Removing commercials from a radio broadcast

[clintc]

What is the fastest and most efficient way to remove commercials from an audio stream that one has recorded from a fm radio broadcast. I have a little experience using Goldwave to do audio editing. Finding and deleting commercials is a tedious manual process. I am hoping someone knows a faster way with the right software.

[Jason Dunn]

That's a great request - unfortunately, I've never heard of anything that would do the trick. It would need to detect pauses like TV commercial skipping programs do....I tried a Google search and came up dry. Sorry! :(

[clintc]

That's a great request - unfortunately, I've never heard of anything that would do the trick. It would need to detect pauses like TV commercial skipping programs do....I tried a Google search and came up dry. Sorry! :(

One of the shows I record is called the Clark Howard Show. When the show comes back from a commercial break a few riffs of a particular song is always played. I am wondering if it is possible to select that portion of the audio stream and then find all other occurances. That would essentially mark the end of the commercials and the beginning of the next segment. Being able to find all like occurances of a snippit of the audio would make the process a lot easier (at least for that show anyway).

[Gary Sheynkman]

What is the fastest and most efficient way to remove commercials from an audio stream that one has recorded from a fm radio broadcast. I have a little experience using Goldwave to do audio editing. Finding and deleting commercials is a tedious manual process. I am hoping someone knows a faster way with the right software.

Sadly just "cutting off" that piece of sound is your best option for a clean edit. There are plenty apps to do this. Even NERO will let you do that!

[Suhit Gupta]

I don't think I understand your question... do you just have an audio stream that you want to open up, select a segment/s to delete, and finally save that stream? I figured should just clarify what you want to do exactly before I give recommendations on software that does this... (there are several that will help you if the above holds true). Please let me know...

Suhit

[Jason Dunn]

I don't think I understand your question... do you just have an audio stream that you want to open up, select a segment/s to delete, and finally save that stream? I figured should just clarify what you want to do exactly before I give recommendations on software that does this... (there are several that will help you if the above holds true). Please let me know...

Yes, that's what he wants, but I believe he's looking for an automatic way of doing this - he already knows how to do it manually, but that's a bit of a pain. ;-)

[clintc]

Yes, that's what he wants, but I believe he's looking for an automatic way of doing this - he already knows how to do it manually, but that's a bit of a pain. ;-)

Yes, it is what I want. I would also be happy with a way to analyse the sound file and look for major changes. I mostly record talk radio. So, it would seem that you might be able to develop a "profile" of the what is sounds like during the show and then mark areas where it varies significantly from the baseline "profile". I know I am asking for something sophisticated here. But, that is why I came here. 8)

[Suhit Gupta]

Hmm, in that case I do not know of a piece of software that would help you. One think you 'may' want to try - my VCR, made by Proscan, has a feature that automatically blocks out TV advertisements. I had no idea when buying the VCR but I realized this when I made my first recording. It tags the advertisement section of the tape (while recording) and upon playback, it fast forwards through that section at about 10x, while showing a blue background. If I truly want to watch the advertisements, I can just hit PLAY on the remote while it is doing this.

You may want to go to their website and see if they have a similar audio recorder. Hope this helps

Suhit

[OSUKid7]

I have a ReplayTV and while searching the net I remember seeing a ReplayRadio or some piece of software that does the same thing for Internet streams. I can't remember the exact name or if it even deletes commercials, but search it, it may well do that. Just keep in mind copyright laws :wink: lol

[Gary Sheynkman]

I have a ReplayTV and while searching the net I remember seeing a ReplayRadio or some piece of software that does the same thing for Internet streams. I can't remember the exact name or if it even deletes commercials, but search it, it may well do that. Just keep in mind copyright laws :wink: lol

how in the world would it recognize it from plain radio streams though???

[clintc]

I think I have found the technology I am looking for. See the following link: http://www.comparisonics.com/app_aved.html

But, I expect the cost to be prohibitive for a single consumer like myself. It looks like their whole company is based on licensing this technology. Maybe one of you audio experts out there would like to start an open source project to do this. :)

Anyway, if anyone else knows where to find software that can search for particular sounds within a sound file post it here.

I have started looking at waveforms in depth and in some streams you can visually make out where someone is just talking and then where a commercial break starts. (I mostly listen to talk radio). This speeds up the process of editing out commercials a bit.