Making .mpegs from streams on the net?

[antoni]

Hello,
I don't know anything about this place and I'm not very familiar with the people here or what standard procedure is when you're a newbie, but I'd like to ask a question and any help would be much appreciated.

Take for example this link:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/media/g2/whiley/blursday/crazy_beat.ram

which opens up my RealOne player and begins loading a video, which isn't of very high quality and so plays shortly after clicking on the link.

the thing is, I'd like to someone save this video into an .mpeg or quicktime file. My question goes as follows, is this possible and if so how can it be done?

(I've got a pentium 400 with 128RAM)

Any help would be great, thanks!

[SKD_Tech]

I would use ASFtools. I am sure that it will conver to AVI but not so sure about MPEG

[setarip]

To SKD_Tech

"I would use ASFtools."

To convert a RealMedia file???


(And if you're mistaken in something you post, why not just acknowledge it, rather than simply deleting your post?)

[SKD_Tech]

Sorry I didn't see that it involved RM

[setarip]

To antoni

If you've successfully downloaded such a file, as a first step toward your goal, you can convert it to .AVI format using a program named Tinra...


(I believe there's another program available named "EO")

[antoni]

Damn. Those were some quick responses, cheers. But I'm still clued-out as what to do.

If you've successfully downloaded such a file, as a first step toward your goal, you can convert it to .AVI format using a program named Tinra...

I wouldn't know where to start to try and download the file. I don't suppose anyone here would know, because this is probably a different area of expertise, but just in case, anyone?

I mean, you'd have to have access to the source directly and as it's protected by only allowing you to stream the video and nothing else, I suppose the only way to go about getting a download would be to bypass this and already I'm getting the feeling this is illegal.

Maybe someone knows of a program which can capture images and sound as they come up and are displayed on your computer and then saving it as a video file. To tell you the truth, I'm just making up anything that comes to mind and if such a thing exists, I'll be very surprised.

So, is there a way to download this video?

[setarip]

"I'm getting the feeling this is illegal."

If you're talking about downloading copyrighted/commercial/rights protected streaming video, let's end the conversation here and now...

[antoni]

.

Yeah, it was just a thought.

Because I'm pretty sure those live music videos are going to be taken down soon (from the website, the only place you can watch them), but I would've liked to hold onto them for my own use. As far as I'm aware, this isn't illegal as long as you don't share the video, just as making mp3s of your music cd is fine but putting it onto Kazaa for others to download isn't so fine.

Oh well.

Respect & Integrity!

[setarip]

"I would've liked to hold onto them for my own use. As far as I'm aware, this isn't illegal as long as you don't share the video"

This is NOT correct - because you haven't PURCHASED and, therefore, don't OWN what you are trying to copy...

[antoni]

.

Is THIS true?

The video is actually a live performance which has a slim chance of ever being on sale. BUT, it is copyrighted. This (to my knowledge) simply means I'm not allowed to make any money from it, and if I try I can be prosecuted, but I'm not clear about copyright laws.

Thank you for your help, either way. Good board!

[megamachine]

I think there are two issues here, a technical issue and an economic (or political) issue. While it may be illegal to download copyrighted video content from websites, not all sites copyright all their content. Also, copyright laws differ from country to country, so the rules in one place may not apply to another place (the whole issue of copyright gets vague on a global scale). For the sites that encourage downloading content, such as activist oriented or some public interest sites, there are technical solutions. When appropriate, you might want to try and find something called StreamBox VCR, which is floating around the net, and which lets you, among other things, download video content that is set up for streaming. It is also sometimes easier than the "right click/save to target" method. As to your other point, about the quality of streaming video being poor, that is not going to be improved by rendering the streaming video to another format, since the quality issue is at the source, and there are also conversion issues between RAM, MOV and MPG that are not always easy to solve, so often it is best to keep the original format. Anyway, thanks for sparking an interesting discussion!

[DBCMakura]

Senseless discussion!!!

What is this discussion about legal and illegal stream video ****? The guy asked a question and as I look at the tread and there is no answer to the asked question.
I would suggest that you use a program called camtasia. With that it is possibile to record all the things happening on your screen. So you only need to resize the recording screen to the format of your player, select a codec for audio and video and press the record button. The program records a Avi file in ~good quality (depending on the size of your player) and later you can convert it...but it would be a little tricky with your PC.
Hope i helped you a little.
See ya it ya want!
DBCMakura

[antoni]

Cheers guys.

Both suggestions were very helpful.

Streambox VCR would be great if it worked for downloading this vid but it doesn't. This Camtasia program sounds a treat though and I'll give it a go and see if the ol' pc can take it.

I'll get back to you on how it went.