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Linda Ronstadt Fan On TV Show

On 25 April 2006, Richard from Goldsboro, North Carolina appeared on Call For Help, a
technology TV show that tapes in Toronto, and airs in Canada and Australia. He wanted to
convert the RealAudio stream of Linda's Dutch radio concert to a more convenient format.

Here's his segment of the show  (.wmv file...9.5 Megs)

Of course he could have just gone to THIS AUDIO PAGE, where I had already
done that last year. Linda's entire 1976 Dutch concert has been converted to
individual MP3 files on that page. Plus that page also has the 7 songs that were not
broadcast on the 2005 radio show, but were part of the original concert in 1976.
But at least this way we get to see a Ronstadt fan on TV, so it all works out.

The Linda-timeline they discussed was a bit off, and I suspect Richard knew this
but was just being polite when Leo tried to talk about Linda's career and didn't
quite get the dates right, but I'll thank any TV host that wants to talk about Linda.

By the way, I didn't use the technique that Leo recommended on the show to convert
the audio files on my page, but instead used a free program, Audio Black Box, which
my friend, Ray Cronise, wrote for the Amiga platform many years ago. But there are
countless other ways to do this.

Click here for the CFH Show Notes detailing Leo's method.
.(Includes links to audio-converting software)
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Transcript of Richard's Segment of the Show
 

>>Leo: HEY, RICHARD, HOW ARE YOU? WELCOME TO CALL FOR HELP.

>>Richard: I'M DOING JUST FINE, HOW ARE YOU?

>>Leo: I'M GREAT. AND WE'RE GETTING A GREAT MINI MOBI PICTURE OF YOU FROM GOLDSBORO.

>>Richard: THAT'S GREAT.

>>Leo: WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU TODAY?

>>Richard: I WAS WANTING TO KNOW COULD REAL AUDIO FILES BE CONVERTED TO EITHER MP3 OR WINDOWS MEDIA FILES.

>>Leo: OH, YEAH, THEY SURE CAN. I MEAN, I'LL TELL YOU REAL DOESN'T WANT YOU TO DO IT AND YOU KNOW, I MEAN, I DON'T THINK THERE'S ANY LEGAL REASON WHY YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO DO IT BUT REAL DISCOURAGES IT BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE WHO CREATE REAL

>>Leo: MEDIA LIKE MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL THAT KIND OF PEOPLE DON'T WANT YOU TO YOU KNOW, MESS WITH THE VIDEO A LOT OF THE TIME PEOPLE USE REAL PLAYER, REAL VIDEO BECAUSE IT'S STREAMING NOT SAVED ONTO THE HARD DRIVE SO YOU CAN'T DO SOMETHING WITH IT BUT YOU KNOW, FOR A LONG TIME THERE WAS A WONDERFUL PROGRAM UH, CALLED STREAM BOX RIPPER. ARE YOU USING -- IS IT VIDEO OR AUDIO?

>>Richard: IT'S AUDIO.

>>Leo: OKAY, GOOD, YEAH, VIDEO IS MORE COMPLICATED BUT AUDIO UH, WILL DO THIS NOW WHAT HAPPENED WAS THIS COMPANY STREAM BOX RIPPER. THEY'RE AT streambox.com IF YOU GO TO streambox.com AND LOOK FOR STREAM BOX RIPPER THEY'LL SAY SORRY, WE DON'T MAKE IT ANYMORE CAUSE REAL CAME ALONG VERY HEAVY HANDED AND SAID NO. (Low voice) YOU MAY NOT DO IT. (Normal voice) AND THEY TRIED TO PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS. SO BUT THE GOOD NEWS IS UH, SOMEBODY SAVED THE FILE AND IT'S STILL FLOATING AROUND ON THE NET. IN FACT IF YOU GO TO streamboxripper.cjb.net WHICH IS A SITE OUTSIDE OF THE JURISDICTION OF UH, THE U.S. AND CANADIAN COPYRIGHT AUTHORITIES OR SOMETHING, UH, YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THIS FILE STILL AND THIS WILL CONVERT FROM REAL TO WAVE. I USE IT ALL THE TIME BECAUSE UM, UH, OH, I WAS GETTING FILES FROM THE RADIO STATION IN REAL

>>Leo: FORMAT WHEN I DO MY RADIO SHOW THEY WERE SENDING IT TO ME IN REAL FORMAT AND I NEEDED IT CONVERTED TO WAVE SO THAT I COULD EDIT IT OR BURN IT OR OFFER IT AS MP3 OR A PODCAST. SO streamboxripper.cjb.net BUT I HAVE TO WARN YOU THERE IS ONE LITTLE TRICKY PART TO THIS. REAL PLAYER 10 UH, CODEC DOESN'T COME WITH IT. IT'S AN OLD PROGRAM, RIGHT? BUT YOU CAN IN FACT GET THE REAL PLAYER 10 CODEC INTO IT AND FOR THAT INFORMATION YOU NEED TO GO DO afterdawn.com WHERE THEY HAVE A FAIRLY LONG THREAD. I PUT THIS IN THE SHOW NOTES EXPLAINING WHAT YOU NEED TO DO. I FOLLOWED THE INSTRUCTIONS IT WORKED JUST FINE SO UH, WHILE AS FAR AS I KNOW NO QUOTE LEGITIMATE PROGRAMS OUT THERE THAT WILL TAKE REAL AND TURN IT INTO WAVE THERE ARE LOTS OF CHOICES OUT THERE AND THE ONE THAT I RECOMMEND IS STREAM BOX RIPPER.

