Heineken video movies

Perhaps it's just me, but I've had a lot of bad luck with brain dead web sites lately. These are the type that claim to provide a service, but actually hinder any attempt to use them unless you're running IE. In 1600x1200. In 32 bit colour. On a T3 connection. During the month of August. ;)

My latest gripe is with Bitmove, the backend of the video email messages sent by the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam. The principle is simple and very good; provide a means whereby visitors can send video clips to their mates back home by sending a link to the website. Store and administer the video on a central server by a specialist IT company, and deleted them after 2 months. However, the streaming technology developed for this project suffered under my versions of IE, Firefox and Opera. I could not view, or download, my clips from the exhibitions, so I had to find a way around it. Preferably within 2 months.

Now, I know it works for some people, my gripe is "why not me?"

Refusing to debug their application for them (at least the IT is centralised so any bugs I find will work for all these exhibitions) I opened the JavaScript files to find the movie URLs in question, and then go a wget on the file directly. Naturally, it worked :)

For those having the same problem with Bitmove and Heineken Experience, let me give you the URL constructions:

• Go to the URL suggested by the email. This contains a UID (which is mapped to a filename on the server, so you'll need do go the web site) and a FORMAT , which you'll need later.
• View the source of this web page (sorry, you'll need to a be bit geeky for this!)
• Look for the word "loadBitmover". It will be followed with a name, e.g. steev180905122207.wmv. Make a note of this.
• If the FORMAT string is WMV (confirm with the filename, above) then visit:

http://bluescreen.bitmove.tv:80/wmv/

and then add your personal filename.

If the FORMAT is MPG, then repeat but with:
http://bluescreen.bitmove.tv:80/mpg/