Chip 2004 February

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============================================================================ = = ====== ASFRecorder V1.1 - STILL DOWNLOADING STREAMING CONTENT! ;-) ====== = = ============================================================================ Thank you for reading this! Reading makes you smart. Smart people don't have dumb questions. If you still have problems, ask fellow users at http://pub18.ezboard.com/basfrecorder This is an update - or "service release" to ASFRecorder V1.0. If you are new to this software and do not know its features, then skip the first section and start with the "General Announcements" section. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- News ticker ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft has just released version 8 of their audio and video codecs. This makes me expect us to see a much improved audio and video quality in many broadband video clips soon. This is yet another reason why providers should really start to use DRM to protect their rights NOW!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's new to V1.1 ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The most important "news" is that this is going to be the FINAL RELEASE of this software. No further updates and fixes will be performed by the original author. It is very likely that I will decide to even shut down the home page in a few months. * ASFRecorder V1.1 now has a HTTP proxy support (fully configurable in the GUI). * Support for accessing password-protected streams has been added. Username and password must be known, of course. Don't use stolen passwords! This is illegal. * ASFRecorder now saves live-content as fully seekable streams (which unfortunately only works correctly with Media Player 6.4, and *not* with version 7.0). See the FAQ on how to use Media Player 6.4 even if you have previously installed the 7.0 update! * An incompatibility with certain streams using a packetized or "split" header has been fixed (which occurs in some audio-only streams using small packets, e.g. audio books or narrow band radio). * Resuming an incomplete stream will no longer result in corrupt streams if ASFRecorder has previously been terminated by a system crash or a "forced close" of the Windows DOS box. * ASFRecorder V1.0 transmitted a static client GUID to the media server when connecting. This has been replaced by a randomized GUID. So the server log files can no longer be specifically scanned for accesses with ASFRecorder. * Handling of %-Escape sequences in URLs is now done properly (I hope). The program now removes disallowed characters from file names (for the Windows platform). * And finally, the "About Box" has been brushed up a little. By the way, it took no longer than three days to implement the new features and update the documentation. I almost forgot: There's a new "episode" of Star Trek Voyager in the header of asfrecorder.c ;-) Please note that command line arguments have become case-sensitive in this program version (to allow to distinguish between the -p and -P options). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What has happened since the release of V1.0 ? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This product has found some quite impressive media echo. The German c't magazine (that is _the_ computer magazine for technically skilled users in Germany) featured this programm on a full page. ZDFMSNBC (german TV homepage, in cooperation with MSN) published a huge online-article on this program, including a statement of a Microsoft spokesman which was hillariously funny to read. The home page of ASFRecorder is striving towards 100,000 hits since it opened in mid of 2000. And this is remarkable for a poorly designed home page with static content. The program is listed on dozens of freeware and software pages throughout the world. Several "fans" have created mirrors of my home page or even designed tutorial and instruction pages for this software. Even Linux user groups (e.g. FreshMeat) have listed this software in their archive. What I personally consider most funny is that when I look at the access logfiles, I find that employees of companies like Walt Disney, NASA, Fujitsu, Lucent, Siemens, Microsoft, etc. have visited my site. Hey, the NASA and even Microsoft is using my program - so it must be good. ;-) By the way, if I had intended to smuggle a backdoor or trojan into the Microsoft campus, I probably would have succeeded. Hmmm, excessive private surfing at the work place is in fact a problem - but not my problem. ;-) Just to make that point clear: My ASFRecorder distribution does not contain a virus, backdoor or trojan, which you can also verify by looking at the source code and by applying a virus scanner. Any reactions from the Industry? Well, both the US patent office and the German patents office took a sneek on the homepage, but that's it. No further reactions. The home page mirrors have not been forced to close. The FBI hasn't knocked on my door (yet) ;-) And the Streaming Media Industry is still ignoring the need for introducing DRM solutions. Most of the content is still fully accessible using this recording tool, even the content featured on windowsmedia.com! The Windows Media Group knows about this software, but as far as I know they seem to ignore this "problem". In fact, the release of this software wasn't much of a bad thing for Microsoft, because: - it makes the ASF/WMA format more common and popular, being an "allround media format" (like AVI, MOV or MP3). The fact that ASF files are now "traded" in file sharing systems (Scour, GNUTella, etc..) contributes to the success of the Media Player versus its arch enemies RealPlayer and QuickTime. - Microsoft now has better arguments for establishing and selling their Digital Rights Management solutions which will clearly