This is a "different" type of Web Wanderer report - Not the normal list of links, but more of a story about how I solved a technical web problem by using some software and a trick or two.
This week, Paul McCartney returned to the Cavern Club in Liverpool to ring in the Millennium. That's where the Quarymen got their start; they later became "The Beatles." Most of the songs were from McCartney's new album - "Run Devil Run."
The Cavern Club is a small club, which only seats about 200 people. It was broadcast, real-time, on the net. It's estimated that 3.5 million Internet users around the globe watched the live broadcast online on MSN UK.
My goal was to grab a copy of the broadcast, convert the audio to a WAV file, then burn it on CD. That way, I could play the concert audio on any CD player.
My first problem - the site was flooded. Network congestion kept me form getting a reasonable copy. I gave up on the live broadcast, and planned to grab the feed during the 18 hours after the concert, when the archive broadcast would be active. My brief successes at connecting gave me some very good news - the 56K concert feed was NOT protected - it meant I could "record" the broadcast to my hard disk using the Real Audio player (Free for all pick #1). If it had been broadcast with the "do not record" protection, there was still a way to grab a copy - using software called "X-Fileget." Not free, but reasonably priced.
I tried several times, from home, to download the archive. It hit so much net congestion, I couldn't get a copy. I figured maybe work would be better - since the T-1 line is much faster than my modem line. The next day I checked the site, and found that the page with the link to the broadcast had been pulled. It was replaced with a page describing what I missed.
I guessed that maybe the feed was still working, if I could find it again. Since it had been "pulled", network traffic might not be as bad, and I might get a clean copy of the concert. I then did what I call "digital dumpster diving" - using Explorer, I checked my "Windows/Temporary Internet Files" directory - the cache for web pages you view. I sorted it by date, and quickly found the previous day's version of the file - with the links. I tried the link from the earlier page and found it worked. I used Real Player to play and record the 47 minute concert - resulting in a 16 meg Real Media file.
I was getting close, but I still had a 16 meg Real Media file at work, and a CD burner at home. To get the file home, I used one of my "free web file space" accounts for the file transfer. I uploaded it to I-Drive - a nice free file space site with private and public folders (Free for All Pick #2).
I converted the 16 meg Real Media file to a Windows WAV file using Streambox Ripper. After expansion, it was a 500 meg WAV. I burned the WAV file onto a CD with Adaptec's EZ CD Creator.
It might sound complicated, or like a very long process, but the actual amount of my time was relatively small - start the download, come back later. Start converting from RA to WAV, take a shower, it's done when I came back. I probably spent less than 20 minutes overall, and now have a nice music CD of the concert. And it sounds great.
It isn't that hard - give it a shot. There's an amazing amount of good music on the web, ready for download.
This page, and all contents, are Copyright (C) 1999 by Michael A. Solinas.