PandoraSaver

[ZigZagJoe]

thanks for the new sproxy version!

a few suggestions (dunno whether u r open to them) :)

(1) I just used the firefox portable from the previous version, but now with the startup parameters like the pandora.com and the browserpac.js in the firefoxportable.ini. would you consider this method to make your release truly standalone?

(2) the sproxy window wont minimize to systray. now that you've got rid of fiddler, wht dont you make it just the "P" icon in the tray? i mean, add one more option to the pandorasaver icon in the tray to bring up the sproxy window! that will leave the users with just their browser windows to deal with. btw, there are still some fiddler references in the PS GUI.

(3) I am using neroAACenc.exe to reencode the wav to lc AAC, so that it will be compatible with itunes and my portable player. thanks for implementing this! but there are a few problems.

Encoder: %path%neroAacEnc.exe ; Encoder Command: -lc -br %bitrate% -if %wavtmp% -of %out%.

the log says the conversion was successful. but the resulting file is only in KBs. looks like PS does not wait long enough for the conversion to complete and deletes the source file!

after this step the log window stays at "Taggin the mp3 file".

Note:

the nero encoder brings up a command prompt window when it runs. i solved this using a program called cmdow.exe by modifyin the Encoder: %path%cmdow.exe and Encoder Command: /run /hid neroAacEnc.exe -lc -br %bitrate% -if %wavtmp% -of %out%.

EDIT: one more thing that i noticed; sproxy changes the IE settings in Connections> Lan settings>Use a proxy server (Check). is there any way to disable this for users like me who use other browsers for PS?

It launches a window evidenttly because of how i have to handle channeling output - if something goes wrong it could write the output of the program to the log. Still looking for a better way to handle it. Maybe i can make it launch minimized; that would be better than nothing.

By the sound of it, you did not change the extension used (from mp3), so it is saving it with a wrong extension and is trying to tag it with the wrong method. You will want to change that to .m4a, mp4 or .aac. (under advanced settings, next to the encoder boxes). Also, it waits up to 5 minutes for the conversion to complete - if it is exiting early, with a bad output file something isn't working right. However, the encoder is still producing an output file so it thinks all is fine and dandy. I'll have it echo output regardless, i think. It probably is not hanging at tagging the mp3 files (I'll make a distinction when it is done processing a file)

I am contemplating making it spawn a tray icon of its own, but, it can't use the P icon that pandorasaver makes as SProxy and Pandorasaver are fundementaly two different pieces of code, with minimal interwork between them. (SProxy essentially performs the same function as fiddler did, with some extra bits)

I'm looking into getting a firefox portable sorted for this to have ready-made, but their new format for portable apps is giving me a bit of trouble. I'll get it sorted in the next few days.

The IE setting must be changed as that is what flash uses to determine how it routes requests. If it does not set that stuff then flash will circumvent SProxy for most requests, and so PS does not work. It's also somewhat handy for people who use IE/other browsers that use IE settings (chrome).

@boem: glad you like it :)

[yeehaa]

It launches a window evidenttly because of how i have to handle channeling output - if something goes wrong it could write the output of the program to the log. Still looking for a better way to handle it. Maybe i can make it launch minimized; that would be better than nothing.

By the sound of it, you did not change the extension used (from mp3), so it is saving it with a wrong extension and is trying to tag it with the wrong method. You will want to change that to .m4a, mp4 or .aac. (under advanced settings, next to the encoder boxes). Also, it waits up to 5 minutes for the conversion to complete - if it is exiting early, with a bad output file something isn't working right. However, the encoder is still producing an output file so it thinks all is fine and dandy. I'll have it echo output regardless, i think. It probably is not hanging at tagging the mp3 files (I'll make a distinction when it is done processing a file)

I am contemplating making it spawn a tray icon of its own, but, it can't use the P icon that pandorasaver makes as SProxy and Pandorasaver are fundementaly two different pieces of code, with minimal interwork between them. (SProxy essentially performs the same function as fiddler did, with some extra bits)

I'm looking into getting a firefox portable sorted for this to have ready-made, but their new format for portable apps is giving me a bit of trouble. I'll get it sorted in the next few days.

