to keep going.
Rename the folder that all of the files you downloaded to the standard method that you use to store your C2C files in.
I personally store each months audio files in a folder specifically titled for the month/year. Something like the below screen-shot.
Once you rename the folder, copy it to where ever you normally store your audio-files so we can do the conversion within iTunes.
Now open iTunes. I really like iTunes (even on my Windows PC's) and it's the only audio program I use anymore.
iTunes can automatically convert .wma files to .mp3 files. It's super-easy and really fast. (though I do NOT know what affect it has on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) part of the .wma files after conversion. I've never really cared enough to open the .mp3 files and look. You can if it makes you feel better.)
The very first thing you will want to do once you have iTunes open is to change the "Importing Bitrate" details.
If you want the files to be as close to possible (as best as I can figure out) as what you get when you download them directly from the website or Podcast, set your settings to match the below screen shot: (you'll find the below options by clicking on "edit" then "preferences" within iTunes)
This would produce files with the following values:
(note: the 'Encoded with:' will depend upon which version of iTunes you are using)
You can change and play with these values as much as you want. I actually use a slightly lower quality and still find myself happy with it. However, the above setting will make your files as close to what I can get to what Clear Channel makes their file quality.
Do not forget to change this back to your normal conversion settings after you convert your C2C files... you don't want your music cd's being burned at this low of a quality.
Step #5:
Once you have changed the audio quality settings, it is time to add the .wma files.
Click on iTunes "File" than "Add Folder To Library" as is shown below:
Then locate the folder you placed your files in, such as:
Then press the "OK" button.
Step #6:
You are going to have a window pop-up that looks like this:
Simply press the "Convert" button and it will begin to convert the files from .wma to .mp3
Within the left-plane you should see a new icon & text that says, "Converting WMA Songs..."
You will also see the progress of this task within the play list feature at the top of iTunes.
This process of converting from WMA to MP3 can take a fair amount of time. I cannot say how much as it really depends on how much memory your computer has. It might take 10 minutes it might take 45 minutes. It averages about 20 minutes for me. I do recommend you close your other programs and not play any music while the conversation is taking place, this will speed things up more.
Step #7:
Now if you have "Direct MP3 Joiner" (or similar product) and want to join together your ~16 files into 3 or 4 files (as is normal) follow the below steps, else, move on to Step #8.
If you want to join them together, open the program and click the "Add" button.
Select the files (00 - 03) from the directory where you stored them at.
(Note that some newer versions of iTunes automatically place mp3 files converted from wma file within the directory/folder:
C:\My Music\Unknown Artist\Unknown Album
so look there if it's not where you thought it would be. When this happens just move them to your normal directory/folder structor, then proceed with this step.)
Because there are (normally) 16 files and four hours, we have to perform the process 4 times, each time selecting 4 files. (00-03, 04-7, 08-11, 12-15). You might remember the mention above how the importance of naming the files a certain why, this is why!
Ok, once you have selected the 4 files click the "Open" button.
You should end up with something like this:
Be SURE that they files are in order. Sometimes the program will put them out-of-order, like this:
That is bad! We don't want that.
Make sure they are in order like this:
You will notice that the "Title", "Artist", "Album" and other values (within the top section) are blank. We do not care about this at this time.
In the middle section entitled, "Insert Silence" check the box and insert the value of "3" (default is 3).
In the bottom section complete the fields to make it looks something like this:
(IMPORTANT: do not enter any of these values when a file is highlighted within the "Source MP3 files" section at the top... make sure NONE of the files are highlighted!!)
Once you have gotten all this done press the "Join" button at the top of the program.
It is going to ask you to select a location to save it and a new name to save it.
You can name it whatever you want, I'll be using "Coast to Coast - Dec 31 2002 - Hour 1.mp3" (to conform to normal C2C file naming standards, and because that is the date of the Classic Stream I'm witting all this with)
Again, you'll need to repeat this process for all 16 files to be joined into 4 new files.
You should end up with something that looks like this (in windows explorer)
Step #8:
Now we need to go back into iTunes and add the four new files we just created into our Playlist, as well as remove and delete the 16 (smaller) files we just joined together.
So, with iTunes open click on "File" and select "Add File To Library".
Select the four new files we just joined together ( Coast to Coast - Dec 31 2002 - Hour 1.mp3 through Coast to Coast - Dec 31 2002 - Hour 4.mp3)
Once the process of adding the new files has taken place you will want to click on the "Recently Added" within the left-plane of iTunes.
You should see (something) like this:
Most of the files that you will get from the C2C Podcast are going to make the file Genre's as "Speech". Sadly "MP3 Joiner" does not have a "Speech" category so we had to use "Other". Simply highly the four files, right-hand-mouse-click on them, then select "Get Info".
We are now presented with one of the issues I really hate about the Podcast files from C2C. It seems someone got the bright idea to assign the "Artist Names" with the C2C Hosts name... ("Coast To Coast AM - Art Bell" and "Coast To Coast AM - George Noory" and "Coast To Coast AM - Ian Punnett", and such, rather than just using, "Coast To Coast AM")... this really sucks when it comes to organizing your C2C files on a "month by month basic"!! (if you C2C staff happen to be reading this... again, this really sucks!!)
In order to keep with their standard naming methods you are going to have to know who the C2C Host was (which probably means a trip back to the C2C website, then looking up the Classic Streams section again).
Once you have the C2C Hosts name enter it into the corresponding fields.
Once I am all done with the "Names", "Artist", "Album", "Genre" (and such) it looks something like this:
These files are now ready to be listened too, transferred to your MP3 player, burned to CD, or whatever you like!!
Step #9:
Ok, we are ALMOST done. Now click on your "Library" (left-plane window).
Click on the "All Genres", then the "All Artists", then the "All Albums" at the very top of the browser window.
This is going to display ALL of your imported files in the bottom section of the right-plane window.
Now scroll all the way down (or all the way up, if necessary) until you find the 16 files that were added back when we did the .WMA to .MP3 conversion.
Once you find them you should see (something) like this:
You should instantly notice a few things: None of the 16 files have any Name, Genre or Album values.
We really don't care because we are going to select all 16 of the files and right-hand-mouse-click on them.
You will see an option entitled "Clear" (see above screen shot). Select this "Clear" option.
A confirmation/alert box will pop-up that looks like this:
Click the "Remove" button.
Another box is going to pop-up that looks like this:
This time press the "Move to Recycle Bin" button.
This will move the 16 files (totally unnecessary since we joined them all into 4 files) to your recycle bin where you can delete them for good.
IN CLOSING:
All right, you can now say you've completed the process! It's only taken about an hour of your life, but hey, you now have the Classic Shows in .mp3 format, with bumper music and all that good stuff! If you have any questions or problems just contact me.This methods also work on the daily .mp3 downloads, if you really, really feel like wasting your time to get the bumper music.
Likewise, the above work for nearly all of the talk show hosts that Clear Channel owns that offer mp3 downloads. (Rush Limbuagh, for example)
Sorry if there are major spelling errors or anything really screwed up in my instructions. Coast To Coast AM, is after all, life radio on reeaaallllly late at night, and I was tired when I started this.
If you found this helpful, please drop me a few bucks to show your thanks: