[MPlayer-users] Re: mplayer and cron

[Ambrosius Nihilo]

I run Ubuntu 6.06 with linux kernel 2.6.15-27-386 on an IBM Thinkpad laptop.

Here is my question: I want to schedule recordings of internet audio streams 
(public radio) and automatically convert them to mp3 files for my ipod. I 
use mplayer to dump the audio stream into a ram file. Then I use mplayer 
again to convert the ram file to a wav file. Then lame to convert the wav 
file to a mp3 file.

All of this works without a hitch except the step from ram to wav. The odd 
thing is that this can easily be done on the command line:

/usr/bin/mplayer -vo null -vc dummy -af resample=44100 -ao 
pcm:file=/directory/test.wav /directory/test.ram

Yet when I put this line verbatim into my crontab file:

52 0 23 12 * /usr/bin/mplayer -vo null -vc dummy -af resample=44100 -ao 
pcm:file=/directory/test.wav /directory/test.ram

The result is a wav file which is interrupted after ten seconds. You always 
hear the first ten seconds, no matter how long the original file is, and 
then nothing.

What could it possibly be about this command running in cron that doesn't 
make it work, as opposed to running it on the command line?

Your help is appreciated!

--evaristegalois

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