give them a stronger position in future markets. What I didn't expect at all was a tempting job offer that I got from a company in the streaming media business. No, not from Microsoft's Windows Media Group ;-) But from one of the major players in the web hosting and streaming services. So in the future, I will focus on making streaming more secure, reliable and enjoyable for both the end users and the providers, which also implies I will have to quit working on this project. This means that there will never be any Unicast TCP or UDP support in ASFRecorder, unless someone else decides to continue this project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- General announcements ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This tool is distributed freely with full source code included. The author wants to remain anonymous. Source code may be used and changed as you like. Use this program at your own risk. No warranties for correct function can be given. This document in some parts expresses the personal opinion of the author as an individual with the rights to speak, think and express himself freely. Please excuse any typing errors or grammatical deficiencies in this text. Please spread and mirror this program on many sites. From the author's point of view, there is nothing illegal about this particular program and its distribution archive (see legal section for details). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- So what is this all about? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This tool enables you to download streaming content in Windows Media Format to your hard drive. The resulting files will be in ASF format and can be played with Windows Media Player and derived tools. You may call this the "DeCSS" for Windows Media - although neither any serious reverse-engineering nor any particular knowledge about protcols was necessary to program this simple application. Development time overall: several hours for a first, working streaming code and some more days for general performance tweaking, cross-platform portability, the Windows graphical user interface and the XML (redirection file) parser. For program usage: See below ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The impact on the music and streaming industry? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Until now, most people thought Microsoft streaming media cannot be saved or copied... This program creates the possibility to DOWNLOAD LEGACY AND COPYRIGHTED CONTENT - live or pre-recorded - from any Microsoft streaming media server that offers HTTP streaming. This has the potential to make some headlines in the news (which it actually did in some publications). Now content providers will have to seriously reconsider their policy to provide high-quality, legacy content using non-encrypted, non-authenticated and generally insecure data channels. I am talking about content providers offering music videos, recordings of concerts and TV broadcasts in "high bandwidth" (300kbit/s and 700kbit/s) video. Same applies to streaming audio. There is virtually no difference to offering opyrighted MP3 files for public download on a freely accessible server. HELLO CONTENT PROVIDERS! YOUR CONTENT CAN BE AS EASILY COPIED AS IT CAN NOW BEEN DOWNLOADED FROM YOUR SERVERS! WOULD YOU MIND COPY-PROTECTING THIS CONTENT, PLEASE? HELLO MUSIC INDUSTRY AND ARTISTS! THE CONTENT PROVIDERS ARE CURRENTLY GIVING AWAY YOUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN AN INSECURE, NON COPY-PROTECTED DATA FORMAT. JUST LIKE MP3! THESE ASF FILES CAN BE DOWNLOADED AND COPIED WITHOUT ANY PHYSICAL RESTRICTION. WHAT CAN CONTENT PROVIDERS DO ABOUT IT ? - Disable HTTP and TCP streaming? Wouldn't really help. UDP streaming could also be recorded by a program similar to this. - Switch from Microsoft to RealMedia products? Not much difference. I am pretty sure the RealMedia servers have exactly the same vulnerabilities in their streaming protocols. - Finally start using digital rights management and authentification methods offered by Windows Media? I hope so. This would make an attack like this very difficult. Windows Media is not generally insecure. It does in fact offer digital rights management and encryption methods. Get yourself informed. WHAT CAN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY DO ABOUT IT ? - Pull back from the internet business? Bad idea. Would give MP3 pirating a serious boost. - Force content providers to use secure methods for providing their streams? I hope so. WHAT CAN MICROSOFT DO ABOUT IT ? - Try to find out who wrote this program and sue him? Bad idea - from the author's point of view. - Inform content providers and the music industry about how to correctly encode media streams and configure servers so that the content cannot be downloaded and copied _that_ easily? Yeah, good idea. - Implement an effective authentification mechanism to make sure only Media Player and no other program can access the data streams? Why didn't they do it already? It would have made this attack impossible. Does it always require a "LOVELETTER.vbs" or a tool like this to prove that some Microsoft products are unsafe/insecure (when incorrectly used)? