Where Can I Find This Old(ish) PBS Show?
November 27, 2023 8:43 PM   Subscribe

I teach middle school orchestra. My go-to sub plans when I couldn’t get someone who knew anything about music used to involve episodes of From the Top. I used to just stream them, but they’re old and require JavaScript so I can’t any more.

I have been able to find the Season 2 DVDs, but would really like either the Season 1 DVDs or a way to stream entire episodes at once. Where should I be looking?

I once even wrote the Contact button on the website but got back a form letter and couldn’t get past that to a real person.
posted by charmedimsure to Shopping (4 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: The web player is actually failing because it needs the Flash plugin (which is no longer available or supported by current web bowsers). But looking at the source code for the episode pages, they link to XML files like this one which contain links to the FLV (Flash video) files like this one, which you can download and play with VLC or other video software.

The XML file links look like this for season 1: and for season 2:
posted by mbrubeck at 9:40 PM on November 27, 2023 [5 favorites]


Best answer: The FLV files themselves have a regular naming scheme as well. There are two seasons available, each of which has thirteen episodes, each of which has three parts. Here's the complete list:

http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/101/101-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/101/101-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/101/101-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/102/102-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/102/102-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/102/102-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/103/103-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/103/103-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/103/103-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/104/104-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/104/104-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/104/104-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/105/105-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/105/105-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/105/105-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/106/106-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/106/106-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/106/106-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/107/107-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/107/107-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/107/107-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/108/108-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/108/108-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/108/108-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/109/109-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/109/109-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/109/109-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/110/110-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/110/110-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/110/110-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/111/111-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/111/111-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/111/111-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/112/112-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/112/112-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/112/112-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/113/113-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/113/113-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/113/113-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/201/201-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/201/201-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/201/201-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/202/202-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/202/202-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/202/202-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/203/203-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/203/203-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/203/203-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/204/204-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/204/204-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/204/204-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/205/205-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/205/205-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/205/205-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/206/206-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/206/206-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/206/206-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/207/207-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/207/207-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/207/207-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/208/208-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/208/208-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/208/208-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/209/209-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/209/209-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/209/209-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/210/210-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/210/210-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/210/210-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/211/211-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/211/211-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/211/211-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/212/212-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/212/212-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/212/212-3-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/213/213-1-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/213/213-2-320.flv
http://www-tc.pbs.org/wgbh/fromthetop/media/213/213-3-320.flv

If you use a text editor to save that block of text as a file named from-the-top.m3u8, VLC can open that as a playlist and stream episodes directly from the network.

If the text editor you're using is Notepad on Windows, make sure to change the file type from "text files" to "all files" in the Save As dialog box so that Notepad won't append ".txt" to the filename, which needs to end in ".m3u8" for Windows to treat it as a playlist file.

The best protection against having this kind of thing yoinked out from underneath you right when you need it, though, would be for you to download all these files instead of streaming them. Post a followup question here if you need help with finding a suitable bulk downloading tool.
posted by flabdablet at 10:20 PM on November 27, 2023 [10 favorites]


Best answer: Just for completeness: the bulk downloader I would use for this is wget, and the command line I'd use to invoke it for this job is

wget -i from-the-top.m3u8
posted by flabdablet at 10:28 PM on November 27, 2023 [9 favorites]


Response by poster: Thank you! I will see if I can figure it out. That is very, very helpful.
posted by charmedimsure at 4:21 PM on November 29, 2023


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