STREAMRIPPER(1)STREAMRIPPER(1)NAMEstreamripper - rip shoutcast radio streams to mp3 files
SYNOPSISstreamripper URL [options]
DESCRIPTION
Streamripper records shoutcast and icecast compatible streams. It uses
meta data within a shoutcast stream to determine the beginning and end
of each song, and stores the songs on your hard disk as individual mp3
files. In addition, streamripper includes a relay server for listening
to the station while you are recording.
OPTIONS-h Print help and exit
-v Print version info and quit
-d dir The destination directory
Select a different base directory for ripping, just in case you don't
want to dump tons of mp3's into whatever directory your at.
-s Don't create a directory for each stream
Normally streamripper will make a directory with the same name as the
stream to place the tracks into, this disables that.
-D pattern
Use a pattern to format the output file names
This option tells streamripper how to form the filenames. If -D is
used, the options -s and -P will be ignored. If the pattern represents
an absolute path, the -d option will also be ignored. If both -D and
-q are specified, -q will only be used to set the start count if a %q
token is included.
By default the output files are put in a directory that has the same
name as the stream, and files are formed from the artist and title.
But you can override this behavior and create the output files as you
like. The output file names are generated by substituting tokens with
values that depend on the stream, track, or environment. The following
tokens can be used for substitution.
%S Stream
%A Artist
%T Title
%a Album
%D Date and time (per song)
%d Date and time (per execution)
%q Sequence number (automatic detection)
%Nq Sequence number (starting from number N)
%% Percent sign
Note: On windows you may be required to supply an extra %
because the symbol is consumed by the shell. Therefore, you
would put "%%S/%%A/%%T" instead of "%S/%A/%T".
The extension (such as .mp3) is appended automatically.
The tokens %D and %d differ because %D gives a unique timestamp for
each song, whereas %d gives a unique timestamp each time streamripper
is run.
The tokens %Q and %q differ because %Q tries to figure out the correct
sequence number from the existing files, wherease %q does not. The %q
token takes an optional starting number. For example %32q means start
numbering at 32.
-r [base port]
Create a relay server on base port, defaults to port 8000
Creates a relay server on base port. if base port is not specified it
defaults to 8000, otherwise whatever you entered for base port. Note
that if the -z option is not used, it will keep trying higher ports if
the port is unavailable.
-R num_conn
Maximum connections to relay stream
In addition to creating a relay server, you can also control how many
clients are allowed to simultaneously connect. The default is 1
client, but if you specify the -R option you can increase this number
to <num_conn> clients. If <num_conn> is set to 0, the number of con‐
nections is limited only by your processor and network speed. The -R
option has no effect if -r was not used to create a relay stream.
-z Don't scan for free ports if base port is not available
Disables the "scan for free port" feature. Use it if your paranoid, or
don't like ports being open.
-p url Use HTTP proxy server at <url>
If you are behind a proxy server, use the -p flag to specify its url.
You can also use the http_proxy environment variable to specify your
proxy server.
-a [pattern]
Rip to single file
The default mode of operation is to separate the each track into a sep‐
arate file. But sometimes this is not what you want. Sometimes you
want the stream recorded to a single (big) file without splitting into
tracks. The -a option does this. If you use -a without including the
[pattern], a timestamped filename will automatically be used.
The pattern can be used in a manner similar to the -D flag, but gener‐
ally only %S, %q and %d are useful.
-A Don't create individual tracks
The default mode of operation is to create one file for each track.
But sometimes you don't want these files. For example, you might pre‐
fer a single file (using the -a option), or you want to use streamrip‐
per as a relay (using the -r option), without creating these files.
Using the -A option, the individual files for each track are not cre‐
ated.
-o (always | never | larger)
Overwrite tracks in complete directory
When streamripper rips tracks they are put into the incomplete direc‐
tory until they are finished. Normally, they are then moved into the
complete directory. However, when the track is already there, can use
this option to tell streamripper what you want to do. There are three
choices: always, never, and larger. If you don't include any of the -o
options on the command line, the "-o larger" strategy is used.
If you use the "-o never" option, this tells streamripper to never
overwrite any existing file in the complete directory.
If you use the "-o always" option, this tells streamripper to always
overwrite any existing file in the complete directory.
If you use the "-o larger" option, this tells streamripper to overwrite
an existing file in the complete directory if the newer file is larger.
