Technically Random

Recording streaming online video and audio is a bit arcane due to a great multiplicity of file formats. You could purchase software (Highly recommended btw is Replay AV from www.applian.com, which downloads multple streams and acts like a super-vcr for online video and audio). It’s far more fun to do things on the cheap however.

If you haven’t already, download and open the totally free -  VLC Player

From the top menu, click on Media, then Convert/Save

Under the Network Tab in the box marked “Network Protocol” paste in the URL of your streaming source.

For our experiment, we’ll use:  Museum TV (it’s in Dutch, but you’ll get the idea) which is at :

http://www.museumtv.nl/asx/avro=live801.asx

VLC player generally will suss out the protocol based on your url but you might need to supply it if not.

Click the Convert / Save button. The “Stream Output” Window will appear.
Tick the Play Locally and File boxes, then specify your desired file name and location. The extension should match the kind of video or audio you are recording. (.asf,.flv and .mp4 are some of the most common)

Under Profile, choose the profile that matches the video type.
(ok, this part is a little technical, but not difficult) Since our url has an extension of .asx, we’ll choose Windows (wmv/asf).  Experiment and see what works best for you. (are we not geeks here?)

Click on save and your video should soon start playing and recording.  Hit the Stop button when done (or you’ve had enough).  The video is now saved in the specified file and ready to view or convert further.

(This procedure also works for audio streams, of course)