===============================================================================
USING wavrec and mpegrec
===============================================================================
For up to date usage information run the application with a --help parameter:

$ mpegrec --help
mpegrec  Copyright (C) 2000 Andrew L. Sandoval
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
See the file COPYING (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.txt) for details.
 
 
USAGE: mpegrec [options]
Options:
        -b mp3_bitrate_in_kHz (for mpegrec only - default is 192)
        -e encoder_process (for mpegrec only - default is "lame")
        -l length_in_seconds  (default is to continue until ctrl-c)
        -r rate               (default is 44100)
        -o outputfilename     (default is stdout or "-")
        -x extraEncoderFlags  (default is "")

===============================================================================
wavrec:
===============================================================================
wavrec simply captures audio at the rate specified with '-r rate' for
either the number of seconds specified with '-l seconds', or until Control-C is
hit and sends the output to either 'STDOUT' or to the file specified with 
'-o outfile'.

For example, to record 5 minutes of 22050 Hz audio into the file song.wav type:

$ wavrec -l 300 -o song.wav -r 22050

To capture the same audio and stream the contents to bladeenc you might do the
following:

$ wavrec -l 300 -r 22050 | bladeenc - song.mp3

In either case, hitting Control-C should stop the recording.  If you interrupt
the recording with Control-C, the WAV header will have an inaccurate file
length and data block length, but most WAV players (and mp3 encoders) will not
have a problem with this.

===============================================================================
mpegrec:
===============================================================================
mpegrec is a sym-link to wavrec which when run automatically (or as some
say "automagically") pipes the WAV output to the 'lame' mp3 encoder.  By
default mpegrec requests STEREO (-ms) mp3 encoding at a bitrate of 192K.

You can alter the bitrate using the '-b bitrate' parameters.  You can also
direct mpegrec to use an alternate encoder by passing this information with the
'-e lamereplacement' parms, and you can pass extra flags to lame or the '-e
replacement' with the -x parm.

The simplest use is:

$ mpegrec -l 300 -o song.mp3

This records 5 minutes of audio at 44.1 KHz and instructs lame to encode it to
the file song.mp3 at a 192K bitrate.  For a lower quality file you might try:

# mpegrec -l 300 -r 22050 -b 128 -o talk.mp3

mpegrec does not do well when a rate over 44.1 Khz (-r 44100) is specified.
You may have better luck with this than I.  I am running a dual Pentium II with
64 MB or RAM, and a Creative Labs PCI 128 soundcard.  When specifying a rate of
48000 sound quality is extremely poor.  It is excellent however at 44100 (CD
Quality).

Best Wishes.
-Andrew L. Sandoval
sandoval@netwaysglobal.com
http://www.netwaysglobal.com