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some advantages/special features of this utility ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- * With this utility it is possible to download high-quality (high bandwith) content using a low-bandwidth connection (e.g. modem) for later and repeated replay. * You can record live video content from web cams and internet broadcasts that you can't record otherwise. * The code is written in portable ANSI-C, so it can be compiled on many operating systems. The INTEL byte-ordering of the data stream is processed in a system-independent manner. Only the GUI code is windows-specific and is limited to a Windows platform. Download a stream at university/at work on Unix systems and enjoy it at home on your PC. * This tool is using a HTTP streaming protocol. HTTP is a connection-oriented protocol based on TCP. The protocol layer has built in error correction (ARQ). So packet loss does not have any influence on visual or acoustic quality of the downloaded stream. You will always get the same quality that the source stream on the media server can offer. * HTTP streaming passes most firewalls. UDP does not. That is the only reason why it was implemented by Microsoft. * This utility supports automatic resuming of an interrupted download. * This utility does _not_ send detailed information about your computer system to the media server, as the Windows Media Player does (monitor the packet traffic for a HTTP transmission and see yourself, if you don't believe me) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Usage as a stand-alone Windows application ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Windows GUI offers a simple player interface. It can play a variety of media file formats. Actually it can show any media file that your installed DirectShow (also called ActiveMovie) drivers can play. The buttons - from left to right - are as follows: - Play - Pause - Stop - Preview Stream - Cancel Transfer There is no volume control and no fast-forward or rewind button. However, you can reposition the stream using the position slider. The most interesting part is the "Open URL" option. Just type the URL of a media file on a Windows Media Server (it must offer HTTP streaming at this time!) and hit the "Okay" button. After a short time -assuming that the stream is available- ASFRecorder will prompt you for a file name to save the stream to. You can select an appropriate destination directory and file name for your stream. ASFRecorder will remember the 25 last recently accessed URLs. To resume an aborted download, just request the stream again and specify the very file that contains the partial stream. Your download will then resume. Note that you cannot currently resume live streams. Always specify a new file or you will lose your old live recording. During download you will see a progress indicator in the status bar and on the slider. You may preview the stream while download is in progress. However you can only preview the stream up to the position that has been downloaded so far (as indicated on the slider). During downloads, you do have the possibility to replay any other media file that resides on your hard drive. By hitting the "preview" button again you can return to the stream you are currently downloading. The program's status bar gives you the following information: - Received kilobytes so far - Percentage of stream so far - current Timestamp in stream (d:h:m:s.ms) - Data chunk sequence number - Program status information The program supports drag & drop, but only one file at a time. Drag & drop with URLs from Internet Explorer is currently not supported yet. You can configure a HTTP proxy server if you are situated behind a firewall. Just use the "Proxy Server" menu item in the Settings menu. Before complaining about the too simple and non-flexible player interface, please keep in mind that this program is a quick hack that was finished in about one-week by an author who started with very little Windows API and GUI programming knowledge. And, besides the player functionality has only been added for a quick preview of the streams. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Usage from a Web Browser (Windows platform only) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The program has the ability to register as default application for the so called "redirector files". These files have the file extension .asx, .wax, .wvx and .wmx. Redirector files usually contain references to the actual stream URL. By registering ASFRecorder as a standard application for these files, the program will be launched every time you click on a link to any WindowsMedia stream in your web browser and it will immediately begin to download the stream. The Windows Media Player will, however, remain the standard player for your downloaded streams (ASF, WMA, WMV). So by clicking on these files the Media Player will be used for replay. That is because it offers a much better player interface than ASFRecorder. You may any time restore the previous settings by unregistering ASFRecorder as the standard application for the redirector files. Then Windows Media Player regains full control. At this point, it is not possible to intercept streams that are replayed on web sites that embed the Media Player into the web page. For downloading these streams, you have to access the "File/Properties" menu of the embedded Media Player to get the URL of the stream. An alternative is to look at the web page's source code to find out what stream URL is referenced. For more details, see the section "How to find out the stream URL in Webpage-embedded Media Players". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Usage from a shell console (all platforms) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- asfrecorder -a <user:passwd> -P <proxy:port> -p <port> -m <recording time> -e <one or more stream references or URLs> -r -d -b NEW IN VERSION 1.1: Command line options are case sensitive! (-p, -P) A <stream reference> is an URL pointing to a http:// or mms:// stream in Windows Media streaming format. The only streaming protocol currently supported by this utility is HTTP streaming. Proxy servers are currently not supported. You can also specify a <stream reference> that is an ASX, WVX, WAX or WMX file on your hard drive. The program will then download all the stream references specified in these files. You may also use DOS wild cards (?,*) in order to batch-download the streams referenced by a large number of ASX files. By specifying