Stream It. Record It. Keep It.

Replay Media Catcher 9 User Guide

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Quick Start

Watch these videos to get up and running quickly with Replay Media Catcher:

In most cases, capturing online media is as easy as toggling the AUTO switch to the On position. screenshot

If this is the first time you are using Replay Media Catcher, you may get a notice about our SSL Scanner. This helps facilitate capturing streaming media over HTTPS connections.

Replay Media Catcher will automatically recognize streaming media as you browse the Internet. When streaming media is recognized, it will be saved to your computer. For more information, please read Capture Method - Stream Downloader.

If you don't want Replay Media Catcher to constantly monitor for streaming media, toggle the AUTO switch to the Off position: screenshot

To save media on demand, add the URL of the page from which you want to download media into the URL Download field:

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Replay Media Catcher will then find the media on the page and save it for you. For more info, please see Saving Online Media with the URL Bar and DVR Online Videos with the URL Bar.

If the media playing in your browser (or via the Drag & Drop or Copy & Paste method) cannot be saved, the media is likely protected from download. In these cases, you can still save the media using Replay Media Catcher's Audio Recorder or Digital Video Recorder features.

Tutorials

When you first launch Replay Media Catcher, you will be presented with an overview of the software and an opportunity to do a guided walk-through. We strongly recommend you watch the tutorial, as it highlights commonly used features and teaches you how to use them.

You can reopen the tutorial screen any time via the Main menu icon at the top right screenshotand selecting Tutorial.

We also recommend that you watch our video tutorials: Video Tutorials

Overview and the Home Tab

Overview

Replay Media Catcher is an easy-to-use, yet powerful app to capture video and audio files from thousands of websites while you play them in your Web browser. You can then use the saved files in any way you like, including transferring them to your phone or tablet, compiling albums and playlists on your PC, and more.

Here are the key features of Replay Media Catcher:

  1. Automatically capture streaming media
  2. Save online videos in original quality
  3. Record audio from any source as it plays on your PC
  4. Automatically convert recorded files to a format of your choice
  5. Schedule recordings from any playable URL
  6. Use embedded video, music and radio guides to help you find interesting content to save
  7. Automatically identifies and tags recorded MP3 files thanks to the Music Fingerprinting technology

The Home Tab

When you start Replay Media Catcher for the first time, the default view is the Home tab for Stream Recording.

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Replay Media Catcher Main Toolbar

At the top of Replay Media Catcher is a toolbar, which adjusts depending on the chosen Capture Method.

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When the Stream Downloader Capture Method is chosen, the AUTO button will appear, as seen on the above screenshot. Please read Capture Method - Stream Downloader to learn more about this method and how to use it.

At the top right, you will find the main toolbar icons for accessing the most common recording features:

Replay Media Catcher tabs

On the left-hand side of the user interface you will find tabs for:

Replay Media Catcher Home Tab Central Content

The contents of the central area will change depending on the chosen tab. When on the Home tab, all your saved media will be shown in the central file listing section.

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  1. At the top left is the global conversion pull-down menu. Please refer to the Converting Media Formats section for more information.
  2. At the top right is a Search field where you can search though your saved media.
  3. At the bottom, you can see a generated thumbnail for the media and information about it.There are icons for screenshot getting more information, screenshot playing the media, screenshot and revealing the Windows folder where the media was saved.
  4. In the middle is the saved media listing itself. The name of the media as well as file characteristics are listed. Clicking on column headers will change the sorting order. Right-clicking on a saved file will bring up a context menu for additional actions:
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  5. Stop: Stop the active download or recording
  6. Delete: Delete the selected file(s)
  7. Rename: Rename the selected file
  8. Remove: Remove the selected file(s) from the listing but do not delete them from the computer
  9. Play: Launch the appropriate media player for the media type
  10. Convert: Convert the selected file(s) to the media format chosen in the global conversion pull-down
  11. Save to MP3: Quickly convert the selected file(s) to MP3 without having to select a global conversion setting
  12. Combine: Merge the selected files into one continuous file - see Split and Combine for more information
  13. Fix FLV: Adjust the duration or time stamp for selected file(s) - sometimes necessary for FLV files that have audio/visual synchronization problems
  14. Restart: Attempt to restart the download/recording - not always possible depending on the media source
  15. Import into iTunes: Send the selected file(s) to iTunes
  16. Import into WMP: Send the selected file(s) to the Windows Media Player library
  17. Show in folder: Show the saved media in its Windows
  18. Artwork: Open the file Properties window to show the downloaded artwork or generated thumbnail
  19. Lyrics: Open the file Properties window to show any lyrics that might have been obtained
  20. Lookup Tags: Attempt to find artist and album information (a.k.a. ID3 tags)
  21. Properties: Open the Properties window to see more information about the saved media