-t Don't overwrite tracks in incomplete directory
Normally streamripper writes the files in the incomplete directory, and
then moves it to the base directory (the complete directory) when it is
done. If the file with the name of the track already exists in incom‐
plete, it will overwrite the old track. When you use the -t flag, how‐
ever, this will tell streamripper to backup the existing file in incom‐
plete (appending a version number), and then create the new file.
This is useful for streams that don't have meta-data. Because these
streams only have a single file, reconnects will cause overwriting the
existing file, which is not desired.
-T Truncate completed tracks in incomplete directory
When you are not overwriting files in the complete folder, the dupli‐
cate files will normally stay in the incomplete folder. This option
tells streamripper to truncate the files to zero bytes in the incom‐
plete folder if they are a duplicate.
-c Don't auto-reconnect
Normally streamripper will be very aggressive and try to re-connect to
a dropped stream. This option disables this behavior.
-l seconds
Run for a predetermined length of time, in seconds
Usually, streamripper runs until it crashes. Or rather, I meant to say
that it runs until you kill it, yes, I'm sure that's what I meant. But
you can instead tell streamripper to run for a certain length of time,
and then exit using this flag.
-M megabytes
Stop ripping after this many megabytes
Use this flag to tell streamripper to rip a certain number of
megabytes, then stop.
-q [start]
Add sequence number to output filenames
When the files are copied from incomplete to complete, the filename can
be prepended with a sequence number (beginning with 0000). This can be
used to, for example, show the order that the files were created. If
desired, a starting count can be used with -q to begin the sequence at
any number you like.
-i Don't add ID3 tags to output file
Mp3 files have two different kinds of header information which describe
the contents of the file: ID3V1 and ID3V2. By default, both are
included in the mp3 files generated by streamripper. If you use the
option, then neither are included.
-k count
Skip over <count> tracks before starting to rip
Sometimes the first few tracks generated by a stream are not useful,
because they are advertisements, the station intro, broken songs, etc.
Use this option and these tracks won't be saved.
-m timeout
Timeout to restart connection
Some streams will "hang", which means they haven't disconnected, but
they aren't sending any data. When this happens, if you used the -m
flag, streamripper will shut down the stream and reconnect after <time‐
out> seconds of inactivity.
-u useragent
Use a different UserAgent than "Streamripper"
In the http request, streamripper includes a string that identifies
what kind of program is requesting the connection. By default it is
the string "Streamripper/1.x". Here you can decide to identify your‐
self as a different agent if you like.
-w parse_file
Use customized parsing rules
This tells streamripper to use custom meta-data parsing rules. Without
this flag, streamripper will use its built-in parsing rules.
There are two cases where you want to do this. In the first case, you
are using a stream that changes the meta data within a song. Usually
this is a thank-you notice or possibly an advertisement for an upcoming
show. When this happens, the current track will become split into
fragments. To prevent this, you can tell streamripper to ignore meta-
data.
The second case you might want to use this is if the artist and title
information is sent in an unusual format. For example, they might be
separated by a comma instead of a hyphen, or there might be an extra
advertisement attached to the end of the meta-data string. In this
case, you can tell streamripper how it should identify the title,
artist, album and track from the metadata string using regular expres‐
sions.
See the file parse_rules.txt, which is included in your distribution,
for examples of the parse rules.
-E external_command
Use external command to get track information
Some streams do not send artist or title information using metadata,
but instead send this information using other means. For example, some
streams update the current artist and title using html or xml. Another
example is icecast 1.x, which sends metadata through a UDP socket.
Streamripper can get artist and title information from these kinds of
streams using a helper application, specified using the -E option. The
helper application works by finding the title and artist, and writing
it to stdout. Streamripper reads the output of the helper program, and
splits the tracks accordingly.
To help you in creating external commands to use with streamripper,
please look at the example file fetch_external_metadata.pl, which is
included in your distribution.
--debug
Save debugging log
This creates a file called "gcs.txt" that contains all sorts of debug‐
ging information.
--quiet
Quiet operation
Don't write any text to the console, except error messages
--xs_silence_length=num
Set silence duration
The volume must be less than xsd_min_volume for a period of time
greater than this.
--xs_search_window=num:num
Set search window duration
This is how long to search for the silence. 1st number is # msec
before nominal center, 2nd number is # msecs after nominal track change
position.
--xs_offset=num
Set offset from center of silence window
--xs_padding=num:num
Set amount to pad before and after splitpoint. The 1st number
is the number of msec to add to the end of each song. The 2nd
number is the number of msec to add to the beginning of each
song.