several files or URLs, you can do batch downloads. For disabling blocking GUI operations like the "Save As" file dialog, you have to use the -b option (see some paragraphs below for a detailed description). Some examples of using ASFRecorder asfrecorder -b mms://server.com/coolstream.asf C:\Movie_Trailer.asx asfrecorder -b *.asx Valid URLs may start with http:// or mms:// or straightforward with the server name. Some syntactically correct - but purely fictional - URLs are: http://content.provider.com/any/number/of/subdirectories/streamfile.asf mms://any.media.provider.com:80/example.asf my.favourite.provider.com/streamfile.asf -a <user:passwd> is used to provide a user name and password for a user authentification process. So you can finally download content that you have paid for. Most of you guys requesting that feature probably want porn ;-) Note that this password is used on all supplied stream references. It cannot be changed individually for each reference (like the -m and -p option, for example) -P <proxy> tells the program to access a proxy server. By specifying a proxy server, you can access streams even if you are situated behind a firewall that does not allow a direct HTTP connection. The correct syntax for the proxy specification is "http://proxy.at.my.institute:8080" where http:// may be omitted. Note that, your institute or organization will actually use a a different server or port number. -p <portnum> is an optional parameter where you can specify a different port number than 80 (which is the default port number used by HTTP). This option does not currently work in conjunction with the -P (proxy) option. -r enables creation of a raw output file. This dumps the raw contents received on the HTTP connection to your hard drive. The resulting raw file is not a valid ASF file! This option is probably only useful for debugging, programming or reverse-engineering purposes. -d enables dumping the full HTTP client request and server replies to the console. This is for programmers and for technically interested people who want to find out how the media server works. -b enables batch mode. It will stop the GUI from asking for a file name. The stream files will all be saved to the current directory. Dialogs showing critical errors will be replaced by a message in the status bar. -m specifies the maximum recording time in minutes. This is useful for live streams which you want to record unattended. By using a task scheduling tool you can start the recording at a given time. Record network events, TV shows and radio programs even while you are asleep or not at home. The -p and -m parameters are defining the port/time for all following stream references. You can change these options inbetween the stream references. asfrecorder -m 30 tvshow.asx -m 0 mms://server/stream.asf This will first record 30 minutes of a tv program (asx file resides on disk), followed by a second stream without any time restriction. The 0 disables any previously given time limit. asfrecorder -a jeff:joshua -P proxy.domain:1234 mms://nude.com/chicks.asf This is an example of downloading some "nude chicks" that are protected with a user/password authorization using a proxy server. Of course all these parameters are purely fictional. -e defines the following stream references as referencing the same content, although this content may be available from different servers. The purpose of this flag is to download only one of these references and ignore the rest. asfrecorder -e URL1 URL2 URL3 -e URL3 URL4 This will download URL1 and ignore URL2 and URL3 if URL1 was available. Otherwise URL2 will be tried. If URL2 was unavailable, URL3 will be tried. The second -e flag specifies another group of URLs. So URL3 will be tried in any case, but URL4 only if URL3 was not available ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to find out the stream URL in Webpage-embedded Media Players ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Move the mouse over the embedded player window and use the right mouse button to pop up the context menu of the Media Player. Select Properties. Click the "Show" (or "Clip") tab. In the Location field you will find the server and directory name. To the right of the item is the ASX or ASF stream name. Now merge the server and stream name to get a complete URL (like this). mms://servername/optional/directories/streamname.asf Enter this URL into ASFRecorder (File/Open URL...) or pass it as a command line argument and here we go... *** Alternative #1: Click into the frame that contains the embedded Media Player. Right-click and select "View Source". Now Notepad (or similar) will pop up. Search for an URL reference that contains either .asf or .asx. Copy and paste this into the "Open URL" dialog of ASFRecorder and here we go.... I am sure that you will find out how it will work for many other sites. You might also find some sites where it wont't work at all ;-) *** Alternative #2: Some ASX redirector files must be downloaded because clicking on the links does not bring up ASFRecorder even if the redirector file types have been registered. In Internet explorer, use the right mouse button to show the link's context menu and select "Save Link As...". I suggest you save the ASX file to your desktop and double-click it there. Now ASFRecorder will do its job. