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  1. Member
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    I can't seem to capture the flash video stream from cspan archives. I have tried orbit, and all other freeware capture programs with no success. URL snooper won't run on my system to help find the stream. The cspan player does not create any kind of temp files that can be renamed or saved. Any help or ideas?
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    Bueller? Bueller?

    Is there anybody out there?
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    Originally Posted by fooledagain
    I can't seem to capture the flash video stream from cspan archives. I have tried orbit, and all other freeware capture programs with no success. URL snooper won't run on my system to help find the stream. The cspan player does not create any kind of temp files that can be renamed or saved. Any help or ideas?
    Hi fooledagain. Would really like to offer some help capturing that cspan flash and realplayer stream, but it seems to be beyond the abilities of anyone at this forum. Please accept the stock answer to try Orbit or Replay media catcher (neither of which will work), or just ask a simpler question. Thanks and welcome.
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    Originally Posted by fooledagain
    I can't seem to capture the flash video stream from cspan archives. I have tried orbit, and all other freeware capture programs with no success. URL snooper won't run on my system to help find the stream. The cspan player does not create any kind of temp files that can be renamed or saved. Any help or ideas?
    Hi fooledagain. Well, I see that nobody has been of any help here. Maybe you should try another forum on another website.

    Just so you know, I have (through a great deal of experimentation) happened upon a solution to your problem. It is quite effective and would most likely solve most of the other stream capturing problems discussed here. Best of all, it is free.

    No, I won't share my solution with you.

    Good Luck!
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  5. Member waefwaeefwaefw's Avatar
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    I don't know how to capture the Flash video stream (because I don't know how to find the FLV URI), but you can easily dump the WMV or Real streams using mplayer.

    For example, I can dump CSPAN to a file by
    Code:
    mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile cspan.wmv mms://rx-wes-sea157.rbn.com/farm/pull/tx-rbn-sea001:1459/wmtencoder/cspan/cspan/wmlive/cspan1v.asf
    The URI could change, of course.

    This post was made using a login from www.bugmenot.com, because I didn't feel like signing up for a forum account.
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  6. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
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    No, I won't share my solution with you.
    Just because noone could help you? We do NOT have a solution for everything here...
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    I use Replay Media Catcher all the time on C-SPAN video archives as well as their streaming stuff on their home page. It works fine most of the time. There are times where their servers are down, so don't give up on an archived program. I just captured their 2-3 hour Lewis and Clark archived program from 10 years ago. Note: virtually all their stuff is Flash Video (.flv) at 320 x 240 resolution. An hour program is about 150 MB in size. Of course this is real bad resolution. I would love for their stuff to be higher resolution and recently emailed them to provide a higher resolution option if possible (I don't think they have a lot of money for servers).

    The reason higher resolution would be so valuable is the clunky nature of streamed Flash Videos (at least C-SPAN flash videos). Its effectively impossible to convert these guys to another format and maintain audio sync. So, I am resorting to:
    1. Watching the whole show at my computer (wife and kid not happy).
    2. Sending the whole screen to my DVD recorder via S-Video and audio cable (effectively cloning the computer screen)

    The second option above allows me to save the show onto a DVD. But of course the resolution is awful. Of course those of us who are C-SPAN viewers don't care that much about a video's production values -- we just want the content. Still, I would love them to offer a broadband video archive option. That would greatly ease my eyes.

    Good luck!
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    By the way, I have captured virtually all of the Booknotes shows which, for whatever reason, are offered by C-SPAN in Real Media (.rm) format. These are easy (EO Video) to convert to VCD (and remain in audio sync!) and play later on my TV. Again, resolution is pretty poor.
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  9. Member
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    Originally Posted by Baldrick
    No, I won't share my solution with you.
    Just because noone could help you? We do NOT have a solution for everything here...
    Mr. Baldrick, I have been an avid fan of this website for years and have the utmost respect for the community here. Please excuse my lame attempt at humor by having a running conversation with myself. I was a bit surprised that after some weeks nobody was a able to offer a solution given the advanced skills of many of the users on this forum.

    Here is the embarrassingly simple (and free) solution to capturing and converting cspan streams to usable videos:

    1. Use the latest version of Realplayer (I know, I hate it too) to record the stream.

    2. Use Media Coder to convert the saved file from the real format to something usable (I chose MPEG2)

    3. Use DVD Flick to create a DVD folder from the MPEG2 file.

    4.Burn DVD folder with IMG Burn

    The resulting video quality is lousy, but it is in sync with the audio and watchable. Thank you.
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