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Bringing Home the Windows Media and "Real" Bacon
Using VLC version 0.8.0 (or higher) one can now "record" Windows Media and Real streaming videos for later playback.
The basic idea:
- Copy the URL
- Set up VLC to record as "raw" uncompressed data to your computer
- Rename to the appropriate file name
Here are some visual instructions:
(1) Copy the video stream source
(2) Go into VLC and Choose: File/Open Network...
(3) Select "HTTP/FTP/MMS/RTSP" and paste your URL in the field
(4) Check "Advanced output:" and click "Settings"
(5) Select "File" and "Browse" to choose where the file will be saved
(6) Check "Dump raw output" and click "OK" twice and you'll be recording
(7) You may not see many visible signs of progress while recording, other than the little diamond scrolling across the LCD window. You can either wait until the diamond reaches the right, or open Window/Messages and watch the progress. The messages window will report when the file has been completed.
(8) Once your file is complete, change the extension from .raw to the proper one for the kind of stream you recorded -- .wmv for Windows Media or .rma for Real Media.
Note: Users have reported that once they have a .wmv file on their computer that it plays fine on their Mac but loses sound when copied to a Windows PC. At press time we do not know of any solutions to this problem.
Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on August 5, 2005 4:09 PM