XFM Broadcast

johnny · Post by **johnny** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 1:02 pm

Hi,
Does anyone know where you can get hold of the high quality XFM Brixton stream which doesn't have the distortions, skipping, slow-down etc.
I love that gig and it's driving me crazy! It's going back a while but maybe someone knows er something?

Cheers,

Jebus Sabes · Post by **Jebus Sabes** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 7:10 pm

Does the distortion, skipping, slow-down etc happen because your embedded windows media player keeps rebuffering?

I'm just trying a little download trick at the moment - I'll report back if it succeeds.

Jebus Sabes · Post by **Jebus Sabes** » Mon Feb 09, 2004 11:58 pm

Well, if you're dead keen, try this:

1. Download StreamBox VCR 1.0 Beta 3.1 and the crack for this package. Both should be available in the same download from:
http://www.souxin.com/en/stream-software-down.htm

2. Install Streambox. Run the crack to unlock the Streambox VCR (there's some helpful readme files on this - it's dead easy).

3. Launch Streambox. Paste the following link:

http://mcms-delivery.virtuebroadcasting ... E4D3D1C58C

4. After a little while, it should start downloading the stream, renaming and saving it to spiritualized_gig_high.asf.

After a few hours, you should have a 135mb asf file lasting 2 hours 27 minutes. It's worked for me, although the asf file isn't seekable, currently, and I'm having problems repairing it. The video is definitely all there, though.

Good luck.

johnny · Post by **johnny** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 8:26 am

Cheers Jebus,

I'll give it a go tonight and try to stream the individual tracks.
If all goes to plan, I'll put a notice on here and Soulseek them.

Jebus Sabes · Post by **Jebus Sabes** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:27 am

Sure thing - if you paste that link, it should get the whole gig for you, rather than the individual tracks.

I'm on Soulseek (pearson22s), and I'll put my 135mb file there, if you or anyone would like it.

Strangely enough, the file is seekable when I play it on another machine. And I ran it through an asf tool repair program, and that said it's seekable. So I think its just my operating system or something.

SpaceLine · Post by **SpaceLine** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 2:07 pm

i'm curious, does the audio in your recording have glitches beginning with Take Your Time(track 13) through the rest of the gig? i don't care for the video, but I tried recording the audio from that link quite a few times last year and the glitches were always there(they aren't there on the individual song streams oddly enough). I used total recorder and it does properly remove all buffering, but the glitches i'm talking about aren't buffering. I did speak with xfm about it and they said they might fix it, i wonder if they have...

Heady · Post by **Heady** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 3:50 pm

Have yet to get through to Take Your Time, but the sound quality + majority of the video is really good on the version I've downloaded today. Only problems are when the real noise kicks in, the video is a bit blocky and there are stutters in the sound, which would appear to be buffering-related, although as it's not buffering I'm a bit confused.

Is this what you were using the .asf repair program to fix, Mr Jebus? and if so, would you mind pointing me in the right direction for a good, free one please? Much appreiciated. Cheers

Jebus Sabes · Post by **Jebus Sabes** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 3:58 pm

I hear some slight crackle, like vinyl that's been played 20 times, but nothing I'd call a glitch. And that crackle is all the way through, not just after 'Take your time'.

I've cut 46 seconds of the video from 'lord can you hear me', if you want to have a quick look/listen (0.5mb):
http://www.geocities.com/pearson22s/test.asf

Jebus Sabes · Post by **Jebus Sabes** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 4:06 pm

AsfTools 3.1 is a great freeware asf tool - I think it does pretty much anything you could do to an asf file. Not sure about removing the blockiness, though, as I suspect that's from the original encoding by xfm (88kbps?).
http://www.geocities.com/myasftools/

SpaceLine · Post by **SpaceLine** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 5:31 pm

thanks, maybe i'll give it another shot, see if i can get this recorded properly. the glitch isn't just after take your time, that is when it begins. after that it is consistent and occurs for the rest of the gig.
it does seem like something xfm may have done...thanks.

johnny · Post by **johnny** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 6:03 pm

I got in contact with XFM last week and they were actually very helpful.
The guy said that it can be affected by internet traffic, connection stability and just faults on their streaming. He also said it was absolutely against XFMs policy to include any deliberate faults as it defeated the purpose of having the streams in the first place.

The strange thing is, I alway get the faults in exactly the same times. For instance, Electric Mainline sort of pitch-bends half an octave and plays at lower speed. Take Me To The Other Side, the chords just jump around out of time like a CD skipping. I've tried it on every connection I can find. Oh well, I'm going to give this stream program a go...

Jebus Sabes · Post by **Jebus Sabes** » Tue Feb 10, 2004 10:47 pm

eek - you're right, johnny and spaceline - in my 135mb file, there are some glitches - 1 minute into 'take me to the other side' the chords do jump around, suggesting they've missed some audio.

Shame.

SpaceLine · Post by **SpaceLine** » Wed Feb 11, 2004 9:54 pm

yeah, i got the messed up bits on tmttos as well. i just recorded the entire gig again, audio only, and that song has some glitches. however, the majority of the show sounds great and it most certainly does not have the major glitches i got in all my other recordings of this stream.
I also checked the recordings i did of the individual song streams last year and tmttos has the glitches there too, i'd guess it'd be a mess up in the recording or transfer.

i'll track it and seed it on sharingthegroove tomorrow if anyone cares for a copy.