[TUTORIAL] How to download ASX files!

[monkey_05_06]

If you've ever tried to save an ASX file to your computer you'll remember how very much it didn't work. An ASX file is basically a Windows Media Playlist. A lot of websites will generate playlists containing single files instead of giving you a direct link to their files the pricks .

But using the information here and on Wikipedia, I realized that an ASX file contains the filename in plain-text. This means that if you open the ASX file using a text-editor (i.e., Notepad or Wordpad in Windows; or even View->Source in your browser provided the server doesn't automatically open WMP or some such) you can then get direct access to the file!

Let's test this using a random website. Go to Google and search for "Linkin Park What I've Done video code": http://www.google.com/search?q=Linki...one+video+code

The first two results I see are Flash videos. The third one down is this one. VideoCodeZone is actually a decent resource for a lot of videos most of which have multiple sources listed.

You'll have to look through the "video code" provided for something like "<embed". This is the beginning of the HTML tag to embed the video. Following that look for "src=". This tells us where the video is being played from. The complete EMBED tag given for this video is:

<embed name='RAOCXplayer' src='http://216.180.244.187/videos/l/linkin_park/what_i_ve_done_135176.asx' type='application/x-mplayer2' width='300' height='280' autostart='1' ShowControls='1' ShowStatusBar='0' loop='true' EnableContextMenu='0' DisplaySize='0' pluginspage='http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/Downloads/Contents/Products/MediaPlayer/'></embed>

The important part is the SRC (source) of the video: http://216.180.244.187/videos/l/link...one_135176.asx

Different webservers will handle ASX files differently. Some will tell your browser to open Windows Media Player. Some may open the playlist using an embedded player. For this particular playlist we can simply point our browser to the ASX file. The server its stored on appears to be attempting to parse it as HTML or some such. My browser simply displays a blank page. I click on View->Page Source and I see the following:

<ASX VERSION="3.0">
	<ENTRY>
		<REF HREF="http://72.55.149.130/music/admin/song/cff297cc6e9def1ccd82f613b17752e3.wmv" />
	</ENTRY>
</ASX>

This gives me a direct link to the video's WMV file! I simply opened/saved it using WMP.

For other ASX files, it may be necessary to save them to your hard drive first and then open them with Notepad.

This ASX file gives us a direct link to the WMV over the HTTP protocol meaning we have very open access to the file at this point. ASX also supports MMS and RTSP protocols however, so for other files it may be necessary to use your download manager.

If I've been too broad or vague on anything let me know and I'll try to explain. Right now I've actually got to get going to work, but I hope this helps some of you guys. ^_^

monkey

[Dark616]

sweet! this would have been useful to know when I was looking for Working Class Hero by Green Day. I wouldn't have needed that sound recording sw that ended up having spyware.