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IATEFL Poland A Journal for Teachers of English ISSN 1642-1027 Vol. 6, Issue 1 (January 2006) |
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IATEFL Poland A Journal for Teachers of English ISSN 1642-1027 Vol. 6, Issue 1 (January 2006) |
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A Word from a Techie |
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GRABBING AUDIO AND VIDEO
STREAMING FILES You may have faced a problem of
not being able to use some of the Web materials in class due to the simple
reason of them being provided in a streaming format. Unless you have a
reasonably fast connection and can use the school lab for that purpose, you are
helpless trying to provide your students with a chance of enjoying audio/video
clips with intriguing interviews, songs whose lyrics you may want to analyse or
any other material of that kind you find perfect for enhancing your class.
Whether audio or video, RealAudio or MS Windows Media format, they are usually
equally non-downloadable. Long ago, I managed to find a
solution to the problem of capturing the audio files of my choice I wanted to include
in the listening practice of my classes. In fact, it was the piece of software
called Audiograbber which did the job for me. Audiograbber (http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net)
is a free programme that basically copies music and stores it on your computers
hard drive. Its main purpose, I believe, was to copy music from CDs. There is
also an option to copy music through the soundcard (though with a slight sound
degradation) as well as copy sound via the soundcard from an external source,
such as the cassette player or the radio. 
Picture 1. Audiograbber’s main window Also, Audiograbber can connect to
a database on the Internet and download disc information such as track names.
It has a "normalise" function to make tracks from different CDs sound
equally loud. The tracks can be saved as WAV files or converted to MP3 or WMA
files with external programs or internal codecs such as the LAME freeware MP3,
or MS Windows Media Audio codec. Yet the function I found the most
useful for my purpose was grabbing the sound from the Internet audio streaming
sources. The whole procedure is fairly simple: once you have downloaded the
software and installed it, you have to set it up at least to be able to find
the captured files on the hard drive later on after the session. Also the
output format needs to be specified. You have to choose options of e.g. saving
the sound files as MP3s at 128kb/s quality, which is good enough for majority
of applications while playing the output files in class. Remember, if you go
for MP3 format, you will have to download and install its codec first, such as
The LAME, free software ideally serving the purpose, by copying the lame.dll
file into the Audiograbber directory. For more information on codecs go to: http://www.free-codecs.com
Picture 2. Audiograbber’s Line in recording window In order to grab audio online with
Audiograbber you have to use the menu [File|Line in sampling], set the controls
to the manual mode, if you like to monitor the recording and control it
manually, then use the ‘mixer’ option to check one of the available boxes
responsible for grabbing sound. From my experience, checking either ‘line in’
or ‘mixed source’ box should do the trick. Once you have done that, play some
music from the Net, a saved sound file or a CD to see if the sound level is
visible on the volume meter. Finally, adjust it with the mixer slide bar or, if
the volume levels do not appear, check another box choosing e.g. ‘mixed
source.’ Now you are ready to start your audiograbbing session. Nevertheless, I have recently
faced another challenge, namely the problem of downloading streaming video
files. Since I happen to train Air Force officers and try to upgrade their
command of military English, I found it reasonable to look for authentic
materials on the Web, ideally briefings, as part of their duty is understanding
them to be able to operate within NATO and possibly brief/debrief others as
well. The sites which I found perfect in that respect are http://www.pentagonchannel.mil
and http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/.
