Shit May No Longer Stink

Here.

Phooeyhoo Tutorial #1 — Capturing Easy Streaming Files

In my past life as a techie I acquired a few skills with this thing called a kom-puter that I take for granted but that some people find fascinating. So in this semi-regular feature to Phooeyhoo.com, I'll write up tutorials for these skills. For lack of a better phrase I'm calling these Phooeyhoo Tutorials. Okay, the name stinks. Anyone who can think up of a better name gets a free Chicago style hot dog the next time we're both in Chicago at the same time.

Anyway, this is one I get a lot. How does one go about capturing streaming audio/video off of the Internet without have to resort to audio capture cards or external gimmicks? In this first tutorial, we'll deal with the easy case. That is, when it's easy to find the server of the streaming content. This is generally how NPR, public radio stations, etc. send out their content. The only thing you need is one easy piece of software called Net Transport. Tomorrow (or the next day, depending on when I feel like writing it) I'll deal with the more complicated case of grabbing stuff from a server that doesn't really want you to grab stuff (AOL music, Yahoo! music, etc.). Obviously, this should only be used to grab content for non-profit and educational purposes :-).

The first thing you'll need to do is grab a copy of Net Transport. It's freeware but you should definitely donate to the author if you use it a lot as it's a good program. Install it with the default settings.

Okay, let's say you want to grab some content from a show like This American Life. Specifically, the David Sedaris holiday special.

On this page, you would usually click the Real Player icon which would launch your Real Player application and then stream the file for you. Instead of doing that we're going to save the .ram file which This American Life (and NPR and other "easy" sites) give us. So right-click on the link and choose Save Link As ... (Save Target As... in Internet Exploder) as I've done in the following screen shot.

It will prompt you where to save this file. Save it to your desktop, C Drive, whatever. Just make sure you remember where you put it and what it's called. (You may want to create a new folder and shove it in there so you're certain it's the only file in that folder.)

Okay, now you need to open up that file with a text editor. Note that Microsoft Word is not a text editor. Easiest one to use is Notepad so launch that. Now, open a file (Ctrl+O or File --> Open) and browse to the directory where you saved the file. You'll notice that it won't appear. That's because Notepad is looking for text files. To change this, change Files of type: to All Files as in the screen shot below.

Your file should now be visible. Open it up. You should see something similar to this:

Your file may look a little different depending on where you got it from. The important thing to note is a URL that looks like this: rtsp://yadayadayada.rm. Note the important things that I bolded. Here's an exercise. What's the relevant URL for this file? Give up? The answer is (highlight for the answer):

rtsp://real.npr.na-central.speedera.net:80/real.npr.na-central/me/20040603_me_16.rm

Okay, now you need to copy this URL to the clipboard. Highlight the ENTIRE URL and either do a Ctrl+C or Edit --> Copy. It is patently important that you get the ENTIRE URL. Not a part of it. Also, note that sometimes when highlighting Notepad may add an extra "space" to the end of the URL. You must make sure this does not happen or else the file will not download. So get the entire URL without any redundant spaces.

Now you need to launch Net Transport. Once Net Transport is running, right click the main frame (the one that has Name, Size, Completed, et al.) and choose New Download.

If you've done everything correctly, Net Transport should read your clipboard and automatically enter in the URL. Check the URL to make sure it is correct. Especially check for that extra space at the end of the URL. If the URL isn't entirely correct, the shit ain't gonna fly.

Now click okay. If you've done everything correctly, your file should start downloading.

If you left the settings alone, your file should be sitting in your C drive ready for your listening pleasure.

Okay, that's it for today. Next time I'll show you how to get those annoying files that don't specify their streaming server and file name.

Recolored

This is the funnest tool I've played with since Virtual Painter. Best of all, the beta is free! It's an easy (and rather quick) way to add color to b&w images and drawings. I've used it to make people different shades of purple. The artists out there might find it a nice way to colorize their b&w drawings without spending hours in Photoshop.