Old freeware version of Net Transport no longer downloads RTSP .rm, .ra Real streams

[Rekrul]

I have NetTransport 1.87 installed, since that's the last freeware version. It USED to work fine. Now, whenever I try downloading an RTSP stream, an error message pops up in the log saying that there was an error writing to disk and that I should check my drive. It reconnects, downloads a little more and the same error comes up again.

No other program has reported any problems with my drive. Net Transport happily downloads MMS and HTTP URLs with no comlaints whatsoever. As soon as I feed it an RTSP URL, it starts complaining of disk errors.

I have tried multiple URLs, freeing more space on my drive so it's writing to a different area, uninstalling/reinstalling, but nothing makes a difference. Net Transport 1.87 will no longer download RTSP streams without continuously complaining of drive errors. I even tried downgrading to a lower version, but they all did the same thing.

I installed one of the newer versions, now called NetXFer and that worked fine. Then the trial period ran out and it stopped working.

I wrote to the author, but he never answered.

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Originally Posted by Rekrul

I have NetTransport 1.87 installed, since that's the last freeware version. It USED to work fine. Now, whenever I try downloading an RTSP stream, an error message pops up in the log saying that there was an error writing to disk and that I should check my drive. It reconnects, downloads a little more and the same error comes up again.

The developer suggested the following:

Delete the task and create a new to download it again.

Originally Posted by Rekrul

I wrote to the author, but he never answered.

It seemes like he didn't receive your e-mail. His reply to me was very fast.

Originally Posted by Rekrul

Then the trial period ran out and it stopped working.

Of course you should pay after trial period to make it work.

Also instead of recording using RTSP protocol you can sometimes use MMS or HTTP for windows media streams and PNM or HTTP for real media streams.

[Rekrul]

Originally Posted by Stream Recorder

The developer suggested the following:
Quote:
Delete the task and create a new to download it again.

I just tried it again. I don't encounter as many RTSP streams anymore, but I have a list of some that I saved from several years ago. One worked fine with no errors, another gave me the drive error after only a few seconds. I deleted the task and tried it about 5 times in row and got the same error every time.

Here are the URLs I used to test it;

rtsp://audio1.eonline.com/Features/Awards/Golden2002/gg2002rc.alba_weatherly.rm
rtsp://bible.ca:554/bible/tongues-brownsville-amy-ward.rm

The first works, the second gives me the error.

Here's a screenshot of what happens;



I don't even remember now why I wanted to download this video.

Note that the error occurs with URLs that downloaded fine in the past. It's also happened with every new URL I've tried. I don't have a list of them, but there were several that gave me the above error with 1.87, but which downloaded fine with Net Xfer. Since I downloaded the files, I didn't keep the URLs.

Update: I've been looking for more streams to test it on and coming up empty most of the time. It seems that since the appearance of Flash video, almost nobody uses Real anymore. Of the few that I did find, they seemed to download ok. I'm still curious though, why I get the above error on some URLs, but not others.

Originally Posted by Stream Recorder

Of course you should pay after trial period to make it work.

Yes, but I'm cheap. That's why I've been using the free version.

Originally Posted by Rekrul

Yes, but I'm cheap. That's why I've been using the free version.

The newest version of NetXFer works fine so I really doubt that some changes will be made to an old free one.

There are other free media stream recorders that support RTSP Real Media streams. One of them is Orbit Downloader. You may also try to find StreamboxVCR Suite 2.

As for stream URLs, they expire and disappear, but you can try to find the new ones using URL Finders or other methods to get stream URLs

[Rekrul]

Originally Posted by Stream Recorder

There are other free media stream recorders that support RTSP Real Media streams. One of them is Orbit Downloader. You may also try to find StreamboxVCR Suite 2.

Orbit downloader doesn't work under Windows 98SE. I've used Streambox VCR in the past and I never liked it. It was buggy and unstable. Half the streams I downloaded with it didn't play properly. I know the history of it and why it never went past beta, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not very reliable.

Originally Posted by Stream Recorder

I tried rtsp://bible.ca/bible/tongues-brownsville-amy-ward.rm, only 1 connection can work. This was downloaded by NetTransport 2.49. I hope he can use 2.49, because I stopped developping version 1.xx .

I just tried one connection in 1.87 and I still get a drive error, so it's not the number of connections.

I can't be the only person who kept using the last freeware version. Could someone else please try the above stream with Net Transport 1.87 and tell me if it reports phantom drive errors?

StreamboxVCR Suite 2 is not the software I recommend. But it is still much better than many other stream recorder despite the lack of any updates.

Not sure whether somebody uses the latest free version of NetTransport or not.

Here are a couple more programs you may try: VLC player and MPlayer

Originally Posted by Rekrul

I deleted the task and tried it about 5 times in row and got the same error every time.

Here are the URLs I used to test it;

rtsp://audio1.eonline.com/Features/Awards/Golden2002/gg2002rc.alba_weatherly.rm
rtsp://bible.ca:554/bible/tongues-brownsville-amy-ward.rm

The first works, the second gives me the error.

The reply from the developer of NetXFer:

I tried rtsp://bible.ca/bible/tongues-brownsville-amy-ward.rm, only 1 connection can work. This was downloaded by NetTransport 2.49. I hope he can use 2.49, because I stopped developping version 1.xx .

I've been using the freeware NetTransport for about 6 months and it's been great. However I've been having the same problem with RTSP, intermittently, for the last few weeks. The intermittent problem sometimes disappeared...I just kept killing the download and restarting, rebooting the PC, etc. ...until yesterday certain downloads fail consistently.

I tried the bible.ca... rtsp link mentioned above and saw the same problem described in the thread: error writing to file. It's the same problem I see when trying to download rtsp files from bbc.co.uk, e.g. rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/6music/6m_merchant.ra

If the author no longer supports the freeware version of nettransport there seems little point trying to figure out why it's become so flaky recently. I've started using Orbit downloader instead, it works fine and it's just as fast, so I can only recommend the same course of action.

Dear danc, as mentioned above, freeware older version of NetTransport have problems with some URLs. It is not supported so the only way to solve the problem is by buying it or some other media stream recorder.

You can also try some freeware rtsp:// real audio recorder like Orbit Downloader.