Re: How to use iView (ABC Australia) downloaders

Anywho · #**121** 08-15-2010, 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gxdata

Often, I find that I cannot download the previous day's ABC National News (this happens with The Midday Report, and with both the older Sydney Evening News and the current ABC National News).

I'm convinced it's not put up & left online for long, before it's removed so that the next day's bulletin is loaded to the server.

Yep. Looks like they rotate quickly with the ABC National News...

As an example, I just went to the iView website and tried to view the ABC National News for Saturday. It was 8pm here and the Program Info showed that it was uploaded 21 hours ago and only had an hour left before it expired. I went to watch it and I got the "Program is unavailable" message. So, even the info on their website was wrong!

I expect the same happens with the others you mention... We should perhaps chip in and buy them another hard drive seeing as they cannot afford to hold more than a day's worth of news programs at a time

gxdata · #**122** 08-15-2010, 07:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anywho

We should perhaps chip in and buy them another hard drive seeing as they cannot afford to hold more than a day's worth of news programs at a time

My observation is that it's an undiscplined, hit-and-miss operation. I'm sure they have plenty of resources for storage, etc - but the code maintenance is shoddy.

mce · #**123** 08-15-2010, 07:35 PM

The illegal character for "The Link" is a question mark in the file name.

Honestly, who puts question marks in file names... ABC have no idea.

So gxdata, is there any other programmes that are failing that I need to know about before updating iViewNapper?

It also fails in 'Lite as well, so I'll put a fix in there too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gxdata

Just a note about occasional problems with iView, where there are illegal characters etc in the title names or file names (I'm not sure which).

It seems this is a problem with iViewNapper (crashes / gives error 'illegal characters in path'), but the batch downloader manages to get the episodes successfully.

The latest of these is

Another was where Episode 3 is downloaded by the batch donlaoder OK.

For that one, I can recall that the filenames were The Fabulous Beekman Boys Series 1 Episode 3 -.mp4 / .srt (a dash/hyphen somewhere between the 3 and the period).

[Edit] Just found this gem as well: "The Fabulous Beekman Boys\tSeries 1"

gxdata · #**124** 08-15-2010, 09:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mce

... any other programmes that are failing that I need to know about before updating iViewNapper?

Not that I know of, but 3 of the SBS shows passed by without my being able to download them - see my posts on Whirlpool. I think one of 4 was actually available (of course I also test with the SBS Player / iView's player).

Can I request in your changes to iViewNapper that the SRT files be downloaded by default?

mce · #**125** 08-16-2010, 12:02 AM

iViewNapper and iViewNapperLite have been updated to version 20100816 and can be obtained from my website.

HeatVision · #**126** 08-16-2010, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Anywho

I couldn't get the "Lifehacker" method to work for Hulu. Still sees me as outside USA.

Thinking about it some more, how could it work? Comms between my ISP and the Hulu server would still show the originating source IP address (me in Aus.). How else would I be able to communicate with Hulu anyway?

Doing a check with this webpage confirms it. Note that the source IP is still your current IP address even if you spoof the "X-Forward-For" address. So all a streaming server has to do is look at the source IP and make the decision - I'm pretty sure this is how ABC does it (and how it calculates the authentication token).

So no, I don't think the LifeHacker method would work with iView.

[edit: I just tried the "X-Forward-For" address using an American IP address on the iView website and iView doesn't think I'm in Australia. How bizarre! Maybe it (LifeHacker method) will work for ABC iView. ]

You're confusing two separate things:
1. The Flash-based player does a geocheck before it starts playback (using http://www.abc.net.au/tv/geo/iview/geotest.xml)
2. The Flash Media Server does a completely separate geocheck when the RTMP connection is being established. If it fails then the stream is terminated with an error (code = NetConnection.Connect.Rejected, description = AccessManager.Reject: Access denied!)

The X-Forward-For header appears to be honoured by www.abc.net.au (running AkamaiGHost) but not cp53909.edgefcs.net (running Flash Media Server). So when you did the "Lifehacker method", the geocheck failed at step 1 and you saw the "overseas copyright" error. If you had somehow managed to continue past then point then you still would have been able to establish the RTMP connection because the geocheck would have succeeded at step 2.

The downloader programs skip step 1 completely and only do step 2 (after doing a separate HTTP request to retrieve the token). There is no geocheck on the token request nor is there a check that the token request and RTMP request originate from the same IP. This did not used to be the case - originally the geocheck was done during the token request and there was no check done by the Flash Media Server so therefore it was possible to use the X-Forward-For approach.

Therefore, as you said above, the only way to access iView programs from overseas is to use an Australian proxy or VPN. As far as I am concerned, their explanation of "copyright reasons" is absolute bollocks for the shows that the ABC actually creates themselves (I understand that there are special problems created by things such as news programs, where they are reproducing footage supplied to them by other agencies, but how can this apply to the 7:30 Report, Lateline, Australian Story, etc?).

Anywho · #**127** 08-17-2010, 12:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HeatVision

You're confusing two separate things:
1. The Flash-based player does a geocheck before it starts playback (using http://www.abc.net.au/tv/geo/iview/geotest.xml)
2. The Flash Media Server does a completely separate geocheck when the RTMP connection is being established. If it fails then the stream is terminated with an error (code = NetConnection.Connect.Rejected, description = AccessManager.Reject: Access denied!)

The X-Forward-For header appears to be honoured by www.abc.net.au (running AkamaiGHost) but not cp53909.edgefcs.net (running Flash Media Server). So when you did the "Lifehacker method", the geocheck failed at step 1 and you saw the "overseas copyright" error. If you had somehow managed to continue past then point then you still would have been able to establish the RTMP connection because the geocheck would have succeeded at step 2.

The downloader programs skip step 1 completely and only do step 2 (after doing a separate HTTP request to retrieve the token). There is no geocheck on the token request nor is there a check that the token request and RTMP request originate from the same IP. This did not used to be the case - originally the geocheck was done during the token request and there was no check done by the Flash Media Server so therefore it was possible to use the X-Forward-For approach.

Therefore, as you said above, the only way to access iView programs from overseas is to use an Australian proxy or VPN. As far as I am concerned, their explanation of "copyright reasons" is absolute bollocks for the shows that the ABC actually creates themselves (I understand that there are special problems created by things such as news programs, where they are reproducing footage supplied to them by other agencies, but how can this apply to the 7:30 Report, Lateline, Australian Story, etc?).

Now it makes sense. Cheers mate!