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John Williams' April 1980 debut Boston Pops performance (2020 HD broadcast)


Steve

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Is this also video or only audio?

There is a clip on Facebook from the concert with R2D2 and C3PO conducting Star Wars.

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I think there's video. If you look at their live stream, they refer to "viewing" the stream rather than listening:

https://www.wgbh.org/channel-2-live-stream

 

There's also this page that suggests you can watch on YouTube TV. I wonder if that's location restricted or not?

https://www.wgbh.org/anywhere/you-tube-tv

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17 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

I think there's video. If you look at their live stream, they refer to "viewing" the stream rather than listening:

https://www.wgbh.org/channel-2-live-stream

 

There's also this page that suggests you can watch on YouTube TV. I wonder if that's location restricted or not?

https://www.wgbh.org/anywhere/you-tube-tv

 

Ok thanks! Would be really nice, however I doubt it will be accessible here.

 

Here is the concert program, but I don't know which titles the broadcast included: https://archive.org/stream/bostonpopsorches1980bost#page/n24/mode/1up

Here is an old video from the concert:

 

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So I live near Boston and get WGBH on my antennae, it comes in with brilliant HD quality.  We could watch this live tonight that way, but unfortunately I have no idea how to record anything off my antennae.  If anyone has any knowledge on that let me know.

 

Another option would be to somehow stream it on my computer and record that, but I have no idea how to stream this channel.  I went here:

 

https://www.wgbh.org/channel-2-live-stream

 

And it says I passed the location check, but then nothing starts playing in the video box, just a 36 second video with no audio and a black screen >shrug<

 

I tried in both Chrome and Firefox, same thing happened in both

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29 minutes ago, Jay said:

So I live near Boston and get WGBH on my antennae, it comes in with brilliant HD quality.  We could watch this live tonight that way, but unfortunately I have no idea how to record anything off my antennae.  If anyone has any knowledge on that let me know.

 

Another option would be to somehow stream it on my computer and record that, but I have no idea how to stream this channel.  I went here:

 

https://www.wgbh.org/channel-2-live-stream

 

And it says I passed the location check, but then nothing starts playing in the video box, just a 36 second video with no audio and a black screen >shrug<

 

I tried in both Chrome and Firefox, same thing happened in both

I guess you won't see anything until 9pm.

 

There are several programs to record streams. Most are quite easy to handle :)

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You don't understand, that second link isn't a link that has anything to do with this concert, it's their page to stream their channel overall.  They broadcast 24 hours a day

 

If I could get that stream working, I could run some tests for recording the stream to be ready to record the concert at 9, but I can't get the stream to start so >shrug<

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I have DownloaderHelper installed in Firefox so that should do the trick, of only the stream would play on my machine...

 

 

This is all I see when I go to that streaming page

 

image.png

 

 

And this is what Video Downloadhelper in Firefox sees after I click play

 

image.png

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14 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

 

Any recommendations, just in case?

You can record your desktop with the vlc player. Download helper might also work in some cases. If you google you can find more freeware.

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It appears DownloadHelper will definitely record the stream, but I have no idea how to get the stream to actually start playing

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8 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

I've used Download Helper, but not for a live stream. Do you have to manually start/stop, and record "live"? VCR style?

It's been a while since I recorded live with it. I think you only have to start the recording process.

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Lol, they even have a share button where I can get embed code. Still doesn't do anything

 

 

 

Maybe I'm supposed to use some kind of PBS app to stream over the internet?  But then how would I record that?  Why isn't there a simple option to stream in the browser on a computer?

 

If I go here

 

https://www.wgbh.org/tv

 

There's tons of various on-demand files that all play fine, but I can't even find a link anywhere or page that mentions streaming the channel itself live

 

If I go here

 

https://www.wgbh.org/schedule-grid

 

I can scroll over to 9:00 as see their entry for the concert

 

image.png

 

But other than clicking Add to Favorites, there is no link to a video or anything, and there isn't a similar link for anything that's already aired earlier this afternoon either.

