[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

Read the following links for details of what you could have done at the time to solve your problem, how changes on the iPlayer website have since been made to block those solutions, and what other software exists to help you now -

http://streemeboxvcr.yuku.com/topic/2238:

You can record the BBC iPlayer (Radio and TV) using rtmpdump

Note: This post is optimised for Windows 98 / 98SE / ME.

Use RTMPdump v2.1d
(later versions don't work with Win98 / 98SE / ME)

RADIO SHOWS -

A. Download an MP4 file

MP4 files use AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), an audio format that gives better sound quality than MP3.


1. Open the BBC’s iPlayer website at the page that plays the radio show you want to download.

2. Note the 8-digit Programme ID (PID) contained in the page’s URL address. That address looks like the following, but has an 8-digit PID instead of 8 zeros:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/00000000

3. Type the following URL into the Address bar of your browser, replacing the 8 zeros with the eight-digit PID, to open an XML page in your browser:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/playlist/00000000

4. Type the following URL into the Address bar of your browser, replacing the 8 zeros with the 8-digit ID called "identifier" from the page you opened in step 3, then use the completed URL to open an XML page in the browser:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/mtis/stream/00000000

5. Copy-and-paste the string called HREF in the XML page you opened at step 4 (in the section marked "aac" and "bitrate=128") into the following command, in place of the string of zero's (but don't delete the quote marks):

rtmpdump -r "00000000000000000000000000000000000000000" -o filename.flv

You should copy-and-paste the completed command into a .BAT batch file; then put the batch file in the same directory (folder) as the program RTMPDUMP.EXE; then open an Internet connection; then run the batch file (i.e. double-click on it).


The above instructions will download a 34MB .FLV flash file, containing an MP4A (MP4 Audio) file encoded in AAC audio format, at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz, with an average bitrate of 128 kbps.

The FLV file plays in GOM Player v2.1.21.4846, and in Applian FLV Player v2.0. For Windows 9x, I recommend GOM Player.


If you'd prefer a smaller file, copy instead the href string in the "aac" section marked "bitrate=48" in the Media Selector page at step 5 above.



An Example -

This is for an imaginary radio show with the Programme ID (PID) b00s6492

A. The iPlayer page URL (contains the PID):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00s6492

B. The Playlist page URL (contains the PID):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/playlist/b00s6492

C. The Media Selector page URL (contains the "identifier"):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/mtis/stream/b00s630l

D. The RTMPdump command:
rtmpdump -r "rtmpt://bbcmedia.fcod.llnwd.net/a1414/e3/mp4: bbc7/secure_auth/RBN2_bbc7_-_wednesday_0130_b00s630l_2010_04_28_01_38_20?s=127 2518768&e=1272605168&h=6faf8376fbf02 ec82b0db6035ddb4653" -o filename.flv

Paragraph D is only an example. The string of characters between the quotation marks will be different every time, since this is the address of the particular file.



You can, optionally, then extract the mp4 audio file from the Flash wrapper -

A: Download and install the program FFMPEG which you can get from this link
(the file to download is the one called ffmpeg-r16537-gpl-shared-win32.tar.bz2
or get the latest version) - you’ll need an unzip program to open it called 7-zip

B: Once unzipped, the installer program will install FFMPEG.exe and five .DLL
files it needs (avcodec-52, avdevice-52, avformat-52, avutil-49 and swscale-0)
and it’s best to copy all those files to C:\ (the root directory of your hard disk)

C: Type this command to extract the mp4 audio stream from the Flash file -

C:\ffmpeg.exe -i "filename.flv" -acodec copy "output.mp4"




B. Download a WMA file

A 96 kbps file in Windows Media Audio (.WMA) format


1. Install the program RTMPdump.exe as detailed above, and also install the program SDP v2.0.0 (SDP Multimedia) by the Streaming Download Project.

2. Follow steps 1, 2, 3 and 4 in Part A above ("Download an MP4 file").

3. Find the section marked encoding="wma" in the XML page that opened in that last step. Then copy the asx link in that section (that link is called the href), and paste it into Windows Media Player 7: start that program, go to FILE > OPEN URL, then paste in the link, then click "OK".

That asx link will look like this example, but must be all on one line -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/4/asx/b00s378s/

iplayer_intl_stream_wma_uk_concrete

4. Start the radio show playing, then save its url address in a playlist: go to
FILE > EXPORT PLAYLIST TO FILE and save a .asx playlist file to the Desktop.

5. Open that playlist file with a text editor (e.g. Notepad), and look for a link similar to this:

mms://wm-acl.bbc.co.uk/wms/bbc7coyopa/bbc7_-_monday_0000.wma

6. Copy-and-paste the link you've found into the program SDP Multimedia v2.0.0, to download the radio show as a .wma (Windows Media Audio) file:

(1) Start the SDP program
(2) Go to FILE > OPEN and paste in the mms string, then click "OK"
(3) Click "GO", type a file name in the box that opens, then click "save"



C. Download a RealAudio file

A 44 kbps file in RealAudio (.RA) format


1. Install the program StreamboxVCR

2. Follow steps 1, 2, 3 and 4 in Part A above ("Download an MP4 file").

3. Find the section marked encoding="real" in the XML page that opened in that last step. Then copy the ram link in that section (that link is called the href). The link will look similar to this example, but must be all on one line -

[codel]http://www.bbc.co.uk//iplayer/aod/playlists/s8/73/s0/0b/RadioBridge_intl_2300_bbc_7.ram[/code]

4. Copy the link, and paste it into Streambox Vcr, to download the radio show as an .ra (RealAudio) file:

(1) Start the program called StreamBox VCR 1.0 beta 31smf+ turbo
(2) Go to EDIT > PASTE LINK and paste the link in the 'Location' box, & click "OK"

http://www.google.com/search?q=bbcmedia.fcod.llnwd.net/a1414/e3/