I can get the original files from the companies concerned - with enough time - but it is much easier for everyone if I can just say "I'll just take the files from your site". That way they don't have to fluff about and I look incredibly efficient :-)

And yes, RM re-edit is probably asking too much - as I say even *one* format would be enough.

Vegas can't capture/convert RM to avi. It's proprietary. There are some tools to allow for this though. (converting) for under 50.00 that does a decent job.
www.rmconverter.com

Interesting SPOT and thanks for the tip, but my real problem is how to actually capture the streaming video so that I have a file sitting on my desktop !

The file is always sitting on a server somewhere. The problem is you frequently have to jump through hoops and analyse html (or java) to see where the source file is actually sitting. Quite often the link you see on a page just leads to a series of pointers to other servers. And then, once you've tracked down the right server, you still need to be able to access it to download the file.

In my - very amateur - opinion, there are two options. 1) Get friendly with a hacker-type, or 2) Ask the company nicely to send you the file (or temporarily put it on a server you can easily access). The latter might be the more professional route...

Mark

Isn't there something called "Streambox" that will pick up the file........I've heard of another program that's out there, but can't recall right now. I think RM won a court case to keep there streams to themselves.

KM

There is another program out there called Cam Studio that works really well, similar to Camtasia

Spirit,

There is a ez way to save all stream movies into your hard disk. All streams actually save into the temp folder in your hard driver... usually in C:\documents and settings\administrator\local settings\temp or temp internet files.. not sure now... but after like 10 seconds from playing the file.. it disappears... but if you just go right after playing the file from the web and move that file to another directory you get to keep the file :)

Please do this if its 100% legit only...

Have a nice day!
www.winvideo.biz

I've tried Camtasia to do screen capture but it's a bit flakey for this sort of thing - TechSmith readily admits the app is not designed for screen video capture.

I don't know who you talked to - cause they smokin crack!!

I have successfully used Camtasia (and SnagIt) to perform just this task. And it is to designed for this, that is why they have it available as an option.

The thing you have to remember to do is set it up to also record audio - and your video drivers can't be fully accelerated.

Other than that - it works like a charm.

The video is not the best - as in getting the actual sorce file....but it works.

And although I don't remember the URL - I recently downloaded a free (freeware) converter to convert an RM file to AVI. Since I absolutely despise RealMedia, I only used it once (cause I couldn't find the file I wanted in any other format).

But there are much better shareware products out there (as was already mentioned).

Hope this helps.

This use to be the case - but not anymore. If the file is being streamed - and it is a true stream - you will not get temporary files on your PC. Trust me on this one...it is not always 100%.

That is why streaming is much more prefered than playing from a server...it doesn't need to cache the file (as like with web pages).

Yes, depending on where you go and how it was put together, you may luck out and have it cached....I wouldn't bet the farm on it. That is assuming you have a farm, and all.

I think Camstuidio's stuff will do the trick...it's all in how you tweak the settings (you are running a PC, right? I have no idea what to do in the MAC world.)

What the URL anyway. If I can - I'll snag it for ya and post it to my website so for you to download.

Thanks kkmm Streambox looks like the trick ! Much appreciated. Here's the link:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/lc.staak/vcr.htm

I'll try it out in the morning :)

Also Camstudio I've tried - pretty good but very grainy capture.

And I beg to differ about Camtasia. They have a generous one month free demo period with full functionality. I gave it a good working - the capture rate was variable, I could never be absolutely certain what fps rate I'd get despite what the settings told me. This failing alone killed the app for me - I need a steady fps.

I disabled hardware acceleration and even captured the audio from another linked PC, all to no good effect. It *could* capture video but not at anything near original quality. other than that I liked the app very much - good UI, good flow etc

In an email to TechSmith they acknowledged that the software was weak in video capture (it's designed for software graphics capture) but said that they had many requests for this functionality and so would look at an update ...

In the meantime I like the look of Streambox. Will report results. :)

I've had luck with download managers (Download Accelerator Plus) intercepting "streaming" files with the .mov extension (or .wma or .rm).

Doug