GETTING STARTED
The easiest way to get started is to find the URL of a stream you want
to rip, usually I find the URL by loading it up in winamp or xmms and
querying for the source URL (right click on the playlist) Once you have
the URL you can begin ripping.
streamripper http://205.188.245.132:8038
This would rip Monkey Radio (as of 1/10/2001), it places the tracks
into two directory's one called "Monkey Radio" and a sub-directory
"Monkey Radio/incomplete" the incomplete directory is for tracks that
streamripper does not know the begging or end of. The first and last
tracks your rip for instance, would be in incomplete.
Also you can listen to the stream by creating a relay server.
streamripper http://205.188.245.132:8038 -r
When the program starts it will display what port it's relaying the
stream on, it defaults to 8000 but you can choose another port. To lis‐
ten to your relay server open up XMMS or Winamp and enter your machine
name with the port as you would any other stream.
SPLITPOINT DETECTION
Streamripper automatically splits tracks based on detection of a silent
near the meta interval where the track changes. However, this method is
imperfect, and sometimes the track splitting occurs is too early or too
late. These options will fine tune the track splitting capabilities
for streams that use cross-fading, which causes streamripper's auto‐
matic silence detection routine to fail.
Various --xs flags can be used to add an offset for streams that have a
meta interval that comes too early or too late, to add extra padding to
the beginning and end of each song, and to decide where the length of
the search window and silence window.
DEFAULT SPLITTING
The default spitting algorithm is used when no silent point can be
found. Suppose you have a meta-int with track change information at
the time "mi" (see figure below).
If the xs_offset is positive, the track separation point "ts" is later
the "mi" point. If xs_offset is negative, "ts" is earlier than "mi".
Once "ts" is determined, a user-defined "prepad" and "postpad" are used
to determine where the next track begins "ntb", and where the previous
track ends "pte". The interval between "ntb" and "pte" will be copied
to both songs.
/mi
|
| /ts
|-----------|
xs_offset |
|
|
/ntb | /pte
|---------|---------|
prepad postpad
SILENCE SEPARATION
Splitting based on silence separation is similar to default splitting,
only slightly more complex. Again, suppose you have a meta-int with
track change information at the time "mi" (see figure below).
A search window "search_win" is determined by the xs_offset, pre_sw,
and post_sw field. The beginning of the search window is at: mi +
xs_offset - pre_sw and the end of the search window is at: mi + xs_off‐
set + post_sw.
If there is a silent interval of length "silence_win" within the
"search_win", the center of "silence_win" is selected as the track sep‐
aration point "ts".
Once "ts" is determined, a user-defined "prepad" and "postpad" are used
to determine where the next track begins "ntb", and where the previous
track ends "pte". The interval between "ntb" and "pte" will be copied
to both songs.
/mi
|
|-----------|
xs_offset |
|
ts\ |
|-------+-|---------| *search_win
pre_sw | post_sw
|
|---+---| *silence_win
|
/ntb | /pte
|-------------|---------|
prepad postpad
USAGE EXAMPLES
Rip from a stream:
streamripper URL
Rip from a stream for one hour:
streamripper URL -l 3600
Rip the stream, putting the mp3 files into the directory
/my/music/stream1:
streamripper URL -d /my/music/stream1 -s
Rip the stream, creating a single file and don't create individual
tracks:
streamripper URL -a -A
Rip from a stream and create a relay stream at port 9000:
streamripper URL -r 9000
Rip from a stream, creating a relay stream at port 8000, and allowing
twenty clients to connect:
streamripper URL -r -R 20
SPLITPOINT USAGE EXAMPLES
Each of my songs contain about 5 seconds of the previous song. How can
I fix this?
streamripper URL --xs_offset=5000
Each of my songs contain about 5 seconds of the next song. How can I
fix?
streamripper URL --xs_offset=-5000
Each of my songs contain between 5 and 10 seconds of the previous song,
but it depends on the song. How can I include all of this zone within
both songs, and edit them later?
streamripper URL --xs_offset=7500 --xs_padding=2500:2500
RESOURCES
Please check out the following web sites. Linked to the streamripper
home page is a forum that can can be used to chat and ask questions.
Streamripper home page:
http://streamripper.sourceforge.net/
Sourceforge project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/streamripper
Shoutcast
http://www.shoutcast.com
Icecast
http://www.icecast.org
COPYING
Copyright � 2000-2002 Jon Clegg, � 2004-2006 Gregory C. Sharp. Free
use of this software is granted under the terms of the GNU General Pub‐
lic License (GPL).
13 August 2006 STREAMRIPPER(1)
