Streamripper 1.61.X
-------------------
by Jon Clegg and Greg Sharp

NAME
----
streamripper - rip shoutcast radio streams to mp3 files

SYNOPSIS
--------
'streamripper' URL [options]

DESCRIPTION
-----------
Streamripper records shoutcast 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.

-a [file]::
Rip to single file.  

The default mode of operation is to separate the each track into a 
separate 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 [file], a timestamped 
filename will automatically be used.

-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.

-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 connections
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 avail

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 your behind a proxy server, enter it here. This hasn't been tested
in over 6 months. but it should still work. Please till me if it
doesn't.

-o::
Overwrite tracks in complete directory.  

When streamripper rips tracks they are first in the incomplete
directory. if the tracks finishes properly it moves over to the main
directory, but if they track is already there it doesn't. this make
streamripper copy over tracks that already exist in the main
directory. I didn't make this default because if your ripping a stream
for a long time (trying to get the whole thing) it helps to see the
incomplete directory fill up with tracks you already have. One the
incomplete directory is as large (or larger) then your main directory
you can be pretty sure you've got the whole stream.

-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 
incomplete, it will overwrite the old track.  When you use the -t
flag, however, this will tell streamripper to backup the existing file
in incomplete (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.

-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.

-q::
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 0001).  This can
be used to, for example, show the order that the files were created.

-i::
Don't add ID3V1 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, but you can choose not to 
include the ID3V1 header if you like.

-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.  Be default it is 
the string "Streamripper/1.x".  Here you can decide to identify 
yourself as a different agent if you like.

-f dstring::
Don't create new track if metainfo contains dstring.

Some streams change 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 track changes
which contain <dstring> as a substring.

-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 <timeout> 
seconds of inactivity.

--debug::
Save debugging log.

This creates a file called "gcs.txt" that contains all sorts of 
debugging information.  

--xs_silence_length=num::
The volume must be less than xsd_min_volume for a period 
of time greater than this.

--xs_search_window=num:num::
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::
Offset from center of silence window.

--xs_padding=num:num::
Amount to pad before and after splitpoint.


USING STREAMRIPPER
------------------
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 clicking 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
listen 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 automatic 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_offset + 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 separation 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

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 (C) 2000-2002 Jon Clegg, (C) 2004 Gregory C. Sharp.
Free use of this software is
granted under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
