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How To: Extract Audio From Webstreams
Topic Started: Mar 12 2010, 07:52 AM (189 Views)
Drownsoda
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Wizard Of Oz
How To Extract Audio From Webstreams

With the internet age constatly growing and the distributation of media becomes more and more accesible, many want to download and keep the little gems they find on webstreams, YouTube and hundreds more sites.

This tutorial will show you how to extract audio from a webstream in the highest quality possible.

Contents
1. Set-up
2. Web stream's quality loss
3. Downloading
4. Extraction
5. End notes

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1. Set-Up
Before the extraction can begin you will need:

  • Mozilla Firefox
  • DownloadHelper add-on for Firefox
  • SUPER
2. Web stream's quality loss
Before downloading and extraction audio from a webcast, you must remember this should only be done if no other form of obtaining the audio is available (purchase, download, trading etc.)

Webcasts, including YouTube, compress both audio and video bitrates and frequencies. For example, a 3mbps AVI file can become a 523kbps FLV file. That is, approximately, 75% quality loss. 48kHz WAV audio (on a video) can become a 10Hz/64kbps MP3 file. This is massive quality loss. Web stream's compression also affects resolution, frames rate, and adds significant "squares" to video.

Audio from a typical YouTube video is, in fact, worse than a 96kbps MP3 CD rip. The latter would at least preserve a 44.1kHz frequency, and has typically 30kbps more.

3. Downloading
Obviously, before you begin extracting audio, you will need the video file. This can be obtained by the help of the Mozilla Firefox add-on "DownloadHelper." The latest stable release (4.7) can be downloaded from the add-on's official website (http://www.downloadhelper.net). Install the add-on and restart Firefox. The add-on should now be fully functioning.

Next, go to website where the web stream is being broadcast. Play the video, and wait for it to fully load. Once fully loaded, go to the DownloadHelper icon located on the navigation bar in Mozilla Firefox and click the dropdown tab. The streaming video's location URL should be there (something along the lines of "21234565434.flv") and click on it. Then choose to download the file. Be sure to keep the original file extention!

Once the file has finished downloading, you have the raw web stream file. Other websites/programs which enable you to "capture" the file usually decrease the quality. This method ensures you get the raw video file or the highest quality capture of the stream.

4. Extraction
The stream is now available on your harddrive as a video file. You will now need a program for audio extraction. The best program for this is SUPER. The latest stable release (v2010.build.37) is available to download from the program's official website (http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html). Install and open the program.

Drag and drop the video file in to SUPER. You will now need to choose the output container and preferences. On the first section of SUPER, select whatever audio format is featured on the video (usually MP3 or AAC). Then check whatever frequency level the audio is at (usually 22.5kHz or 44.1kHz, though occasionally 48kHz). Finally, select the number of channels and original bitrate. Or you can simply check the "Stream Copy" option, which will extract the raw audio from the video. To finish, simply click encode and wait for the encoding process to end. The end result is the highest possible quality audio extraction from a web stream!

For personal reasons, you may want to then resample your file to an audio format of your choice. Be aware that upsampling the frequency levels and bitrate will not increase audio quality, but downsampling will!

End notes
Most online converters and programs do not extract audio/video at the highest quality possible, but offer a "quick fix" to those who don't care about quality. This manual method ensures you get the the quality. This is especially important when trading, if a webcast/stream is the lowest known source.

Happy stream'ing!
∞s
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