Ripping content from rtsp sources

[faceless]

Today I wanted to grab a video from the Parliament archive. It runs a streaming RTSP server like many others, but the usual programs I'd use to record the stream wouldn't pick it up. I could have then done it as a screengrabbed video but that's a technical cop-out and the results are never that good, so I looked into what I needed.

First I got WebVideoCap (scroll down for download) - it's a standalone sniffer program which monitors your web connection for RTSP streams, so it will pick up regardless of which browser you use. To use it properly you need the WinPCap Driver. I then clicked "start capture" and went to the Parliament page and clicked play. The whole thing was 150 minutes in length, but luckily webvideocap will recognise you skipping forward and pick up when it starts playing again. This left me (after quite a while of trial and error) with a wmv file of about 80mb.

The next problem was that the wmv had info in its header saying it should be 150 minutes long, so loading it straight into the video editor wouldn't work as it would reject it as corrupt. I thought the answer to this problem would be ASFTools - loading the wmv into that, then selecting "advanced repair", I was able to select the option to fix the length variable.

But still the file wouldn't load into the editor... so I then converted the time-corrected wmv to mpg using ConvertxToDVD, leaving me with a fresh mpg. I was then able to edit, add titles, then upload.

I'm writing this down mainly for my own benefit as I had to do this same process last year with another clip from the same site and had forgotten what I'd done, but if you get some use out of it too then all the better.

edit: I just noticed that someone else wanting the same video took the screen-capture route. I posted this before I knew that...

[luke]

face, i salute your indefatigability

thats some mission, i'd have given up for sure!

[faceless]

haha, cheers - it really was a mission!

But this technique should be applicable to streams from all sorts of sources if they don't come down using normal methods.