The IE setting must be changed as that is what flash uses to determine how it routes requests. If it does not set that stuff then flash will circumvent SProxy for most requests, and so PS does not work. It's also somewhat handy for people who use IE/other browsers that use IE settings (chrome).

@boem: glad you like it :)

responses one by one:

hopefully you will be able to provide sproxy with an option to minimize to tray.

i have the extension set to m4a. the conversion successful message is almost instantaneous. and the resulting file size varies from 15 kb to 500 kb. maybe the taggin gets stuck because of this corrupt m4a file?

firefox portable needs not change at all from the previous standalone version except for two edits in the firefoxportable.ini,

AdditionalParameters=http://pandora.com

LocalHomepage=file:///C:/PandoraFox/BrowserPAC.js

and the BrowserPAC.js in the same folder.

Additionally, Sproxy could load firefoxportable.exe or %browser% when it starts. :)

I didn understand the flash part even though i had seen some mention of it in this thread before. anyways, that is not too much of an issue, i guess

[brofix]

As will be clear, I'm ignorant of all things to do with programing and technical audio. Having said that, thanks much on a most wonderful app, which I've yet to blunder with, maybe.

Too bad for me that you can't use Turbo with mp3 save as that is what my Sansa Fuze wants to play.

Auto delete of skipped tunes might be useful; dupe rejection takes care of that if in fact there is a dupe in the default directory, but it may be located elsewhere.

Prior to today, I was using a nice little stream recorder, HarddiskOgg, which has variable bit rate recording which I thought was effective. I tried to load PS mp4s into Audacity to check on clipping but was not able to since it doesn't work with mp4s (at least in my version). Any recommendations for checking the quality of the recordings (other than listening)? >>> Audacity 1.3.6 beta supports m4a.

Since I often have the files in other directories, I would like to be able to have the album as a part of the file name, in addition to the artist and the tune.

[Hawaii Guy]

brofix - just change the file extension from .MP4 to .M4A

[ZigZagJoe]

I'll add options to customize the names. It's simple to do (already implemented, just need to put a input box for customization). I'm probably going to change the default extension to m4a as well - while mp4 is a valid extension for audio only files, when you can declare something to be strongly typed you should.

If you were to use turbo with mp3 (used to be able to in previous versions) it would pile up songs but with Pandora adding songs at one per 5 seconds while it converts them one around each 30 seconds (on a ripped pc); it's obviously a loosing battle. When it reached the limit and started reaping older songs(that are still processing) bad stuff would happen. To compensate, you can run multiple Pandoras at once. (up to 4-5 would be okay)

It's not freezing on tagging - it just doesn't have a message that notes when it is done cycling (and so that can be the last message for a while). I'll add a message.

The best way to handle if you have dupes in other dirs is to export a playlist with the songs in question (in m3u format) and have that be used as a blacklist. Rename it to [something].blacklist.txt and place it in save dir, with blacklist enabled. (you can have as many blacklists as you like.) Hit reload blacklist in settings or restart sproxy to apply. As long as they are named in a similar format to the songs to be downloaded names they it will perform the same function. underscores, spaces, dashes, punctuation, and paths are all ignored.

C:\Documents and Settings\zigzagjoe\Desktop\pand\The Real McCoy\Another Night\The Real McCoy - Run Away.mp4

The Real McCoy\Another Night\The Real McCoy - Run Away.wav

The Real McCoy - Run Away.aac

The_Real McCoy_-_Run_Away.mp3

all turn out to the same blacklist pattern, which is the "real mccoy run away". It normally expects a 100% match rate however you can change this under advanced settings. However, don't set this under 85% or it will start matching when the artist name is the same (and two words or more) and the song name is one word.

