Linux Audio "VCR"?

[Brian Kelsay]

As always, google is your friend.  Just get your terms right.  I read at least one article in the past in Linux Journal about setting up a fm tuner card or a radio, hooking it to line in, and recording w/ a cmd line recorder.  It looked pretty easy.  You might also look at thelinuxshow.com for an archived howto on a similar system that includes TV I think.  if you use a radio, you will either have to leave it on, make a serial/parallel controlled switch to activate power, or hook up a simple lamp outlet timer.  Just thought of this, you could use an X10 controlled switch too.  Wass made some Java progs. to remotely control the X10 modules.

Brian Kelsay

>>> Justin Dugger <> 03/23/05 11:19PM >>>
Well, assuming you can handle getting the proper channel tuned and
sending audio to your line-in, it should be a simple matter of a cron
job (cron being a root word for time, and the name of a linux command
that runs in the background similar to Windows Scheduler) and your
favorite command line recording program.  Every distro provides some
form of cron, and it seems each one is special in its own unique way. 
You should consult the manuals of your distro for specific advice, and
I think I found a good place to start with mandrake here:

http://doc.mandrakelinux.com/MandrakeLinux/100/en/Command-Line.html/command-sheduling.html#command-cron 

You may have to dig around more to find the exact setup you need, or
perhaps some fancy GUI interface to the cron job file.

Justin Dugger

On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 21:05:56 -0800 (PST), Leo Mauler <> wrote:
> I have to work a lot of weekends these days, and I'm
> out so late on Saturdays that, having missed "A
> Prairie Home Companion" from 5-7pm Saturday, I sleep
> right through the Sunday morning repeat.
> 
> I'm really looking for a reason not to use Windows 98
> and the "Total Recorder" application I registered a
> few years ago.  This solution technically works, it
> allows me to record from Line In at a pre-scheduled
> time, without me having to be around to start the
> recorder.
> 
> The problem is that after about an hour of recording
> the WAV file develops pops and crackles, and starts
> losing sections of the recording.  I don't mind a Mono
> recording and even that setting doesn't help.
> 
> I somehow think Linux might do a better job (and ext3
> should manage the larger WAV files better than FAT32),
> but no one seems to be using the "record from Line In"
> option for recording radio like a VCR.  Everyone's
> developing projects using hardware FM Radio cards, and
> I'm just not in that income bracket these days.
> 
> So how does one go about doing a timed recording in
> Linux?  Assume that the sound hardware is already
> installed and working (KNOPPIX 3.7 detects the
> SoundBlaster PCI card with no problems).  I'm probably
> going to use Mandrake 10.0 since I'm used to it.  I'd
> still prefer a console solution, the machine is a
> PII-300MHz with 256MB RAM.
>