>>Richard: OKAY.

>>Leo: streamboxripper.cjb.net WHAT IS THE AUDIO THAT YOU WANT TO--

>>Richard: IT WAS AN OLD 1976 UH, LINDA RONSTADT CONCERT.

>>Leo: OH, NEAT.

>>Richard: THAT WAS BROADCAST LAST FALL ON DUTCH RADIO.

>>Leo: OH, MY GOSH.

>>Leo: AND SO THEY STREAMED IT ON DUTCH RADIO AND YOU KNOW, THEY CAN MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO SAVE THE STREAM AND IN FACT THE OTHER TRICKS YOU CAN PLAY IF YOU LOOK IN THE CACHE SOMETIMES THE STREAMS THERE AND STUFF BUT THEY'RE ALSO BY DEFAULT THEY SET IT SO YOU CAN'T SAVE IT BY DEFAULT THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO SAVE IT BUT YOU WERE ABLE TO SAVE IT OBVIOUSLY YOU'VE GOT THE FILE.

>>Richard: YES, YES, I WAS.

>>Leo: YEAH, SO I DON'T THINK THAT THERE'S ANY ISSUE WITH YOU CONVERTING IT NOW THAT YOU HAVE THE FILE TO ANY FORMAT YOU WANT. YOU WANNA BURN AN AUDIO CD OUT OF IT?

>>Richard: I SURE DO.

>>Leo: YEAH, YEAH, YOU CAN'T DO THAT WITH REAL SO YOU CONVERT IT TO WAVE. WHAT'LL HAPPEN IS BY CONVERTING IT TO WAVE YOU'RE UNCOMPRESSING IT AND IF YOU BURN AN AUDIO CD IT WON'T BE COMPRESSED AGAIN SO THE QUALITY WILL NOT BE DEGRADED BY DOING THIS. YOU KNOW, IT WAS DEGRADED ONCE BY COMPRESSING IT INTO REAL BUT IT WON'T BE ANY FURTHER DEGRADED SO IF SOUNDS GOOD TO YOUR EARS NOW IT'LL SOUND JUST AS GOOD ON A CD.

>>Richard: ALL RIGHT.

>>Leo: HEY, GREAT, RICHARD.

>>Richard: ALL RIGHT, I APPRECIATE IT.

>>Leo: ARE YOU A LINDA RONSTADT FAN?

>>Richard: I SURE AM FROM WAY BACK IN THE 70s.

>>Leo: 76 THAT WAS A GOOD ERA. THAT'S LIKE THE STONE PONEYS ERA.

>>Richard: UH, YEAH.

>>Leo: AND DESPERADO AND ALL THAT STUFF.

>>Richard: EXACTLY.

>>Leo: I LOVE THAT MUSIC.

>>Richard: ME, TOO.

>>Leo: ALL RIGHT, HEY, WELL, THANKS FOR THE CALL, RICHARD, I APPRECIATE IT.

>>Richard: YOU'RE SURE WELCOME.

>>Leo: TAKE CARE. streamboxripper.cjb.net THEY'VE BEEN AROUND FOR A WHILE. NOBODY'S PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS YET. I IMAGINE NOW THAT I'VE GIVEN THEM SOME ATTENTION THEY'LL HAVE MOVED ALONG, RIGHT? BUT IF YOU DO A GOOGLE ON IT YOU'LL BE ABLE TO FIND IT. YOU KNOW NOWADAYS NOTHING DIES. EVERYTHING LIVES FOREVER ON THE NET.
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Here's a little behind the scenes info about how all this came about. The show
doesn't air in the US anymore, but I watch it everyday. Sometime around the
end of March 2006, Richard used his webcam (video) and telephone (audio) to
communicate with Leo LaPorte on the set of Call For Help. That 5 minute conversation
was recorded by the studio and broadcast on 25 April 2006. A guy in Australia (where
the show runs on The How-To Channel) records each episode. He then removes the
commercials, and encodes that video into another digital format, and sends that to
a guy in Oklahoma. That guy takes that video and turns it into a bittorrent file. He then
seeds that file and posts its location on a tracker site. That's where I (and about 1,500 other
people) help each other to acquire all the pieces of the file. Once I got the entire show,
I used another video editing program to extract only the segment needed, and squash
it down to make the file size more manageable...and finally it gets uploaded to my site.

...a long way from Richard's webcam to your monitor.