If you mean by clipping blank space at the start and end of files, I find that there is none at all usually. (I can't remember a song with significant blank space, certainly not one starting with it)

Misc note: once you pass 4000 or so songs sniffed in PS, you should restart SProxy as it seems .NET is leaking memory, even though there is no objects there (i used a memory profiler). Can't be fixed. It seems to tend to start slowing down at that point as well. On closer in spection, it seems to have a huge number of strings allocated (16k), however, those are automatically garbage collected...

Figured out a better way to check if the encoder ended happily ever after or died a horrible death in the lava- the exit code, which will be 0 on a successful exit. As there is this i have made the window hidden again (though you'll have to guess if something goes wrong. a tradeoff.)

[yeehaa]

It's not freezing on tagging - it just doesn't have a message that notes when it is done cycling (and so that can be the last message for a while). I'll add a message.

Figured out a better way to check if the encoder ended happily ever after or died a horrible death in the lava- the exit code, which will be 0 on a successful exit. As there is this i have made the window hidden again (though you'll have to guess if something goes wrong. a tradeoff.)

are you talking about neroaac or lame? if you havent used neroaac could you please try with that too?

[ZigZagJoe]

are you talking about neroaac or lame? if you havent used neroaac could you please try with that too?

LAME does, but any program coded in the last 10 years should honor the exit code.

Added name customization and the better encoder stuff, along with some other small changes.

Download at http:// zzj.itf-inc.com/SPPS1.000c1.006d.zip (OUTDATED - see first post)

[Stokastik]

I tried the new version. The "low bandwith mode" works ok! great job!

I usually eliminate the proxy from the Explorer setting since I like to use two browsers: one with TOR+pandora, and the other (chrome) for normal browsing, and I want only pandora to go thru 9050 and SP

[yeehaa]

LAME does, but any program coded in the last 10 years should honor the exit code.

Added name customization and the better encoder stuff, along with some other small changes.

Download at http://zzj.itf-inc.com/SPPS1.000c1.006d.zip

tested out the new version with neroaac encoder. the small filesize of the encoded m4a was coz of a dumb mistake on my part. the %bitrate option was passing the value as 128 where as nero needs in the "128000" format. i missed this coz the mp4tags, after its done processing makes the file "unplayable".

so now i guess the problem is at the last stage - the tagging. the m4a file from the nero encoder plays just fine but after taggin it wont play on vlc. i have tested it only in vlc. any idea why?

[ZigZagJoe]

Haven't the faintest. Get a before and after if you can (of the m4a), a log snippet, and the original mp4, then upload it somewhere. I'll take a look at it.

[Stokastik]

Why, if you set the low bandwith mode, you cannot set the "reload pandora every...", and is set always to NEVER?

[Pichet]

I see...

[yeehaa]

Haven't the faintest. Get a before and after if you can (of the m4a), a log snippet, and the original mp4, then upload it somewhere. I'll take a look at it.

tried to get the before and after m4a, but couldn't. the taggin process runs too fast and deletes the old one! yesterday i could copy paste one fast enough.. not today!

[brofix]

How is the volume level of the recording determined? Is it adjustable through the pandora player setting and does it have nothing to do with whatever playback settings are in effect at the time (if one has previously recorded tracks playing while one is recording in turbo mode)? I could figure this one with trial and error but was hoping for a tip to save me the trouble.

>> Seems to have nothing to do with non-Pandora playback settings.

Must check the P player setting relevancy.

[ZigZagJoe]

The reason you can't use auto reload download button and a few other things in low bandwidth mode is because how it works: when SProxy receives data, it immediately passes it on to the client program (more or less streaming) - thus, when the plugins are called (after all transferring is done) it's too late to make any changes to what is passed on. (autoreload injects code into the page itself, as does the download button).

Music volume is the same regardless of selected volume in the player (i usually run with it at zero in turbo rip mode).

