Converting a stream to a local mp3
If you ever need to get a copy of an audio stream broadcast (real etc) as a local file to time delay when you listen to it - say hypothetically that the BBC had just put a radio series online ;)
mplayer rtsp://some.host.name/astream.ra -ao pcm -aofile myfile.wav
this produces a very large wav file (about 300Mb per half hour) that can be compressed easily into an mp3 with lame via
lame myfile.wav
this will produce a much smaller (27Mb in my case) perfectly formed mp3 file for you to enjoy.