last.fm captures sound horrific compared to in page player

[saveitall]

win xp pro sp3



mp3 capture as you listen - ENABLED

is the only option that allows some kind of mp3 capture... but the files sound extremely tin-ey, full of static, and usually garbled... compared to the clear sound of in-page music in the flash player on last.fm

what's the capture solution?

[Tasha Heinlein]

It looks like you are using the an older version of Media Catcher. Try downloading the latest beta version 3.0 located here:

http://applian.com/replay-media-catcher/demo.php

Make sure to uninstall the version you have now, reboot, then install this version.

- Tasha

[cain]

FWIW, latest version - I hear the same thing with Pandora using either the Web Stream or HTTP stream plug-ins.

For fun, I used RAV (8.41) and the sound quality (using stream capture) is superior (identical) to the browser (showed as 128 bit mp3 versus the 64k m4a)

[cain]

Tasha/Andy - any feedback on the quality issue that can still be experienced in the latest release?

Thank you.

[Andy Heinlein]

Media Catcher dumps exactly what the server sends you.. It uses 64kbps M4A format.

What Replay AV does is records from the audio driver. Here is the sequence of steps:

1) Pandora sends the audio in 64kbps M4A format
2) Your browser gets the M4A data and decodes it to PCM format and plays it
3) Replay AV gets the PCM data as it plays from Applian's audio driver
4) Replay AV encodes the PCM data to 128kbps MP3 format

So what you end up with is 64kbps M4A audio re-encoded to 128kbps MP3

There is no way it can sound "better" since both applications start with the same audio format which the server generates (64kbps m4a)

You can get the same effect with Media Catcher by taking the m4a files pandora generates and re-encode them to 128kbps mp3 using Replay Converter.

-andy.

[cain]

I accept the technical explanation... really, but I honestly hear something different. That reads weird, but is true.

That being said, it is kind of moot:

1. Pandora is likely closing: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives...osing_shop.php
2. Slacker and Last.Fm are better (and stream 128kbps MP3s)