Naive questions: RTMP packets & output

[John Rose]

Thanks for your reply. As you correctly surmised, I'm using Ubuntu
Lucid. get_iplayer version is v2.80+n15-git050a4a1-ppa4. rtmpdump
version is v2.4-n25-git60218d0-ppa5~lucid.

I have tried to download the particular programme a number of times (it
is Shock and Awe - The Story of Electricity: 3. Revelations and
Revolutions, BBC Four, Factual,Science & Nature,Science & Technology,TV,
default which is currently 583. I am using command:
get_iplayer --force 583 --get --raw

I know about the workaround. But this happens so often, that I would
like the download to operate properly without doing it. Typically, I
have to do the workaround 10 times, each time failing at any time
between 1 second and near the end of a programme. This means that it can
take 5 hours plus to do a download.

PS it's very difficult to get a message onto this mailing list: 
I usually receive a message stating that there is a suspicious header. 
I don't understand why considering that I send my mail as Plain Text. 
Anybody know why this happens?

Regards,
John