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions and Answers on Program Operation (FAQ) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Why does the audio/video preview sometimes stop while download is still in progress? Why can't I restart the replay using the play button then? A: In this case, move the position slider backwards (just a little bit) and press the "Play" button again. By moving the position slider, you force DirectShow to recognize the new end-of-file position. Technical Background: DirectShow will play the incomplete ASF file which has been written to disk so far. Sometimes the "WindowsMedia source filter" (built into DirectShow) encounters the end of that file. It will remember this end-of-file position, regardless of whether ASFRecorder has already downloaded and appended some new data to that file. Even if you press "Play" again, DirectShow still thinks the end of the file is at the same position and won't play. Q: Video and/or audio preview does not work in ASFRecorder! A: It might be that you are missing the DirectShow/ActiveMovie transform filters that are required for playing WindowsMedia. First, try reinstalling the full Windows Media Player 6.4 distribution archive. If this still does not help, install the "Windows Media Tools" that can be obtained on the Microsoft web site. Have a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/windowsmedia/ or http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/ (see the "Downloads" page) Q: When starting the program, I only receive the message "missing DLL export API WSAEnumEvents", "A required DLL is missing (ws2_32.dll)" or similar. A: You seeem to have Windows 95 OSR 1 installed. Your ws2_32.dll (WinSock) is too old or not existing. You need to install the latest WinSock2 DLL. The update archive can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/wuadmintools/s_wunetworkingtools/w95sockets2/?RLD=114 The download is approximately 960kb in size. You will need to reboot in order to complete the installation. The filename is "W95ws2setup.exe" In case this URL should become outdated, try to search for "WinSock" on the Microsoft web site and find the link to the Windows 95 update. Q: My friends using Windows 98 or 2000 do get a fancy color gradient in the main window, but my program window looks quite monochrome. Why that? A: You are missing the "msimg32.dll". You can get this DLL from "The DLL archive" on the Internet. The URL is: http://solo.abac.com/dllarchive/M.html After downloading, put it either in your WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory or copy it into the ASFRecorder program directory. Now you should get that fancy color gradient as well. Be warned: The effect may render quite slowly. Q: I have a fast connection to the internet! Why does the stream arrive at a constant, low data rate? A: That's the concept of streaming. The stream is sent by the server at exactly the data rate that is necessary for realtime replay. So a 56kbit stream will arrive at a constant rate of 56kbit, no matter how fast your internet uplink is. Q: Can downloading be accellerated? A: Depends on the server. There is a RATE specification in the HTTP header used for requesting the stream (see source code). Modifying this RATE to anything different than 1.0 makes most servers reply with an error message of "500 - internal server error". So you are limited to the stream's original data rate. However you can request and download different streams at the same time - until your available bandwidth is consumed. Q: During replay, when moving the position slider, seeking within the stream is very slow. What is the problem? A: A Windows Media server does not transmit the index data of the ASF files. This index data is required for fast seeking in the stream. You can, however generate a new index for the ASF files after download. Therefore you have to obtain the Windows Media Tools from Microsoft and use the "ASF Indexer" to generate a new index. Windows Media Player 7.0 even completely refuses to seek in downloaded video streams. The position slider will just pop back to the position where it was before. I suggest you better use Windows Media Player 6.4. Q: I have already installed Windows Media Player 7.0 - how can I downgrade to version 6.4? A: You don't have to downgrade because Windows Media Player 6.4 is still present on your system. You will find it in the Windows Media Player directory as "mplayer2.exe". Create a shortcut on the desktop pointing to this executable and you can start the Media Player 6.4 when needed. Using the "Execute..." command in the start menu with "mplayer2.exe" as argument works as well. Q: I receive the error code "connect() failed: CONNREFUSED" or "404 - NOT FOUND" for streams on some servers. Why this? A: Bummer. The server does not allow access using the HTTP streaming protocol. Besides prohibiting access for most users behind a firewall, this does also prohibit access for the ASFRecorder utility. Give up trying and download a different stream on a different server. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions and Answers on Safety and Protocols ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Is this a "crack" of Windows Media? A: No. This is not a crack. This program is just a simple client application that receives streaming data and stores it on hard drive. The program looks like a standard "Windows Media Player" to the media server on the other end. It was not necessary to break any security or encryption barriers for obtaining the raw stream data. The protocol used for streaming is very simple and based on HTTP - a standard protocol used for the "word wide web". And that is the scandal about all this. Why does the music industry complain about the MP3 piracy when - at the same time - they offer equal content in a similar, equally unsafe manner? Q: Is Windows Media unsafe? Why is it possible to simply download the streams? A: This is not a problem with Microsoft or Windows Media in general. The Windows Media Toolkit does in fact offer possibilities for digital rights management and secure, authenticated and even encrypted channels. The problem is with the lazyness of the content providers. Very few companies actually use the available options of digital rights management and encryption. Q: Will you ever implement the Unicast TCP and UDP protocols in ASFRecorder? A: I do possess the knowledge to do that and there is already a prototype implementation. However, I do not intend to use this technology in the context of recording streams (now I virtually hear a dozen of Microsoft executives and developers breathing out in relief). Work on ASFRecorder has been terminated. