How to Record Streaming Internet Radio

A reader writes: How do I record live or archived streaming radio off the Internet?

This used to be a tough task, requiring live "recording" of streams into large-ish WAV files. But the good new for fans of Internet radio—and I am one big fan of Internet radio over all other forms of radio—is that it's become really easy over the past few years to record live streams off the Internet. And you're no longer relegated to listening to recordings on your desktop, either. Most portable players are capable of playing back these recordings, since the software saves them into popular formats.

I just wrote a roundup for Rolling Stone (the November 2 issue with the "Worst Congress" cover) on software that lets you do this very thing. Unfortunately, the article isn't available online, so I'll recap in completely new, online-friendly words.

My favorite program is Replay A/V, which costs $50, and lets you record not only audio streams, but also video streams, off the Internet. You can schedule the program to record a "broadcast" at a specific time, or have it record archived shows.

I'm a big fan of the archived shows on BBC Radio One and use Replay A/V all the time so I can listen to them on the fly. Replay A/V saves these recordings into MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, or AAC format, which lets me easily put recorded shows into my iTunes or Windows Media Player libraries and transfer them over to portable players.

You can download this software at the Applian Technologies web site for $50 (a less expensive version, called Replay Radio, is only $40 and does just audio). It's all perfectly legal, provided I keep my recordings for personal use only.

For Macs, it's a bit tougher, but two programs—iFill from Griffin Technologies and the free Radio Lover—let you record streams off of either Shoutcast or iTunes radio (which includes the excellent shows on KRCW). Though these programs give you less overall selection, they have one big advantage over Replay A/V: They separate songs by track, so you can easily navigate through broadcasts to your favorite music. These programs also work with Windows computers.

I'm sure there are other programs that record streaming radio out there, but the above are the ones with which I am most familiar. Anybody have any other good recommendations?