Playing BBC streams in Winamp (Windows)

This post updated 23 March 2010

• Install Winamp
• Install Tara plugin. Ensure “Process audio though Winamp” is unchecked in Preferences | Plug-ins | Input | Tara Audio Video Plugin. [Test: Is this still needed?]
• Install Real Alternative
• If your primary sound driver changes, e.g. you plug your laptop into and external sound card, I have found that you may need to reconfigure the driver in Preferences | Plug-ins | Output | Nullsoft DirectSound Output | Device & select the sound driver from the first drop down.
• Open the BBC Player and select the show you are interested in
• Hover over the show and right click to copy the link address, it is in the form

  http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/<Programme ID>/<stream name>

  e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00rbtcd/Gilles_Peterson_Bonobo_live_in_the_studio

• Put the <Programme ID> into the superb iPlayer PID Convertor to give you the BBC .ram
• • Experimental show with Mary Ann Hobbs
  • Worldwide show with Giles Peterson
  • Leftfield show with Rob da bank
  • Drum and Bass Show with Fabio and Grooverider
• If you wish to organise your bookmarks, e.g. have the above under a BBC category, I recommend ML Bookmark Categoriser. Bookmarks that are shown in the Bookmarks view in the Media Library are stored in the %Appdata%\Winamp\winamp.bm file. You can open that file in Notepad and copy+paste the contents into another winamp.bm file.
• Listening to streams, especially the above 2 hour BBC shows, might not be convenient in one sitting. You can use the Amarok plugin to bookmark the position in the stream – indeed multiple positions of desired.