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Questions and Answers on Legal and Copyright Issues ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: Does this tool infringe any Microsoft patents? A: From my point of view: A definitive No! This tool was developed using neither the Microsoft Format SDK nor the Windows Media Tools SDK. The licensing conditions of these SDKs do not apply here. In order to save the ASF files to a storage medium, no specific knowledge about the inner ASF file structure was needed. Basically the data is saved in the very same format as it arrives on the HTTP connection. The only thing that needs to be determined by this tool is the segment (chunk) size for saving syntactically correct ASF files. Microsoft does claim a patent on the ASF file format in the United States and possibly in other countries as well. There has been at least one successful attempt to reverse engineer the ASF format by a GNU software author. The program I am talking about is VirtualDub 1.3 by Avery Lee. By threatening him with legal action, Microsoft has forced the author to remove support for loading ASF media files because of the programs ability to transcode these media files to AVI format. You can find a nice article about all this on the following URL: http://www.advogato.org/article/101.html But as I told you, it was not really necessary to reverse-engineer the ASF file format in this case. I still know very little about the format itself. The program just saves it to disk. Q: Is it legal to use this tool? A: That depends on what content you actually download with this tool. If it is copyrighted content and if the download is expressly prohibited by the content provider, you are acting in an illegal manner. Q: So is it legal to download and distribute this tool? A: Yes. This is a very simple tool using a very simple internet protocol. It does NOT break any encryption or authentification procedure. So I don't see any point why this program could be illegal. Download, copy and spread as you like, THIS PROGRAM AND ITS SOURCE CODE IS LEGAL. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bugs and limitations of this utility ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are welcome to fix the following (potential) problems in this program: Problems that remain are: * ASFRecorder cannot capture TCP/UDP-only streams (and probably never will). If you get a "CONNREFUSED" or "404 - NOT FOUND" message, you know that this stream cannot be accessed with ASFRecorder. * ASFRecorder works for WindowsMedia only (no RealMedia, no QuickTime). * ASFRecorder cannot handle streams with variable packet sizes (I personally never encountered such a stream, so they must be quite rare). * In some cases, ASFRecorder responds with "200 - OK", but doesn't download a stream. In this case, try to download the .ASX file with your browser and open it with ASFRecorder (e.g. use drag & drop or double-click the file after you have registered the ASX file type for ASFRecorder). Sometimes, manually editing the ASX file (or extracting the .asf reference by hand) will help. * In the command line version, you still cannot override the output filename for the stream. * The GUI still isn't very "De Luxe" and the player functionality sucks. * Recording of live streams cannot currently be resumed. So you better specify a different target file for the ASF stream. Otherwise your old file will be overwritten. * Will probably fail on copy-protected streams that require a license to stream or play. * Will fail if the server allows TCP/UDP streaming only. Error message in this case: connect() failed: "CONNREFUSED" or "404 - NOT FOUND". * Might fail on some streams that make use of yet unknown extensions or a different header layout of the file or streaming protocol. * Does not show plaintext strings for network errors in the console version. * The program is only working properly for streams up to 4 GB in size. It is not possible to allow processing of larger files without losing cross-platform (ANSI-C) compatiblity. * The GUI only offers a very simple player interface. Other players are much more powerful and flexible. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- My personal wish list of program-features ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following features did not make it into this program, because of time restrictions. I wanted to get a working release on the way as quickly as possible. You are welcome to implement these features: * A video preview area inside the main window (like in Media Player or RealPlayer) * A full screen mode for the video preview and a volume slider. * Internet URL Drag & Drop support for the main window. * Tooltips for the buttons/status bar in the main window ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Program compilation ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the header section of the source file "asfrecorder.c" you will find some instructions for compilation on different platforms. The program is known to compile on Linux, SunOS, CygWin/Windows and Visual C++. The GUI version can only be built on the Windows platform. You do NOT need a commercial compiler like MS Visual C++ to build this fancy little program! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to setup the free GCC compiler on Windows ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are two basic steps of installation for the compiler and required libraries and it won't cost you a single penny! 