The QQ penguins are adorable. Beijing Opera is adorable as well. Beijing Opera QQ penguins are most adorable.

You can download them as png and ico files from megapoxy.net here: [PNG] | [ICO]
For the more adventurous: they come from here.

ViDown downloader usually works fine with CCTV, YouTube, Youku, Tudou etc. videos, but you may encounter issues that I try to summarize here.

To download a file, all you have to do is click New, paste the URL of the video, click OK, sit back and wait what happens.

1. You get the green arrow, the file name, the file size, and your download completes eventually. If you find that your download is very slow, most likely the server is crowded, if you don’t prefer your computer running for hours, just try it at a different time.

2. You get the green arrow, the file name, but a 0KB file size and 0.00KB/s speed. I don’t know what exactly causes this, likely connection issues, but trying it later usually works. Pause-Start-Pause-Start, sometimes it takes ten minutes for the software to “catch” the file, but your download will start.

3. You get the file name, but 0KB file size, and the green arrow is marked with the little red circle everyone likes so much. In most cases it’s a streaming link (rtmp) that already doesn’t work. You can try Pause-Start-Pause-Start a few times, if you get the same result, just give up and move on.

It happens that you get this red circle icon during an already working download, then just click Start over and over again, when the connection recovers, your download will continue. Maybe in one minute, or the next day. I usually say “If you already got the first byte, you’ll be OK.”

4. You get a pencil icon marked with a big fat red circle. It means there’s no hope, the file does not exist, or the site is constructed in a way that ViDown can’t find the download URL.

Other possible issues:

• CCTV uploads files in 3 minutes long chunks that ViDown automatically merges. In rare cases, one or more chunks are corrupted, and cannot be downloaded, or the final merging fails. In every case, the downloaded 3min parts will sit in your folder, and you can use them as you like it, merge them with a different software or keep only the segments that suit your fancy.
  
• (will come here if anything else comes to my mind)

Good luck, and don’t forget the Chinese Opera downloader’s official video.

Wupload does not allow files to be shared. We are a STORAGE ONLY product so you can only download your own files.

FileServe can only be used to download and retrieve files that you have uploaded personally.

My efforts to keep up with paranoid governments, greedy companies and copyright freaks are completely vain.

As you already noticed I host only a limited amount of smaller files permanently at megapoxy.com, larger files that I don’t upload to operabeijing.com, are sent to retirement after a while, i.e. I transport them to some free host.

From now on, retired files only get an <Already deleted.> label and a link to the source site if it’s possible. Nowadays I try to focus on providing more information and news rather than videos anyways, so say Welcome to my boring articles in poor English.

(updated again)

Hello Dudes and Dudettes, the newest thing is that now you need to pay for broadcasts from the Yifu Stage. Bummer. Last time sound was almost perfect, but the video was still unwatchable. If they didn’t fix all these webcam issues, they won’t make big profit I guess…

In the future, look for the light blue 免费 banner, those broadcasts are free of charge.

(updated, originally posted on Feb 21, 2012 @ 17:48)

Kuke.com has a new feature, 库客Live, you can watch performances live from various theaters, including Tianchan Yifu Theatre – bliss!

Meanwhile, the new feature was renamed 库客剧院, kukeTheater.

CLICK HERE to see the list of upcoming live Chinese Opera broadcasts (I added the link to the sidebar for instant access). When something is on air, you can see a little flashing LIVE icon next to it, then just click the big blue button and enjoy! 

If you would like to record something, have some screen recording tool at hand, if you miss it then bummer, no playback option. I recommend Blueberry’s FlashBack Express, I had no problem with it in Windows 7 – no idea about Linux.

Bertrand, who is an embedded Linux programmer enlightened me that I can find the streaming address in the source code of the page during a broadcast. How Linux users can capture a stream, that’s beyond my comprehension and I leave the tutorial to him.

For Windows users, here’s a dummy proof method:

After you luckily got connected and you see the video, open the source code in your browser, and look for two lines that look like this:
<input type=”hidden” id=”fwq_url” value=”221.123.178.146″/>
<input type=”hidden” id=”stream_id” value=”live_0c992f2549dd8ea464e0d3eca113457e”/>
Of course the numbers will be different each time.
Compile the streaming address like this:
mms://221.123.178.146/live_0c992f2549dd8ea464e0d3eca113457e
Open your ye olde VLC  media player, select Media>Open Network Stream…, fill in the network URL and click Convert.

Click Start, sit out the broadcast and click the Stop button at the end. Enjoy your file.
Warning: Don’t expect some fabulous quality. It’s only webcam.

Thank you Bertrand!

I missed yesterday’s Cool Breeze Pavilion I mentioned here, but today I could watch Chu-Han Contention. It was such a surprise, in the latter part, Xiao He Chasing Han Xin, the recently praised Tian Lei played the role of Xiao He, OMG this boy can sing in Qi style too. Give me a break! I wanna sleep! I wanna finish my tax return!

(an edit) Lu Wen makes photos of everything worth to see in Shanghai. Fabulous photos of the above mentioned Chu-Han: [part1] | [part2]

If you’re unfortunate enough that nobody recorded your favorite video several years ago, you can still dig it up as a 320×240 wmv from the retired pages of CCTV.com.

If you know the date of a particular Theater in the Air program, substitute the date in the example URL given below and try your luck with the mms stream:

http://www.cctv.com/video/cctvkongzhongjuyuan/2007/07/
cctvkongzhongjuyuan_300_20070714_1.shtml
mms://winmedia.cctv.com.cn/cctvkongzhongjuyuan/2007/07/
cctvkongzhongjuyuan_300_20070714_1.wmv

If it comes in more parts, change the 1 at the end to 2, 3 etc.

