RealPlayer’s proprietary RAM/RM format can be a student’s worst nightmare. While many universities record their lectures online, they refuse to allow them to be captured for fear that their precious gemstones of knowledge will be redistributed throughout the world… for free.

This is the reason many universities—as well as other audio distributors—stream their lectures using the RM format, because it is notoriously difficult to capture effectively. Many of us, contrary to the beliefs of the creators of such streams, do not wish to redistributed them, but merely wish to record them to listen to at our own convenience.

There is always the listen and record method, but this requires you to listen to the whole recording while not using your soundcard for anything else. Inconvenient and time consuming. Here is the easy way. Note: you will require a USB drive.

Downloading and Converting Real Media Audio

Simply drag the link to your stream into the play bar.

Click record. You can either listen while you record or pause, just don’t use RealPlayer for anything else while you’re streaming. The line should fill in with red.

When it’s done RealPlayer will take you to its recorded file library. This is where the real fun begins.

Right click on your file of choice, likely the one you’ve just recorded.  You’ll want to have your USB drive plugged in at this point. Now click Copy To, then Removable Disk.

You should see the following screen.

Once that’s complete you’ll be taken to the “All Music on Device” section. I’ve renamed mine ‘Miscellaneous stream’ to distinguish it from the rest of the files on my crowded USB drive.

The above screen means that the file should be on your removable disk. Now you simply need to navigate to it; RealPlayer creates some folders for you on your USB, so this requires some explanation. First, get to your USB drive. You should see a folder called “Music”, click on that. (Good to see that RealPlayer takes the clever approach of assuming you didn’t already have a folder with an obscure name such as “Music”)

There will be another folder inside this one.

Then another.

And, finally, you’ll be taken to your file!

And there you have it, you have easily captured and converted the elusive .RM stream without paying for RealPlayer Plus, or using any potentially spyware infested software. Congratulations on sticking it to the man!