[Tech/Sports] Record the World Cup!

I'm not too much of a "sports" guy but the world cup is pretty big by everyone. So, for Windows and Mac units I have worked up a fun way to stream the wondrous World Cup for everyone!

Note: My father wrote this up. I don't care to much about soccer.

Here's how to record ESPN or rip any video or audio stream on your hard drive. You can't use KeepVid and YouTube Downloader. ESPN locks their video inside a hidden FLV container. Fortunately, ESPN archives World Cup videos. But my Dad likes to record and study World Cup soccer matches, so these video stream ripping tips are for personal, not commercial purposes.

You will be capturing video, not downloading video files. You will need to capture ESPN online content and capture the live broadcast ABC feed for USA vs. England, the World Cup final and other big matches (see ESPN World Cup schedule: http://www.espnmediazone3.com/us/2010/01/espn-inc-2010-fifa-world-cup-schedule/)

1. Make sure you have enough hard drive space to record your video.

A. You can add a new hard drive then install OSX and your applications, which takes a lot of time.

If that's what you want to do, then physically install your MacBook hard drive (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2CxSAVwFqE or get hard drive replacement instructions from Apple: manuals.info.apple.com/en/macbook_13inch_harddrive_diy.pdf).

Then format as described below and install your OS and apps.

B. Or you can clone your hard drive.

Connect new and existing drive using newer technology's USB 2.0 universal drive adapter available here: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/U2NV2SPATA/

Then format your new hard drive: http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/formatting.cfm

Finally, clone your hard drive: http://eshop.macsales.com/tech_center/index.cfm?page=/manuals/mac/clon_data.html

For cloning, I used Bombich's Carbon Copy Cleaner. I got one verification error. The log menu showed an iTunes temp file that wouldn't verify because it was 0 KB. No big deal.

Then physically install the hard drive as described above.

(Note: On MacBooks the fan will run as system indexes disk as explained at http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=905828. To monitor temperature, fans, etc. get iStat Pro (http://www.islayer.com/apps/istatpro/)

2. Record your online ESPN video stream.
Streaming video is often locked in FLV or other formats, which makes Youtube, ESPN and other video streams hard to grab. For PCs, I recommend spending $39 for Applian's Replay Video capture (http://www.applian.com/replay-video-capture/)

Go to settings and use 2000 kps (which is youtube HQ22 standard) and 20 fps (frames per second). That puts one minute of ESPN video in about 10 MB. An entire match take just over a 1GB. This quality is adequate, not great, so I'm still experimenting.

For OSX, recording an audio stream is easy using WireTap or HiJack. Of course for Apple users, to capture a video stream costs $69 for a copy of Snapz Pro X to capture video (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/)

3. Record your live video broadcast to your hard drive without Tivo or DVR.
Just spend $99 and get XLR8 ProView USB (http://daystar-store.com/xlr8proviewusbfullscreenvideocapturepackageforusb20.aspx). It includes recording software and cables--and works with Windows and OSX.

4. Edit your video files.
Forget Quicktime Pro and MovieMaker. Just get the free mpeg streamclip (http://www.squared5.com/)

Total cost for ripping any video stream with Windows: $138
Total cost for ripping any video stream with OSX: $168

Enjoy!