Get iplayer

get_iplayer is a free and Open Source program released under the GNU GPL that allows you to access content from the BBC iPlayer. It is primarily used to capture video (TV) and audio (Radio) broadcasts. You are able to capture these media files from both the archived watch/listen again iPlayer as well as live streams. The media files captured are the actual source files transmitted by the iPlayer and so the quality is excellent.

Capturing & Preparing Radio Shows

Windows OS

Required Programs

• get_iplayer
• MP3DirectCut (requires the libfaad2.dll to be installed)
• MP4Box
• A good tagging program such as Foobar2000 or MP3tag

Steps

1. Run get_iplayer and use the appropriate commands to capture the content you want:
   • Live iPlayer Streams (these are broadcasts/transmissions that are going out live across the BBC station)
     • get_iplayer --type=liveradio --pid=bbc_radio_one --start=01:10:05 --stop=03:15:10 --force
       • the above command captures 2 hours 5 minutes and 10 seconds of the live transmission from the BBC Radio 1 station 1 hour 10 minutes and 5 seconds after get_iplayer has been sent the command.
       • the --start and --stop parameters are hh:mm:ss. This enables you to schedule a recording without having to do it live. Multiple instances of get_iplayer can also be scheduled to run. And using a Windows scheduler allows you to set up weekly repeats.
   • Listen Again iPlayer Stream
     • get_iplayer --type=radio --pid=b006wkfp
       • the above command captures the audio that relates to the program with the pid as defined above.
2. You will most likely need to edit the audio to remove unwanted parts from the start and end. You can losslessly do this with MP3DirectCut. However, MP3DirectCut only works on AAC files and so you will need to unpackage the M4A file using MP4Box to extract the raw AAC file.
   • Run MP4Box with the following commands:
     • mp4box -raw 1 inputfile.m4a -out outputfile.aac
   • Or better yet, create a batch script to make the process easier. Create a folder called m4a2aac2ma4. Copy the following into a file named m4a2aac.bat and place file into the folder you have just created (you might need to first make the file a text file and then change the .txt to .bat):
     • @echo off

   mkdir aac

   for %%f in (*.m4a) do mp4box -raw 1 "%%f" -out "aac\%%f.aac"

   • So now all you have to do is place the captured .m4a file into the m4a2aac2m4a folder, run the m4a2aac.bat batch script and you will find the extracted AAC file in a sub-folder called aac.
3. the

Download

• Github get_iplayer official repository
• Squarepenguin website - a nicely designed website that mirrors the Github site