How to Download Videos

Videos are in general large files and as such should be downloaded differently than for normal web content. The following discussion is for worldbadminton.com videos in particular but the principles are the same for other large files on the net.

1. These files are NOT streaming media so must be fully downloaded before being viewed. As such
   • DO NOT directly open links to these files by double-clicking on them in a browser or a media player.
   • DO NOT browse to the files
2. The best way to download from within a browser is to select the "save target as" or similar option and select the default file name. In Explorer, for instance, right-click on the link and select "save target as" and select an appropriate directory

HOWEVER for best performance and reliability DO NOT download these files from within any browser or media player. Instead use a standalone FTP client or any of a number of specialized download tools.

Please DO NOT ABUSE THE SERVERS - one download at a time

All users are sharing a single connection to the server so are sharing the available bandwidth. Hence to be fair to other viewers you are strongly requested to download exactly one file at a time. 

Using FTP Directly 

All modern operating systems have basic networking capabilities including FTP clients. MAC users will have to install an FTP client since Apple OS's prior to OSX do not have FTP by default. All users of Windows and any flavor of Unix will already have FTP. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a low-level highly efficient means of sending data across the internet. FTP Clients allow you to directly access this low-level protocol. Some clients operate from a GUI, but most are command line driven. The steps below assume a standard command line FTP client.

EXAMPLE:

To FTP a video from worldbadminton.com, follow the steps below:

1. Bring up a command line on your system. How you do this will vary. Unix flavors will have a menu pick to "open terminal window" or the like. Windows users will have "Command Prompt" or similar icon on their desktops or can "Start | Run" "command" for WIN9x/ME or "cmd" for NT/2K/XP.
2. Once you have a command line change to a directory in which you have sufficient space to store the video. On most system you would type in 
   cd <chosen directory>
3. Then start your FTP client and address the server
   ftp worldbadminton.com
   
   NOTE: If you are behind a personal or business firewall you will need to use a client that can get out through your firewall. If you cannot connect as indicated above and you are behind a firewall then check with your system admin and find out how to access the appropriate socks or proxy servers.
4. Log onto the server
If you are successful you will get a response that looks something like:

Connected to worldbadminton.com.
220 mail.worldbadminton.com FTP server (Version wu-2.4.2-academ[BETA-18](1) Mon
Aug 3 19:17:20 EDT 1998) ready.
User (worldbadminton.com:(stan)):

The server is waiting for you to log on. The User in this case is "anonymous" and the password is your email address.

5. Find the video that you want.
   cd pub/badminton
   dir
   
   This will list all available files. For example:

    
   -r--r--r--   1 500      231      118149124 Jun 16 17:25 syd2000_MDF_g1.mpg
   -r--r--r--   1 500      231      137320452 Jun 16 17:29 syd2000_MDF_g2.mpg
   -r--r--r--   1 500      231      140990468 Jun 16 17:33 syd2000_MDF_g3.mpg

6. Set correct options and download. These are large binary files so set binary mode first then grab the file you want. 
   bin
   get <file that you have selected>             (Example:  get syd2000_MDF_g3.mpg )
   
   And then WAIT. Note that downloads can take a very long time for large files. For instance if you are receiving continuously at a healthy 30kb then the above example 141MB file will take 37600 seconds or about 10.5 hours. Most likely the download rate will be lower than this so you download times will be longer. Perhaps a week or more in some cases. So be patient.
   
7. Finish up by shutting down your FTP client
   bye
8. Hints on using FTP
   • "help" inside of FTP will list available command and help with their usage
   • Since download times are going to be long it is not unlikely that the download will fail at some point. If your FTP client has "reget" capability then it will be able to continue on from the point of failure. If not you will need to start over.
   • For this reason it is strongly suggested that you use a client with "reget" capability. 

Using Automated Download Tools

There are a number of download clients available that provide an automated interface to FTP and therefore make the above steps invisible to the end user. These can greatly simplify your downloads and also can schedule them for you, retry as needed, etc.

HOWEVER these also invite abuse! Please be sure to run downloads in series rather than in parallel. Repeated multiple parallel downloads may get your access to this site restricted.

Multiple-File Packages

On some mirror sites, you will find that these videos have been broken into sets of smaller files. The intention here is that you can much more quickly load each of the pieces and then put them back together. In most cases this will be platform specific or require specialized tools, so you won't see this approach here on worldbadminton.com. However it is a very effective tool for those who can use it.

Domain Name vs IP Address

Occasionally you may find that there is a problem with connecting to some sites with some clients using the domain name ( such as mirror1.worldbadminton.com ). One possible remedy when this occurs is to use the IP address (such as  24.76.41.11) instead.

If you are not aware of the terms, the IP address is the numerical address that is unique to each machine attached to the net. This is in the form of 4 8-bit (0-255) integers separated by periods, such as 24.76.41.11. The domain name is a symbolic representation of the IP address and before it can be used it is first resolved into an IP address by a domain (DNS) server which contains a cross-reference. Hence using the IP address will generally be more reliable since it does not require any work by the DNS server. The downside is that IP addresses may change at any time as the machines are moved or otherwise renumbered. The domain name shelters you from such changes since it is much less likely to change.

To find out an IP address an most systems you can use nslookup. For example:

nslookup mirror1.worldbadminton.com
Server:  ns1.mindspring.com
Address:  207.69.188.185

Name:    mirror1.worldbadminton.com
Address:  24.76.41.11

Video Mirror Sites

These provide an additional and generally preferred location for these videos. If they work out for you, please feel free to thank the providers!

Mirror sites for worldbadminton.com receive domain names of the form videon.worldbadminton.com. These names will stay but as time goes by they may point to various locations, so you are advised to use the videon domain. If for any reason you have problems with these domain names then use the information below to go directly to the sites.

Note that not all content will be available on all sites, so you may need to shop around a little.

Master site

• worldbadminton.com - no longer available for video downloads

Active Mirrors  

• none at this time

Mirrors Under Construction

• none at this time

Future Mirrors << Volunteers Needed! Anyone with bandwidth, space and traffic capability: please consider donating a download site for the badminton community.

• video1.worldbadminton.com
• video2.worldbadminton.com
• video3.worldbadminton.com

Page maintained by Stan Bischof (stan@worldbadminton.com) . Last updated: 05 January 2021 19:37