Says WHO?!

the NPR show "Says You" claims that -- unlike other NPR shows -- it is privately funded, and therefore cannot provide streaming or free podcast archives. "However", they stress, "the current week is always available from any of the affiliates which carry us".

at first i took it to mean "when it's streaming", i.e., "when we happen to be on", but no, they are quite explicit -- "downloadable for the entire (current) week".

i've looked thru my affiliate (WGBH Boston) till i'm blue in the face, and not only can't i find said says you, i can't even find ANY podcasts!

ditto on several other NPR affiliates i've tracked down.

does anyone just happen to KNOW offhand? i have spent like 3 WEEKS on this wild goose chase!

i especially want to resolve this before FRIDAY, when the current episode (the one i missed on air) will cease to be "current".

TIA!

 

Do these links help?

http://www.wgbh.org/programs/Says-You-293

http://www.wgbh.org/radio/index.cfm

http://www.saysyou.net/station_list/

 

not really. i know all of those, but they are just info about the show and/or links to the show's website. no podcasts that i can see.

the last one is the list i'm working thru to find a BETTER affiliate, but so far, every last one results in the same dead end.

 

Looks like you can get all of them. Just costs you 95¢ each. :-D

http://www.saysyou.net/zencart/

Some are more than 95¢. This one says it is free: http://www.saysyou.net/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11&products_id=250

You might try calling your local npr station.

 

no, i know all that. NPR shows are traditionally available as free podcasts -- along w a whole HOST of archives -- as a condition of their public funding. Says You announces in every broadcast, however, "...unlike most NPR shows, we receive NO public funding, hence, our own podcasts cannot be made free".

again, tho, "...for the current week, however, the podcast is free via the affiliates' websites...."

that is what i'm trying to find!

 

Okay, one more try:

http://www.publicradiofan.com/cgibin/program.pl?programid=480

 

oooh, that looks like the answer!

what are .pls files tho?! and...asx? m3u? ram? ogg? mov?

i know what most of them are, but, hoo boy, whatever became of MP3?!

after all the trouble i had with rstp files, i suppose i'm going to see similar, but there's SO much variety there, i'm sure SOMETHING will work!! (DLing about 6 as i type....)

many thanks!



PS: waddup wid all those HALF HOUR broadcasts?! it's an HOUR long show!

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EDIT: oh, wait a min...w/e i'm downloading is w/e is streaming NOW, right? i notice that none of the links mention "saysyou" at all!!

so...i guess i'll hafta tune in to one of the wednesday broadcasts then. hmmm. rather a pain for something which claims to be DOWNLOADable all week....

guess i'll revise my initial reaction to: "CLOSE but NO CIGAR!"

 

just a quick note to say i caught that KTOO broadcast just now, and despite my crappy dialup, made it thru w nary a hitch! okay, ONE hitch -- tried to check my EMAIL at the same time, and all hell broke loose.

but as long as i listen to the STREAM and the stream ALONE, i guess i have sufficient speed.

before next time, tho, i'd really like to know how to "capture" it.

i'm still not exactly sure what's happening in a stream. the fact that they say it's a m3u list of "mp3s"...duzzat mean the actual mp3 file is there for the taking somehow, without some sort of intercept-capture technique?

 

been a while, but let me just say that the KTOO stream is one of the FEW that i can handle via dialup. most others sputter like MAD, routinely losing 50-90% of the content along the way. that is, i'll get 2-3 secs of clear audio, followed by "buffering" for 10-15. occasionally it resumes where it left off; more often it's jumped to some new point by then.

for the ones that give me a choice of link, do i want a FASTER one or a SLOWER one? it goes without saying that my dialup is somewhere in the 28k-53k range; does that mean the link should be BELOW that? or is faster the better, in that it is PUSHING the data at my slow connection?

most of them don't actually SAY what the host speed is (host speed? is this even the right term?); all i know is that a COUPLE of them come in fine and the rest DO NOT. would this be the FASTER ones or the SLOWER ones? i can't reason this out.

for the few that actually offer a choice "56k 112k 128k 256k etc" do i go UP or DOWN to overcome buffer probs?

the broadcasts are too infrequent to figure out by trial and error. by the time i finally get ONE link to produce audio of some sort, i hear "tune in again next month...".

 

NPR has other shows beside CarTalk?

 

A) CarTalk has been cancelled.
B) CarTalk: The Musical bombed.

So much for NPR.

Back to the question, I have come to the conclusion that smaller is better. The 128k and up streams are unlistenable, the 56k ones sputter like mad, and the 28k and 32k ones come in smoother than silk.

The problem, until now, was KNOWING the bitrate. Aside from a few which make it explicit -- "WKRP 128k.m3u" on link -- it hasn't been clear to me. But under the players' "codec info" I now see the speeds, and they seem to be reliable. So I can map out pretty quickly which links are 32k or less and which links are, um, "avoid".

I still can't understand the realtime bitrates (and buffer losses) listed under "statistics", but the nominal, fixed, one under "codec info" has made all the difference.

Just in case this benefits anyone else.