The best way to record Internet Radio streams

Martin Brinkmann
Oct 27, 2007
Updated • May 21, 2014
Music and Video
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12

I don't want to make a big fuss about it. I tried lots of software programs to record Internet Radio streams and found one that was the perfect fit for my situation. I prefer software that would offer all the traits of a music player and allow me to record Internet radio as it is easier to handle than two applications.

Most programs would allow me to either play music or record radio but not both.

Thus, all those Internet Radio downloading applications like Raima Radio, Stationripper or Phonostar have not made it into the final round. I also did not want to use huge media clients such as Windows Media Player that would simply suck up too many resources. What I wanted was a lightweight music player with the capability of recording Internet Radio streams.

I did find it. XMPlay is the client that is lightweight and is able to record Internet Radio streams. XMPlay uses just 6.8 Megabytes of Ram when playing high-quality Internet Radio which is as lightweight as it can get.

The function to record Internet Radio is already implemented and can be accessed by simply right-clicking the stream url in the music player and selecting 'Write to Disk' from the menu. This saves the stream from that point on until you stop the recording.

It is possible to record the stream as one huge mp3 file or save individual tracks which is probably the better and organized way to record Internet Radio.

The only reason why I would choose another application would be if I wanted to schedule a recording or record more than one station at a time. The program that offers that functionality is StreamWriter. I have reviewed StreamWriter here and don't want to rehash everything but the program is awesome.

You can schedule recordings, record as many Internet radio stations as you want at the same time, add songs to a wishlist to get them recorded automatically by the program as long as it is running and a lot more.

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Comments

  1. Anonymous said on August 1, 2010 at 12:43 pm
    Reply

    Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?

  2. Mike J said on August 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm
    Reply

    Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.

    1. Martin said on August 1, 2010 at 3:39 pm
      Reply

      Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.

      1. Mike J said on August 2, 2010 at 2:30 pm
        Reply

        huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
        Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.

  3. myo said on August 1, 2010 at 5:52 pm
    Reply

    yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.

  4. Kishore said on August 13, 2010 at 2:55 pm
    Reply

    Error:
    Buidling font Cache pop-up

    Solution:

    Open VLC player.

    On Menu Bar:

    Tools
    Preferences

    (at bottom – left side)
    Show settings — ALL

    Open: Video
    Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
    Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”

    Save
    Exit

    Re-open – done.
    Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts

    Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc

    1. Martin said on August 13, 2010 at 3:10 pm
      Reply

      Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.

  5. javier said on August 14, 2010 at 1:50 pm
    Reply

    @Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
    I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.

    Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?

    I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…

    /thanks
    /j

  6. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:38 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,

  7. Kishore said on August 15, 2010 at 12:39 pm
    Reply

    @ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.

    No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure

  8. Ted said on October 22, 2010 at 3:57 am
    Reply

    Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me

  9. Evan said on December 8, 2013 at 1:48 am
    Reply

    I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).

  10. Mike Williams said on September 6, 2023 at 1:26 pm
    Reply

    Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?

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