(Btw, this is the Jin Xiquan full edition Luo Cheng I’m desperately chasing after for many months, but all (exactly two) copies on the net are crappy. So is this one, yet it’s the best version available.)

I thought it’s worth to mention Kanbox here, because now and then it can ease the life of hardcore downloaders.

It’s the Chinese version of Dropbox, and offers 5GB of free cloud storage, hence the logo: a blue kangaroo, who keeps his belongings in his pouch.
You can get additional free storage space several ways, for example by inviting new users, so if you decide to register, please click the link below, OK? ;)

[REGISTER HERE]

Sometimes at VeryCD.com (popular file-sharing site, a major source of Chinese Opera videos) you can add files directly to your Kanbox, and thus avoid the p2p download. In this case you will see a little red arrow icon next to the desired file, click that:

Now click the big blue button to add the file to your Kanbox.

You might be prompted to log in if you haven’t done so already:

Voilà, the file was added to your storage, click the orange button to see it:

Now you can manage or share your files.

From tomorrow on, I’ll be closer to 40 than to 30… As a birthday gift, feds finally managed to shut down Megaupload, so I have to replace all my recent download links. For me, Mega was working very well, and according to the number of downloads, most visitors had no problems with my files.
I wonder which free file hosting provider I should choose – copyright and piracy freaks will shut down all one by one with due course of time.

Governed by some sixth sense, I checked dozens of hosting sites recently, and the last video I already uploaded to WUpload – it has the advantage that you can download files bigger than 1GB for free, you have to wait only 20 secs before each download, but you have to fill in a stupid Captcha.

I’ll go on with this provider if I can’t find a better one.

I won’t delete the Megaupload links though, you never know… Just slowly add the WUp ones… What a fascinating task.

(updated)

Finally I decided to go on with FileServe.com for files bigger than 400MB. It’s a bit easier to find the Free Download link than at WUpload.com.

For files bigger than 200MB I will use Hotfile.com: the download page has no advertisements.

I’ll upload smaller clips to megapoxy.net, but once in a while (let’s say in every two months) I have to “retire” old videos to save up disc space. Download links in older posts will direct you to MediaFire.com, that offers secure one-click download without waiting time for files up to 200MB. You get a pop-under ad though, but it’s easy to avoid.

I just wanted to share a few screenshots of my new theme for Nokia that I downloaded from here: http://www.139zhuti.com/nokia/e70/15014.html. (Proceed at your own risk!) Just because it’s cute.

Well yes, I do have emotional attachment to my peripherals. ;)

I mentioned a few times already that some videos on CNTV’s website are especially problematic, and impossible to download. CNTV’s new Beta version of CBox seems to handle the issue.

I tried the previous version of this software before, but I never managed to get it work. I found this article recently that kinda explains what the problem was.

The newly-launched China Network TV Station (CNTV) received intensive attention from netizens because it provides free access to video programming and high-definition channels of 51 television stations including CCTV and other local stations. However, this has led to high web traffic, semi-paralyzing CNTV. Currently, there are problems with the CBOX software which was specifically designed to download television programs however people can still view videos via the website.
[...]
As CNTV was launched not too long ago and the CBOX software is a brand new product, CNTV will need some time to solve relevant problems. During this period, clients of the China Railway Communications Company and China Education and Research Network may be faced with the ineffectiveness of the CBOX software, but CNTV is now striving to solve the problems.

If you are desperate about a particular program of CCTV (or some other local channel), give this software a go.
Presuming you are here because you’re interested in Chinese Opera, I used CCTV11 as example in the short guide below.

Download the software and install it. I think it can be integrated into Internet Explorer, but I don’t use that (and I don’t suggest it to anyone, by the way).
CBox works with Windows XP, Vista and 7.
I installed Asian character sets before, but if you haven’t done so yet you might need the installation CD of your operating system.

In CBox’s menu, choose the 直播中国  (Live broadcast China) tab.
Under the 栏目 (Column) tab you can browse videos by program, but I found that those are the same not working ones that are uploaded to the website itself.

Choose the channel you would like to watch. You are able to see only the last three days, so be careful not to miss the program you’ve been waiting for. (This was some kind of note for myself too.)
Now a little trick is needed, since the program schedule won’t be synchronized with your local time. For example, I live in Hungary, and I had to click the item that is 6 hours later in the schedule than the one I actually wanted to watch.
You might need to click back and forth a couple of times to find the program you want, broadcast is cut into 1 hour parts (o:oo am -1:oo am and so on).

Now that you already have the stream, it’s up to you what downloader you choose, I found Replay Media Catcher a convenient and effective tool. Videos are downloading in 5 min long parts, you need to join those later or you can make a playlist from them if you are lazy. Ultra Video Joiner is a nice (and actually working) tool to join parts.

Bertrand as a programmer and experienced Linux user explained a more cost-efficient method for joining files:

Before spending a lot of money to buy software that joins files, remember you can join files with the “cat” command natively on linux:
cat file1 file2 file3 > resultfile
Available for Windows as well for free, download and install:
http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/coreutils.htm
open a prompt
cd to the directory where your video files are
"C:\Program File\GNU\bin\cat" file1 file2 file3 > resultfile

My notes for Windows users:
With a standard install the location of the “cat” file will be C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\cat.exe
Your command line will look like this: "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\cat" file1 file2 file3 > resultfile
It won’t work with all video formats, but it’s fine for MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or MP3.
(Example: "C:\Program Files\GnuWin32\bin\cat" A.mpg B.mpg C.mpg > whateveryounameit.mpg)
Tip if you are not familiar with DOS commands:
Copy your files to the root directory of your HDD, then you just have to type C:\ in the command line to get to your files’ location.

Good luck and enjoy TV!

PS. No, the left guy on the example picture is NOT doing that what you’re thinking of right now.