So I’ve been singing the praises of HuffDuffer for a while now. I still love it. But that isn’t the only piece of software that’s making my listening life easier these days.
Radio Downloader is a cool piece of software called that is making me very happy.
Created by Matt Robinson, and found on his website, NerdoftheHerd.com – Radio Downloader is a program that browses, automatically retrieves, downloads, and converts BBC Radio programs into MP3s.
Anything that shows up on BBC iPlayer can now be subscribed to and made ultra-portable. The only thing Radio Downloader doesn’t do is interface with iTunes or other podcatcher software. The browser is relatively simple to use and lists all the upcoming programs available (as well as older shows that may repeat). I’ve found myself subscribed to regular slots in the BBC schedule like: “Afternoon Play”, “Book At Bedtime”, “Book Of The Week”, “Saturday Play” and many many others. But you can also subscribe by title (see above). After you download and install Radio Downloader play around a bit with it. The interface is clean and simple, but requires a bit of training to find all of the goodness stored within it. Of his software Matt sez:
It brings Podcast-like abilities to stream downloading, as well as handling Podcasts. This gives you the convenience of being able to subscribe to regular downloads of your favourite programmes, which you can then listen to on your pc or mp3 player.
Radio Downloader runs on Windows 2000, XP and Vista, and requires the .Net Framework 2.0, which you can get via Windows Update, or download from microsoft.com.
And most important, RD is FREE.
Posted by Jesse Willis
Thanks for this great tool. It works wonderfully well and I can finally put those great BBC progams on CD for the car where I do most of my listening.
Glad you’re digging it as much as I am.
Someone asked me if there was a Macintosh version available. Their currently is not.
BBC is the pinnacle of English language entertainment.
Thank God for the British.
Radio downloader is fantastic- can dump full 6Music shows to MP3 player and listen crystal clear in the car- perfection!
I just wondered if there’s a way to ‘auto delete’ files, older than a set number of days? Otherwise it will take quite a bit of maintenance…
As far as I know there is no auto-delete function. Another way to cut down on that maintenance is to buy a big hard-drive.
Someone pointed me to this software last weekend as I was standing on the terrace at a football match lamenting that there was no easy way to access iPlayer radio programmes on the go on my iPhone.
It’s brilliant, and it DOES interface with iTunes now, even if it didn’t previously.
If you change the Radio Downloader download directory to the “automatically add to iTunes” sub-folder within your iTunes folder structure, as soon as you launch iTunes it will automatically move the contents of that folder in to your library with “BBC Radio n” as the artist.
If you then synch up and go to your synch options in iTunes for your iPod or iPhone, and tick the box to synch each of the BBC Radio artists automatically, hey-presto you have automatic synching between Radio Downloader and your iPhone or iPod.
I think Radio Downloader is great!
Only one thing…I can’t get the Subscriptions feature to work. I’ve ticked a couple of series to subscribe to but I still have to manually download them…can anyone suggest why?
I have used Radio Downloader for 2 years……It is just so simple but brilliant….
To save disk space, just set the MP3 size to 64kbits and you have small size and very reasonable sound quality.
When is a Video Downloader going to become available!!!
Thanks for 2 years listening pleasure…