The former is a Website for a TV channel offering you a streaming video with
live coverage of their programme, which I assume is typically available for
American cable TV. Also, it provides you recorded programmes broadcast on their
channel. Clicking on any of the pictures listed in the main window opens up a
separate panel for video broadcasts which includes a sidebar with lots of
subchannels to choose from such as Newscasts, Top Stories or Briefings,
the last one with recent Much more of a problem, though,
posed capturing some video files from certain other sites. As my college
students find it highly appropriate to be exposed at listening/phonetics
classes to a variety of English dialects enhancing their understanding of
regional differences in the language, I found the BBC’s Video Nation (http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/)
be cut out for that purpose. The site is a way to meet people from across the Actually, the site offers a
RealVideo clip database providing you with several logically arranged
categories of database search. You may want to focus on the dialects throughout
Although most of the clips
mentioned above are too small to be displayed in a regular full screen mode as
they lose much of their video quality then, it is worthwhile downloading the
files in a video format to make the activities even more attractive to the
class since the sound quality is preserved while the students will still have
the advantage of watching the real people talking. If you lack video
presentation facilities in your classroom allowing you to play the video files
directly from the computer, one other option would be applying Audiograbber to
capture and then play just the sound files. Still one other might be copying
the videos from the computer onto a VHS tape and make use of a regular
combination of a video player/recorder with a TV set to make the presentation
possible. Yet, in that case, it is advisable not to rely on the speakers from
the TV set, unless it is a state-of-the-art device, but play the sound from the
videotape via cable through some standalone HiFi or an amplifier to preserve
initial quality of the recording and provide your students with as much degree
of listening comfort as possible. The piece of software I found
worth recommending for the video capture purpose is HiDownload from http://www.streamingstar.com/,
which makes it possible to download files, record RealMedia, Windows Media, MP3
streams as well as recently added QuickTime Streaming. As the streaming files’
URLs are usually hidden behind JavaScript or ActiveX scripts, you are typically
able only to save some *.ram address redirecting you to the actual file which
is played live only and cannot be saved the way you normally do it to e.g.
*.doc or *pdf files available on the Web. Yet, the program also features URL
Helper to locate the actual files to record. 
Picture 3. HiDownload main window Once you have downloaded the
software and installed it, you should start it to have a look behind the Options
button to configure the programme al least to specify the location of your
virus scanner and set up the download directory, which is C:\hidownload\ by
default. When you start the programme (hit Evaluate button to start
working with it due to its temporary 30-day licence), apart from the main
window, you will see its icon residing in the tray and a bigger Drop Target
icon (which you can disable by clicking the right mouse button on it and
choosing the option) hanging on top of the screen in central location. That
means you can now start your Web browser to locate the video files you want to
record onto the hard drive of your computer. Once you find the link, use the
right mouse button to choose the Copy the URL/link option which
activates the add task window (see below) with an automatically
entered file source address. 
Picture 4. ‘Add task’ window Now, you have to click OK and
watch the file download/record into the directory you specified to be able to
locate it later (check for Save to option like in Picture 4). 
Picture 5. Recording in progress You can monitor the progress in
the main window which pops up immediately (see Picture 5) until you see the
whole file in the specified directory. One piece of advice on actually making
use of the files is that although the session is saved in one directory, it
leaves you with a wide confusing range of similarly named files including the
video you wanted to have. Locating the right one is usually simple since it is
usually the biggest file on the list with the extension ‘*.@@@1’. When you get
rid of the extra extension (e.g. in MS Windows Explorer or working directly
with the files in the folder) and possibly some additional redundant numbers
standing for the name of the session such as [1], [2], etc., the remaining
should be your downloaded video file name with the proper extension depending
on the type of the recorded file: *.rm, *wmv, *.asf, etc. Finally, in case you do not like
handling RealMedia or Windows Media files, an extra piece of software from the
same site, namely Digital Media Converter, makes it easy for you to convert video and audio files from
one format to another. Now you can organise and batch convert all your video
and audio files between: VCD, DVD, AVI (DivX, MS MPEG4, uncompressed, etc),
MPEG-1, MPEG-2 (PAL, NTSC), MP3, MOV, WMA, WMV, and WAV formats. Unfortunately,
its availability is also limited to just 10 days after installation. Yet, you
may try out one other option for converting only audio files for you might be
dBpower AMP Music Converter available from: http://www.dbpoweramp.com. References More
information on downloading streaming media: More information on codecs: Other recommended sites for downloading educational
grade streaming media: | ||||||||||||
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Last Updated: January 10, 2006 |
