Here is an howto, how to capture and ASF stream and Burn them to a disc (DVD, VCD, SVCD; whatever you prefer). This can be used to make a local copy of an online tv/streamprovider like the Uitzendinggemist (dutch) site which provides you with replayes of programmes.

First of all, we need to capture the streams. Turns out this is actually quite easy, since Mplayer has support for this Built-in.  The command you need

mplayer -dumpstream yoururltotheasfstream.asf

This will take a long time (dependig on the length of the stream ofcourse, but most streams are not < 15 min), so hold on your breath.

When it’s ready you will see a stream.dump file in the location you started mplayer. Let’s convert this to an MPEG2 format, so it’s usable as an SVCD disc in most players. You can convert (ofcourse) to other formats, depending on your needs. A normal VCD isn’t something I would recommend, SVCD could be used for streams > 70 minutes (and don’t have HQ), and ofcourse otherwise use DVD authoring.

For the process of making the MPEG2 file(s), I used Tovid. Perhaps not the most user-friendly application, but it does the job. First install Tovid:

sudo apt-get install tovid tovidgui

Damn that was easy. Just start Tovid right now. Make the Stupid menu item, add your source (stream.dump) and be sure you have the right video settings (TV format / Disc Format). Press Encode and wait… For a long time (ofcourse depending on your computer / length of stream etc)

Now you have an MPEG2 stream available, most likely to be named stream.dump.tovid_encoded.mpg. You can burn this to disc with Tovid, I prefer K3b.