Hrm, keep trying if you would yeehaa, I need that before one to determine the type of container it is in and the after to do some checks on (to see if it is a fault of the program, or the player, or what)

Probably going to add support for blacklisting dirs - code to list every file in a dir and reduce that to a series of comparables already exists - used for deleting blacklisted songs. It would be simple to make it support adding to the blacklist like that.

[yeehaa]

Hrm, keep trying if you would yeehaa, I need that before one to determine the type of container it is in and the after to do some checks on (to see if it is a fault of the program, or the player, or what)

if you could gimme a debug version with some sort of wait period before taggin, i could do a copy paste of the "before" file. can u please add a 5-10 sec wait after the encoder is done and before the taggin starts? just for test purposes.

i tried not re-encoding using PS. i.e, saved just the mp4 and manually went through faad, neroaacenc and finally mp4tags. the final output was working alright. the only difference between the manual method and the PS method would be the startin file in the manual procedure was already a tagged mp4.

[ZigZagJoe]

if you could gimme a debug version with some sort of wait period before taggin, i could do a copy paste of the "before" file. can u please add a 5-10 sec wait after the encoder is done and before the taggin starts? just for test purposes.

i tried not re-encoding using PS. i.e, saved just the mp4 and manually went through faad, neroaacenc and finally mp4tags. the final output was working alright. the only difference between the manual method and the PS method would be the startin file in the manual procedure was already a tagged mp4.

Updated the currently uploaded version with a delay of 3 seconds (needed because sometimes the encoder locks the file for a sec anyways). Also, going to add a tray icon.

[brofix]

Audacity 1.3.7 beta supposedly handles mp4, but is balking at PandoraSaver mp4s. Dunno about others and my player apps have no probs so this seems to be a prob in Audacity. Changing extension to m4a doesn't help.

When I said I wanted to check clipping of the files with such a program I meant as when record levels are too high or low and result in an over or under 'saturation', rather than that the front or back end of the files was chopped or blank.

[brofix]

MP4 and M4A files can be imported directly into Audacity Beta, or converted to WAV in iTunes for import into 1.2 versions of Audacity.

http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.php?tit...les_from_iTunes

The methods described worked for me, allowing mp4 or m4a loads into audacity but the config is a little bumpy.

[ZigZagJoe]

The song data contains a gain attribute, but nothing is done with it in PS (it is discarded). Couldn't find a proper place for it. (in metadata)

[Hawaii Guy]

Hey bud - question ... if the system tells me that a flash file is causing the system to run slow and shud it continue or cancel, is this because of Pandora and Flash? It makes the system run like sludge unless I stop Pandora and reboot. Is anyone else having this problem? I am using the most recent Adobe Flash. Thx.

[brofix]

Auto reload of Pandora to avoid timeout was working yesterday, not today. Still enabled in settings. The start order is SP and then the miniplayer...oh, there it is, as you point out, the refresh does not work with the mini. OK. I use the mini with turbo, but I can certainly change that.

[ZigZagJoe]

Hey bud - question ... if the system tells me that a flash file is causing the system to run slow and shud it continue or cancel, is this because of Pandora and Flash? It makes the system run like sludge unless I stop Pandora and reboot. Is anyone else having this problem? I am using the most recent Adobe Flash. Thx.

Probably. I've had it happen occasionally when running lots of pandoras in turbo mode. Usually refreshing fixes it

Auto reload of Pandora to avoid timeout was working yesterday, not today. Still enabled in settings. The start order is SP and then the miniplayer...oh, there it is, as you point out, the refresh does not work with the mini. OK. I use the mini with turbo, but I can certainly change that.

Yeah, I don't have it mangle the miniplayer page as i figured it is more likely used for listening (and pandoras run in hidden tabs for ripping).

[ZigZagJoe]

Ooops, double post.

[brofix]

I use the regular sized player for listening simply because I can get band info, etc., there. then I actually save some of that as mht (only IE) because it is often good info. Do I ever use it or access it? Rarely, but I like having it.

So I'll try running Pandora in IE as a player and PS in a separate firefox window for turbo.