Since discovering ASFRecorder I've been having a lot of fun capturing streaming video from the web:

http://www.blueguitar.org/new/misc/pc/asfrecord.zip

The interface on this program is rather cryptic, to say the least! Perhaps I need to have a particular character set installed in Windows, but I've been able to use it okay with the crazy characters.

The first item on the menu bar is presumably "File". I haven't used this yet since you are prompted for a filename once you enter the URL for the streaming video, which is the second entry on this menu.

So where do you find the URL? You might view the source of the page, looking for an .ASF, .ASX or .WMF extention. For the Warner Bros streaming video of Ben Harper, I couldn't find anything in the page source, but I was able to right-click on the video window to select "Properties". Select the second tab "Show"... the filename is listed on the top next to the icon. "Location" is listed halfway down the box. Paste both of these into the URL box and then click on the highlighted button on the left. Once you have saved the streaming video locally you can rename the extension to .WMV to make it more recognizable, or just leave it at .ASF.

Here is a link to the Warner Bros page which offers streaming video clips for Ben Harper and Jack Johnson:

http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/wblcs/home.jsp

Oh... since ASFRecorder works with the ASF/WMV formats used by Windows Media Player, you do need to select WMP as your video player on the site which offers the streaming video. Even if you are on a slow dial-up connection you might try selecting the highest resolution option, since you will be saving the stream to disk rather than viewing it in real time. There are other programs which can reportedly capture streaming video in the Real or Quick Time format but I haven't used them. Here is an usenet posting about the various formats:

http://www.blueguitar.org/new/misc/pc/video_stream.pdf

Enjoy!

Steve Ahola