Stream Rippers: Record Music as you Listen

More than a decade ago, I used to record songs from the radio on to audio cassettes. For people like me who grew up in that analog era, recording FM was a novelty we reveled in. Of course, all that seems eons ago.

Have you ever felt a sense of d�j� vu, what with digital technology treading the same path? I do! Stream ripping is a concept that's not too different from what we did back in the 80s. It's not a new technology, and it still has a long way to go, but the possibilities are endless.

For those who are new to Internet radio: it involves audio broadcast over the Net, through various protocols. Almost all big media players (WMP, Real Media player, Winamp etc) have a list of broadcast channels they support, with all sorts of genres streamed live round the clock. Shoutcast, supported by Winamp, is one of the more popular broadcasting services, and supports over 10,000 streams.

As with traditional radio, Internet radio offers a wide variety of content – music, stand-up comedy, news, you name it. All you need is to tune in. Apart from media players, these days you can stream content online through websites such as last.fm. A lot of this content is hosted globally by people like you and me. All you need is a broadband connection that can take a number of people tuning in.

Internet radio is perhaps the most ingenious part of this digital evolution. If you have ever tuned in to feel the vibe of streaming audio, you need only to think of the endless possibilities it holds. Through stream ripping applications, you can now save all this audio content to your PC.

We tried a host of applications, and found only two worth mentioning. The sad part is that they support only shoutcast streams supported by Winamp. There are others like Orbit Downloader, Real7ime Converter and Hi-Net Recorder that can manage real media and WMP (rtsp, pnm protocol) content but they kept crashing on us.