1) Just get the CygWin B20.1 package from Cygnus (it's free!). It offers Unix functionality in Console (aka DOS) windows. You should be used to working in Unix/Linux environments in order to feel at home in the CygWin bash shell. The CygWin B20.1 package is installed using a setup utility. I recommend to install the following packages (binary archives only) * CygWin system and shell cygwin-1.1.2, ash, bash * the basic Unix shell tools fileutils, shellutils, textutils, less, grep, gzip, tar * tools for displaying and formatting man and info pages man, groff, texinfo * The compiler, linker and make utility binutils, gcc, make If you are familiar with Unix, you may want to install some more, depending on your needs and requirements. Download the documents archive (cygwin-docs.tar.gz) from the Documentation link on the CygWin home page. I suggest you read the doc "cygwin-ug-net.pdf" file to get a quick introduction into CygWin and its basic configuration. 2) Now get the free Win32 headers and libraries and install these in your lib and include directory (simply by untar'ing the archive into the root '/' directory) 3) And now the easy part: Compilation! After changing into the asfrecorder directory, a single "make" should be sufficient to compile my baby in both the GUI and the console version. Where to get all this fine and free software: --------------------------------------------- *** Get CygWin B20.1 here: http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/ On the FTP mirror sites you will find the "latest" directory. This contains a file called SETUP.EXE - using this SETUP.EXE you can install the complete CygWin package either from internet or from the current directory (given that you downloaded all the packages that are of interest to you) Just have a look how many unix tools and applications have been ported to the CygWin environment! (http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/ported.html) *** Get the latest Win32 headers here (required for compilation!) ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/cygwin/gcc-2.95.2/ Internet resources about using GCC on Windows ---------------------------------------------- For compiling programs that are able to run without the CygWin environment, use the -mno-cygwin compiler option. A HOWTO text file on this topic can be downloaded from: http://www.xraylith.wisc.edu/~khan/software/gnu-win32/mno-cygwin-howto.txt A very detailed FAQ about mingw is also available from: http://www.mingw.org/mingwfaq.shtml Colin Peters offers an excellent tutorial on building Win32 programs with GCC on his hompage (http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/6162/win32.zip) http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Towers/6162/gcc.html Did you know that you can even compile DirectX programs and games with GCC? DirectX 6.1 headers/libraries for GCC are available from: http://pws.prserv.net/thefortins/cyg-directx.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Who is the author of this program? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The author is not willing to reveal his identity. Microsoft has already shown that they are not willing to let anyone tamper with their proprietary ASF media format (see the VirtualDub issue). It takes an American government to win a court trial against Microsoft. And besides this source code is really not an example of excellent programming style. So why should it be labelled with my name? In case anyone ever claims to have programmed this original release, you can be sure he is a liar. The author of this program is never going to reveal his identity. And that's for sure. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- What software was used to develop this tool? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - The CygWin32 platform (available for free from Cygnus Solutions, Inc.) Used as development environment. I don't trust VisualC++, it might leave behind some GUIDs and fingerprints in the EXE file. - GNU C compiler (gcc). Used for compilation on Windows and on SUN platform. - Windows Packet capture library and Network Analyzer 2.02 (available for free from the University Politecnico di Torino, Italy) Used for spying on network protocols and packets. - frhed A free (non-shareware, non-commercial) HEX editor. Used for getting a peek on streamed and locally stored ASF files. - Windows Media Player. For playing and testing ASF downloaded streams. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other recommended software ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You will find the following software on the web using appropriate search engines like AltaVista and FTP search. - VirtualDub 1.3c (try "virtual dub" and "virtualdub" in the search engines) allows conversion of ASF files to AVI format. This is no software that is easy to use. Important: The current version 1.3d no longer supports the ASF file format. So get the 1.3c version (not available from the author's web site anymore) - Shuffler Music converter (available on www.illustrate.org) allows transcoding of WMA files to MP3 (might not work with copy-protected content, but most providers do not set the copyright bit in their streams) You may need to rename ASF streams to WMA for transcoding them. This tool is open source as well (for Borland CPP). The tool can rip audio data from combined audio/video streams, but generally takes too much processor time (makes system unusable during conversion). - PAM (available on http://pam.au-ja.de/, also listed on CNETs winfiles.com) Nice audio/video player. Supports ASF video. Has playlist management and can be "skinned" like WinAmp. It's free software. A slight disadvantage is the fact that it was written in VisualBasic and is sometimes slow. - WinAmp (get it on www.winamp.com) for playing streaming or downloaded WMAs and ASFs, however this tool is limited to audio. Video in ASFs will be ignored. - DivX video codec (a hacked version of Microsofts MPEG 4 video codec). Records and plays MPEG4 data to/from AVI files. Could be useful for transcoding the ASF files to different formats. Writing a transcoder does require a profound programming knowledge and further reverse-engineering of the ASF format. