Flashaudio no longer available for Radio 4?

[Christopher Woods (CustomMade)]

> 
> On 10/3/2011, at 5:12pm, Chris Marriott wrote:
> > ...
> > Same here. Luckily, downloading as "flashaacstd" seems to work, and 
> > iTunes converts the resulting AAC files to MP3 easily enough, but 
> > still it's a bit of a nuisance. We seem to be having things chipped 
> > away, one thing at a time.
> 
> I don't really see much cause for complaint.
> 
> MP3 might be inconvenient for you, but the AAC files are 
> better quality.
> The BBC are not "chipping something away" here (only 
> *perhaps* removing a poorer format).

Wholeheartedly agree - the BBC's own MP3 encodes are vastly inferior in
audio quality to their AAC counterparts. I've done comparison and analysis
of this in the past; the relevant post is on the list archives:

http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/get_iplayer/2011-February/000865.html

Listen to the audio file I've linked to to hear the quality difference.
Transcoding using your own application will likely give you a better result;
at the least, you still have the original (and highest) quality AAC file to
refer back to should you wish to transcode it differently again. The BBC's
MP3 transcoding quality on iPlayer audio files is simply dire, I'm glad it's
dying a death.