Like you, I have always loved the WTJU Rock Marathon. However, I’ve always been bummed that I missed some of my favorite shows because they were on at 3am and I just couldn’t rouse myself out of bed to record them. Now with internet streaming audio and wonderful (FREE) media players - we are able to rectify this problem. I’m going to show you how. NOTE: this article assumes a basic knowledge of installing software, and it’s geared towards a windows platform but the options are the same in Mac and Linux (I set it up in Ubuntu last night).

First lets check out the program schedule here:

http://wtju.radio.virginia.edu/cache.rb/marathons/spring2008/sched

Look up the shows you want to listen to. There’s a great Neko Case show on now that ends at 11am, for example. I’m going to record it. First, download the VLC media player software. There are versions available for every OS on the planet and it’s all free. Once you’ve downloaded it and installed it, open the software and we’ll get started.

When you open the software you get a small player. Click file and scroll down to ‘Open Network Stream’.

This will open a new page with a bunch of options. Select them just like I have in this screenshot, with care to make sure you put the WTJU stream URL in the HTTP field: mms://wtju-r.eservices.virginia.edu/WTJU-test

Next, click on SETTINGS on the bottom left.

This will give you a whole lot of options. Select just as I have below and you’ll be fine to stream directly to MP3. Take care to give the location and filename of where you want to save it. If you select ‘Play Locally’ it will play while you record so you can listen. If this box is not checked it will record silently.

Click OK to each box when you are done and it will start recording! When you are done, simply press the STOP button in VLC and close the software. Your MP3 is ready for listening!

!! Warning the following is for advanced users, so keep that in mind If you just want to record a show while you listen, the stuff above should suffice. The following is for scheduling recording only. !!

To set this up to automatically record is a bit trickier and is dependent on what system you are using. Mac, PC, and Linux use different methods of scheduling stuff.

There’s some info here: http://wiki.videolan.org/Terminal on how to run VLC from a script but for you Windows folks I’ll give a quick tutorial. You basically have to create a script to run when you want to start recording. You’ll need a separate script for each show you want to record.

Create a file called VLCrecord.bat, put it on your C:\ drive. In that file put:

“C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe”

Followed by the output of the Target: field in the Stream Output settings dialog.

So, my batch file looks like this:

“C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe” mms://wtju-r.eservices.virginia.edu/WTJU-test :sout=#transcode{acodec=mpga,ab=192,channels=2}:duplicate{dst=std{access=file,mux=raw,dst=”C:\myshow.mp3“}} :sout-all

Now set this to run using windows scheduler and you’re all set! Or easier yet you can put that line of code into scheduler itself for each show you want to record. Just make sure to change the name of the mp3 for each show otherwise it will overwrite the previous one.

Check this URL for further info: http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39992&p=124662&hilit=scheduled+task#p124662

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