Downloading the FISM videos

[Rolf Reiner]

Thanks to CCTV, we have access to an amazing FISM online video collection.

There are lots of videos on this site, listed on a day-by-day basis, and good quality too:
http://space.tv.cctv.com/podcast/magic
(some videos are from Stockholm 2006 for some reason)

I have been trying to download the flv. files but not yet had any success. If anyone reading this has found a dowloader that works, please let us know! With some patience the whole CCTV coverage can be downloaded, and they shot pretty much everything.

Thanks

[Shawn Farquhar]

Hi Rolf,

I found a similar page on the same site that has the videos laid out a little differently for all to see at once.

http://space.tv.cctv.com/page/PAGE1248682446442211

Cheers,

Shawn

[Rolf Reiner]

Thanks Shawn and congrats on the well-deserved prize!

There are even more videos on the youku site, apparentely every competition act, but quality is lower and takes forever to load a video. For a link to youku fism videos, see Craigs post under Fism day 5.

Best

[Kenardo]

Alot of the Welcome Show and the first Banquet show is already on YouTube in excellent quality. Unbelievable!

[Tim Ellis]

Interesting.

As the contestants all sign contracts promising money if footage of their acts are used on TV, it would seem that FISM is paying a lot for all of this.

[Shawn Farquhar]

Turns out they have been airing the shows nightly on CCTV 3. I am still in Beijing and each evening from 8PM till 9PM they show a full day of events and shows. Tonight's episode was the social banquet. The coverage is amazing. I went out for dinner tonight and the number of people here who know the magicians have been in town was staggering!

[Rolf Reiner]

Heres how to get the videos:
Install FlashCatch, a small program you can download at download.com. Upgrade to pro version, this will cost you 20 dollars. The videos can be downloaded quickly. CCTV is adding more videos, the above mentioned social banquet video is online now.

[Rolf Reiner]

If you look around the cctv site, there are long videos, from 30 to 60 minutes long (such as the closeup gala). The longer vids do not downlnoad completey. All smaller vids do without a glitch.

[Magic Newswire]

I haven't been able to locate the longer videos Rolf. Can you please post a link? Thanks!

[Rolf Reiner]

They are not indicated by thumbnails...
For example:
http://space.tv.cctv.com/video/VIDE1248966712892883
under the video window you wil find more links to big videos. Most show the same clips that you find under the thumbnails, but there is one long video of the closeup gala.
http://space.tv.cctv.com/video/VIDE1248965859153885
My Mandarin in not the best... one has to dig around.

My experience dowloading these videos shows that they are clipped at about 18 megabytes, so only a few minutes can be saved. Good for most thumbnailed small videos. Slighly larger thumbnailed videos will be clipped, such as the one with topas in the gala. Perhaps this is a limitation imposed by the website or a limitation of my program. Realplayer seems to have the same problem.

Shawn says the shows air nightly in china, so it is a matter of time they show up on youtube as well.
Good luck!

[Shawn Farquhar]

Not too sure how soon they will appear on Youtube via China ... as YouTube is banned here ... If they end up on Youtube it will be from someone copying from cctv on the net and then uploading somewhere else in the world.

Shawn

[naquada]

I suppose the question is.. SHOULD you download them.. watching them on the CCTV.com site can be quite slow..

I was tempted to extract them and move them to the server farm I have in london ;) but then.. given they are copyright to CCTV.com and were broadcast as part of the Chinese TV coverage (I assume!) then the copyright belongs them them...

BUT... it would be faster to watch..

[Rolf Reiner]

Copyright issues are an interesting topic in China.

I have been musing about it too, I guess downloading them for later home viewing is not a problem in ethical terms, but to be concerned about copyrights in a country that does not recognize the concept is a bit ironical.

I am in Spain, and the videos play smoothly. But I do not think that the videos will stay online for a long time, so it would be interesting to save them. FISM organizers have not mentioned the details of the broadcast and the podcast (as far as I know) and also not informed if and when official videos would be offered. Perhaps someone with more knowledge on the matter can help us out on this one.

Either the clips will appear youtube or magicians will simply record the programs on dvd from the TV broadcast and they will start to cirtulate among magicians as did the NHK FISM documentaries of older times. Seems CCTV is also received in some European countries such as France.

[Kenardo]

Here is a link to the youtube page with all the opening ceremony and welcome dinner show links:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... type=&aq=f

Enjoy!

[naquada]

the FISM 2006 DVD took ages to appear.. and ironically even though it was filmed and hosted by a UK company.. it was broadcast in a few countries but not the UK...!! so any FISM 2009 dvd could take just as long!!

[Rolf Reiner]

The CCTV podcast seems to have ended. :-(
But now the same clips are coming out on youtube like rabbits out of a top hat. :-)
After watching Somas act a couple of times, I wonder why some magicians place videos with their complete act online (Soma, for instance, has it on his website). Does that not diminish the interest of potential viewers in attending a convention where the act will be booked? I am curious to hear some opinions on this subject, since Ive never placed any video containing a full sequence of my act online.
Cheers,

[Mike Carr]

What does [size:11pt]该页面不存在![/size]mean? :confused:

[Richard Kaufman]

Translation: "The item you are searching for is no longer available."

I knew that and I neither read nor speak Chinese!

[Mike Carr]

Translation: "The item you are searching for is no longer available."

I knew that and I neither read nor speak Chinese!

Sorry, my translation reads:
Choose 1 from column A
Choose 2 from column B

[Richard Kaufman]

Now that's class.

[Jeffrey Korst]

What does [size:11pt]该页面不存在![/size]mean? :confused:

That's strange. My translation comes out as, " Why do you want mu shu pork at this time of night."

Jeffrey Korst
(apologies/thanks to Close)

[Richard Kaufman]

Even classier.
Let's cut the Chinese jokes.