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some recommended streaming media web sites ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are far more Windows Media streaming web sites on the Internet, so this list represents only a small selection: www.windowsmedia.com - for a comprehensive selection of streaming Windows media content on the web. Links to many other sites. www.montreuxjazz.com - Get a recording of the world's greatest jazz festival in 2000! The highlight is a Deep Purple gig lasting two hours. Footage of two weeks of concerts on three different stages are available (up to 300 kbit/s). www.cinemapop.com - Get complete movies (predominantly movie classics like Bonanza). Has a members and a guest section. Movies in the guest section are very old. However, by guessing the ASF references, even non-members can download the member movies (up to 300 kbit/s). www.launch.com - A lot of WindowsMedia streaming music videos here. 7000 videos at up to 300 kbit/s are accessible. If you disable cookies in your browser, you can even download more than 1 trial video without having to sign up as a member. www.centerseat.com - offers music videos, movie trailers and much more. www.vidnet.com - for streaming music videos and movie trailers etc... www.streambox.com - a search engine and catalog for streaming media files on the web. The majority of content is for the Real Player, but you can also find downloadable ASF streams there. www.sonixradio.de - pretty cool audio streams (techno mixes from various DJ's), 32kbit/sec WMA stereo. Approximately 1 hour or 12-16 MB per stream. www.jamtv.tunes.com - This site rocks! Excellent broadband music videos, live streams and webcast archives. Be sure to check out the "videos / broadband videos" section!. More web sites are be recommended by fellow users on this message board: http://pub18.ezboard.com/basfrecorder Any user input is welcome! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Does this program have a future? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I do not intend to continue working on this project. But the sourcecode is available and I hope many programmers will try to improve this program. Unfortunately, there has been little feedback from skilled programmers so far. Just some ideas and recommendations: * Create an ActiveX control, that "wraps around" the Windows Media Player ActiveX control and forwards the URL to ASFRecorder. This allows a very convenient recording from web pages that embed the Media Player in the page. * Please support this program on your home page. Spread, upload and distribute it as quickly as you can. Please keep the distribution archive UNINFECTED of any viruses and backdoors. * Can _you_ do it with Real Networks? Who does the first working release? Let's start a contest! You will only have to rewrite or expand the networking code. The GUI already exists - it only needs minor modifications. * Translate this README.TXT to your native language. Translate the GUI to your native language. I am sorry for not using unicode for the strings. Also, I did not put all the strings into the resource file. Oops. * Add code for a cool Macintosh or X11 (KDE) GUI. Now as Media Player 7.0 beta is available for Mac, a Macintosh port of ASFRecorder is a really cool idea. * Write a Media player clone or a Media player shell with a record button. * Write a proxy server for pre-recorded streaming content. It could be used at universities and network backbones to reduce network traffic a lot. * Write a better GUI than mine and add a media mangement tool for downloaded content (like RealJukebox or MusicMatch Jukebox). * Monitor UDP traffic and adapt this program to the UDP streaming protocol used by Microsoft. I am pretty sure the data frame format must be very similar to the one used in HTTP streaming. Recording UDP data requires to arrange incoming packets in the right order before saving (use the seq. number for sorting). Packet loss could be compensated by re-requesting any missing portions of the stream. * Write your own - maybe platform independend - streaming media server for HTTP and/or UDP streaming Windows Media content (wow, what a nightmare for Microsoft), although I don't really see a point in it. The RTSP protocol is an open, non-proprietary streaming protocol standard and probably much better. * Modify the source code to simultaneously request several fragments of a single stream. This allows faster access to this stream, allowing to download at any multiple of the stream's original data rate (assuming your own and the content provider's internet connection offers enough bandwith) * If you are the hacker-type guy, then you might be interested in finding more vulnerabilities in the Windows Media format (clearing copyright bits, breaking authentification and encryption, hacking windows media DLLs etc) * Write a transcoding tool (WMA to MP3, ASF/WMV to AVI or MPEG). However, be warned: If you base this work on Microsoft's Windows Media or Audio SDK, you are violating their SDK lincense conditions. If you don't base your work on thir SDKs, you might get in conflict Microsoft's patents on the ASF file format. However I doubt that patents describing a simple file/ frame format are valid in every country or could be enforced everywhere. And finally... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- You have the permission to use my source code as a base for shareware or commercial development (It may be up to you to fight it out with Microsoft). May the source be with you. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Don't expect my name or signature here ;-)