No subject

Mon Jun 27 16:47:34 EDT 2011

interfere with my get_iplayer installation.
7. I fired up the UK VPN (not needed, of course, if actually within the UK).
8. I run (doubleclicked) portableshell.bat
9. In the command prompt that opened I pasted this (template) command, URL
taken from ITVPlayer:
perl get_flash_videos -r high
http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=284175

Hey, presto! My download begins & ends successfully, saved inside working
folder:

 ----------------------------------------------
 Welcome to Strawberry Perl Portable Edition!
 * URL - http://www.strawberryperl.com/
 * see README.portable.TXT for more info
----------------------------------------------
Perl executable: D:\get_flash_videos\perl\bin\perl.exe
Perl version   : 5.12.3

D:\get_flash_videos>perl get_flash_videos -r high http://www
.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=284175
Downloading http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=284175
Using method 'itv' for http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=284175
RTMPDump v2.4 GIT-2011-09-30 (Compiled by KSV)
(c) 2010 Andrej Stepanchuk, Howard Chu, The Flvstreamer Team; license: GPL
Connecting ...
INFO: Metadata:
INFO:   duration              2767.15
INFO:   moovPosition          32.00
INFO:   width                 512.00
INFO:   height                288.00
INFO:   videocodecid          avc1
INFO:   audiocodecid          mp4a
INFO:   avcprofile            66.00
INFO:   avclevel              30.00
INFO:   aacaot                2.00
INFO:   videoframerate        25.00
INFO:   audiosamplerate       24000.00
INFO:   audiochannels         2.00
INFO:   trackinfo:
INFO:   length                69176000.00
INFO:   timescale             25000.00
INFO:   language              eng
INFO:   sampledescription:
INFO:   sampletype            avc1
INFO:   length                66411520.00
INFO:   timescale             24000.00
INFO:   language              eng
INFO:   sampledescription:
INFO:   sampletype            mp4a
1-9624-0003-001_JOANNA-LUMLEY-S...400_16X9.mp4: 99% (136165.42 / 136712.27
KiB)
Done. Saved 139864586 bytes to
1-9624-0003-001_JOANNA-LUMLEY-S-GREEK-ODYSSEY_TX2
71011_ITV400_16X9.mp4

D:\get_flash_videos>

NB: Although the downloaded file has an .mp4 extention, it actually is a
renamed FLV (as can be easily verified by MediaInfo), so its extention must
be corrected back to .flv to play properly in the associated player of your
choice (e.g. Quicktime won't play the "phony" downloaded mp4). If need be,
the flv can be remuxed to a proper mp4 with methods already familiar to
get_iplayer users (e.g. ffmpeg).

 Now the catch is with the above setup I seem to be able to download only
the lowest quality version of a given programme (400kbps bitrate, 512x288
dimensions), despite using the -r  high option; this is good only for mobile
phones (now, I'm not complaining, this is better than nothing!).
 If I run the download in debug mode,
perl get_flash_videos
"http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=284175" --debug > log.txt 2>&1
I can see in the log that the script successfully identifies all 4 different
quality variants available (i.e. 400, 600, 800, 1200), but I really can't
tell why it's downloading only the 400 one or how I can rectify that :-(.
Perhaps some "perl module" is missing, but really this is beyond my reach...
Nigel Taylor in his 24/10/11 e-mail posted that on OpenBSD (& even in
Debian), he can download the highest quality variant (1200kbps, 704x396), as
can be seen here:

>$ get_flash_videos -r high
>http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=283365
>Downloading http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=283365
>Using method 'itv' for http://www.itv.com/itvplayer/video/?Filter=283365
>RTMPDump v2.4
>(c) 2010 Andrej Stepanchuk, Howard Chu, The Flvstreamer Team; license: GPL
>Connecting ...
>INFO: Connected...
>Starting download at: 0.000 kB
>INFO: Metadata:
>INFO:   duration              3402.20
>INFO:   moovPosition          32.00
>INFO:   width                 704.00
>INFO:   height                396.00
>.......................................................
 so, in essence, the script is capable of doing that.
Over at the get_flash_videos site, for Windows OS they recommend installing
ActivePerl (closed source), this is what Win user Jon did, albeit in a
"clean" machine with no get_iplayer on;
this defeats my goal. ActivePerl comes as an msi installer (no portable
version that I know of), which I fear will install several hundreds of MB on
my free-space-starved C partition; and Jon even hinted that this could
"disrupt user programmes installed".
So I have a couple of questions for dinkypumpkin:
1. If I choose to install ActivePerl (now in version 5.14.2), could this
damage my working get_iplayer setup?
2. I understand that the latest windows installer v4.4 installs a more
"bulky" version of perl for get_iplayer;  is this installed globally on the
computer and could it handle on its own the
get_flash_videos script?
 Now a plea to the rest of the knowledgeable members of this list:
Is anyone amongst you successfully running get_flash_videos for ITVPlayer
(i.e. can download the highest bitrate version) alongside the recent
get_iplayer on the same Windows machine?
If so, please be kind enough to provide details in lame man's terms,
preferably off list (northmedia1 at the.forthnet.gr).
Finally, I beg for leniency of the owner of this list; I am aware this is
the get_iplayer mailist list, but surely anyone can see why gfv is not
completely "OT", at least in the way it was discussed
in my mail: Two perl scripts with similar functionality, having probably the
same "target group" of users...
Thanks once again Mr Woodhouse for maintaining the excellent get_iplayer !

Kind regards, Vangelis (from "short-haired" Greece!) 