Hah. I has succeeded in ripping MSNBC
Jan. 30th, 2010 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOne of the biggest frustrations I have with watching MSNBC is that their media player sucks at streaming in a timely fashion. I've long wanted to just download the video so I could watch it, but that didn't seem possible.
It took me a while, but I found the secret. First, although the video stream URL isn't immediately apparent, the flash app keeps a list of "upcoming" videos, including the current one, and if you can find where the list is stored in RAM (hint: it's probably in your temp drive) you can copy it off, pull it up in an editor, and make a list. Since it's XML, running things through tidyXML might help a lot.
Then it's just a matter of streaming out-of-realtime and then re-encoding locally. In order to do this now (as of late January, 2010), I used the copy of mplayer/mencoder currently available only through the source code repository, as it supports the x264 encoding. Here's the stream for "Obama vs. The House GOP:"
p.s. I also just gave you a very high-quality encode optionset for, er, stuff you stick in your computer's DVD player.
It took me a while, but I found the secret. First, although the video stream URL isn't immediately apparent, the flash app keeps a list of "upcoming" videos, including the current one, and if you can find where the list is stored in RAM (hint: it's probably in your temp drive) you can copy it off, pull it up in an editor, and make a list. Since it's XML, running things through tidyXML might help a lot.
Then it's just a matter of streaming out-of-realtime and then re-encoding locally. In order to do this now (as of late January, 2010), I used the copy of mplayer/mencoder currently available only through the source code repository, as it supports the x264 encoding. Here's the stream for "Obama vs. The House GOP:"
mencoder 'http://www.msnbc.msn.com/default.cdnx/id/35147797/displaymode/1157/?t=.flv' -quiet -ovc x264 -x264encopts "bframes=3:bitrate=1000:deblock=1,1:keyint=90:me=hex:nr=20:partitions=p8x8,b8x8,i8x8:ref=3:subme=3:trellis=2:vbv-bufsize=1100:vbv-maxrate=1250:no-dct-decimate:no-chroma-me:level=3.1" -alang en -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=96:cbr:vol=6 -o President.mp4
p.s. I also just gave you a very high-quality encode optionset for, er, stuff you stick in your computer's DVD player.
