Apologies if this is a dupe, but it didn't seem to get sent, so I'm 
trying again.


---------- Forwarded message ----------

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006, Paul (NCC/CS). wrote:

> Obviously there must be ways of recording these .ram programs,
> but how? What do people suggest?

   I use mplayer myself to do this sort of thing, but it is a bit of a pain in 
the ass.  It usually goes something like this:


   1: Find link to program, click it (in browser with no plugins; I use Opera 
with most of these things not even installed), view source.


   1.5: (not every time) Wade through insane amounts of Javascript that tries to 
be smart and determine what player you have installed; opening "player 
applicaton" window, etc.


  2: Find link to show, usually in the form of http://some.address/something.rm 
or http://some.address/something.asx.


  3: Download file using wget: 'wget <address>' -- this will save a tiny little 
file.


  4: Look in that file for the 'real' URL, usually in the form of 
rtsp://some.address/something.ram or mms://some.address/something.wma .

(It is apparently illegal in most countries to use standard audio formats and 
transport methods that anyone can use, you see.  *Especially* if you are a 
public service company.)


  5: Pass real url to mplayer, and tell it to save stream:

'mplayer -dumpstream prot://real.address/file.ram -dumpfile file.ram'


  6: Wait until it completes. ("Thank you for using proprietary and patented 
technologies. Core dumped.")


  7: Fire up mplayer again and listen. ('mplayer -ao whatever <filename>')



   Other people have already commented about using lame or mencoder.  IMHO the 
difficulty is in steps 1-4.  Especially 1.5 ...

   I hope there's a better way to do it with Reaplplayer.  Can you see the URL 
from within the program perhaps?  Then you should be able to skip directly to 
step 5.


Good luck, and sorry about the rant.


MAgnus