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2 minutes ago, Jay said:

Lol, they even have a share button where I can get embed code. Still doesn't do anything

 

I'm sure it will work at 9pm :)

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5 minutes ago, Steve said:

I'm sure it will work at 9pm :)

 

You don't understand.  That's from a page about streaming their station in general.  I'm not on a page about the concert itself.  They are broadcasting various things all day.  They are broadcasting This Old House right now.  The concert will be on at 9, yes, but that page doesn't change as a result of what they currently happen to be showing on TV

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Ok, I get it. I thought they'd only do occasional streaming on that channel. That sucks. Would love to see this historic concert. 

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Looking at the page again... "The five concerts will air on channels WGBH 2 in Greater Boston and WGBY in Western Massachusetts, Friday evenings at 9pm." Rather than WGBH, could there be a way to stream WGBY? Searching WGBY leads to NEPM, which does list this program in their TV schedule. I'm looking all over their site and haven't found much yet. There's some kind of NEPM Passport feature, and apparently you can also log in with a PBS account.

 

https://www.nepm.org/tvschedule#stream/0

 

https://video.nepm.org/passport/learn-more/

 

https://www.nepm.org/where-watch

 

 

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It looks like they might have an exclusive deal with YouTube TV, so that's why I can't stream through their website. 

 

We're all set up to watch in brilliant quality in our antennae, it's so ludicrous that it's so complicated to try to record what we're watching to watch again later

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I have a friend who's considered "local" by that WGBH 2 page, and was able to see something in Firefox. Jay, maybe try different devices/browsers? I'm looking into VPNs, it seems some of the major ones don't have Boston servers though.

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I get the same result in Chrome on Windows 10, Firefox on Windows 10, and Chrome on my phone. It's all the same. It says I passed the geo check, then I just get that 36 second long empty video in the player. 

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I've never researched it because I've never had a reason to before, but I'm guessing there are relatively cheap devices one can buy that can record anything my antennae picks up. That would be the best solution because the quality is very likely to be better than a compressed internet stream. Too bad I didnt get enough advanced notice to figure that out in time. 

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I just had the epiphany that I could sign up for a free trial of YouTube TV... I believe they have a DVR feature! 

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In a stunning turn of events, I flipped on the tele to make sure everything was in order, and all of a sudden we don't have PBS in HD. Not channel 2, not channel 44.

 

I get 2.2, WGBH-World, and 2.3, WGBH-SD, but 2.1 (WGBH-HD) has disappeared. I wonder when that happened? 

 

The last time I actually watched PBS on the antennae was the final season of Sherlock in 2017, and that was in brilliant HD

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Well, I hope you get to see it. And of course I hope you get to record it too. Good luck, we're all counting on you!

 

If you get YouTube TV working, can I suggest doing a screen record on a separate computer, just in case?

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Well I can see it in SD on the antennae no problem, that's not an issue, it's just the HD that disappeared 

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Unless it was filmed, you’re stuck with SD video or SD upscaled to HD, plain and simple. Not that it won’t look great.

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5 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

Well it would have been shot in an analogue format, so they could scan it in SD or HD when transferring to digital, even if it ended up looking grainy.


Yes, that’s what I mean by upscale. You have an analog NTSC video recording which has a max vertical resolution of 525 lines. You can digitize it to a vertical resolution of 1080 but you’re not improving its resolution. You’re just creating an additional 555 rows of pixels through interpolation of the original 525 lines.

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So a line is equivalent to a pixel somehow?

 

I haven't figured out a way to watch this myself, despite hemming and hawing over it. If Jay is able to record somehow then I'll be excited to see it.

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Just now, Smeltington said:

So a line is equivalent to a pixel somehow?


An analog video scan line is approximately equivalent to a row of pixels in digital video.

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That was great, really enjoyed watching it! I've been seeing Williams conduct in person since 2007 but I've never seen him anywhere near this full of pep and vigor, it was great to see

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