Record or Rip a CBC Radio 2 Program Stream Daily on Linux (and probably Windows)

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Wanted to listen to past episodes of Laurie Brown’s CBC The Signal, but unfortunately they don’t have (many) past episodes available for download or stream.

Here’s how I got around it..

September 2016 Update at bottom.

  1. Found a listing of the direct stream URLs for CBC Radio 2 here.
  2. Picked the Toronto stream: http://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/pls/CBC_R2_TOR_H.pls.
  3. Installed streamripper:
    sudo apt-get install streamripper

  4. Played around with the commands until it worked. Here’s a 10 second tester:
    streamripper "http://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/pls/CBC_R2_TOR_H.pls" -u "FreeAmp/2.x" -l 10 -A -a "$(date +%G-%m-%d.%H-%M-%S).mp3" -s -d "/MyMusicLocation/TheSignal/"

    The command rips the .pls file, -u sets the Useragent to FreeAmp, -u stops ripping at 10 seconds (although it usually runs long), -A doesn’t save individual tracks, -a sets the filename to be the current DATETIME.mp3, -s doesn’t create stream-specific directories, and -d sets the save directory.

  5. Create a simple bash script: /home/me/bin/rip-cbc-radio2.sh: 
    #!/bin/bash
LEN=$1
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
	echo "Gimme a sec...";
	exit 1
fi
streamripper "http://playerservices.streamtheworld.com/pls/CBC_R2_TOR_H.pls" -u "FreeAmp/2.x" -l $LEN -A -a "$(date +%G-%m-%d.%H-%M-%S).mp3" -s -d "/MyMusicLocation/TheSignal/" 1>&2 > /home/me/temp/streamripper.log
  6. And lastly, throw it in a cronjob to run every day (except Sunday) at 10pm for two hours (7200 seconds):
    0 22 * * 1-6 /home/me/bin/rip-cbc-radio2.sh 7200

Update September 2016!
CBC changed things up a little bit. Here’s my new script to workaround the issue (now with an id3 addition):

First, grab these guys:

sudo apt-get install libav-tools id3v2

Then pop this into a bash script /home/me/bin/rip-cbc-radio2.sh:

#!/bin/bash
LEN=$1
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
        echo "Gimme a sec...";
        exit 1
fi
base=$(date +%G-%m-%d.%H-%M-%S)
PLAYLISTURL="http://liveradiocanada.cbc.ca/i/CBCR2_TOR@382863/index_96_a-b.m3u8?sd=10&rebase=on"
avconv -i "$PLAYLISTURL" -t $LEN /home/pj/Music/TheSignal/$base.mp3
id3v2 --artist "CBC" --album "The Signal" --song "$base" --year "$(date +%G)" "$base.mp3"

And the cronjob for every day except Sunday:

0 22 * * 1-6 /home/me/bin/rip-cbc-radio2.sh 7200