Capture Method - Stream Downloader

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Replay Media Catcher will detect and download video and music from thousands of sites that are streamed via many different protocols and in many different formats. Click here for the full list of supported protocols.

Browser Independence

It does not matter what browser or other application you use to watch streaming videos or listen to music online. This is because Replay Media Catcher monitors the network stream for media, and once streaming media is detected, it will download or record the stream.

What Is the Difference Between Recording and Downloading Internet Streams?

When Replay Media Catcher detects a compatible stream, it will try to create another connection to download it. When Replay Media Catcher is downloading, there is no need to continue to play the video or music in your browser.

Sometimes it is not possible for Replay Media Catcher to create a separate connection and download the media. In that case, Replay Media Catcher will record the stream as it plays in your browser. When Replay Media Catcher is recording in this manner, you must continue to play the video or music in your browser. If you stop playback, Replay Media Catcher will also stop recording.

Replay Media Catcher displays Downloading or Recording in the Status column of the Home tab for the respective capture methods. If a stream is protected and cannot be downloaded or recorded directly, you can use the Audio Recorder (for audio content) or the Digital Video Recorder (for video content) to save the media.

Monitoring For Internet Streams with AUTO

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You must start monitoring for available Internet streams BEFORE you watch or listen to media that you want to capture. First, make sure that the capture method in the top right is set to Stream Downloader, as seen above. Toggle the AUTO switch on before browsing to the media you want to capture. screenshot.

Saving Online Media with the URL Bar

You can perform manual downloads using the URL bar, which can be found directly beneath the AUTO switch. As the hint text suggests, you can manually type in a URL, copy & paste a URL, or drag & drop a URL into the text field. If you already have a URL copied to the Windows clipboard, you can use the screenshot clipboard button at the end of the URL field. Then press the Enter key or click the screenshot download arrow button. Replay Media Catcher will visit the URL and attempt to grab streaming media from it. The screenshot DVR button in the bar will launch the Digital Video Recorder to record the media as it plays in your browser (refer to Capture Method - Digital Video Recorder for more information).

Media Extractor - Choosing Media Quality

Often, online media will be streamed in multiple formats and qualities. For compatible streams, Replay Media Catcher will detect the available media formats and let you choose which formats you want to save.

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Expand the formats list and double-click on the one you want to download. The line will turn green, indicating that the video is queued for download. If you are interested in only saving a particular format or quality all the time, you can configure those preferences with the Preferred Download Quality and Preferred Download Format drop-down menus at the bottom of the window.

If you change your mind about preferred formats, you can reset the preference in Settings -> Internet Downloads.

File Naming

Please refer to Settings -> Naming Rules and Advanced Settings

Capture Method - Audio Recorder

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Audio recording is a great way to capture music when downloading the file fails. Saving audio using this method will work regardless of the format, protocol, or web site where the media is posted.

First, switch to the Audio Recorder by changing the Capture Method in the top right toolbar. The green bull's-eye screenshotRECORD button will appear at the top left. Once clicked, the RECORD button will turn to a red square STOP button screenshot.

Replay Media Catcher will start actively monitoring for audio media. When Replay Media Catcher is actively recording audio, the VU meter will animate at the lower left of the interface, and the recording will be seen on the Home tab.

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Splitting and Combining Recordings

While recording, you may wish to begin the creation of a new file, ending the first, without stopping the recording process. This is easily achieved using the Split Now scissors icon in the toolbar screenshot.

Sometimes, based on the automatic silence detection settings (see Settings -> Audio Recording and DVR), a recording might be accidentally split into two or more files.

If that happens, you may want to join multiple files together to make a long recording.

In the Home tab, simply select the files you wish to combine, right-click and choose Combine.

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The Combine window will appear. Reorder the recorded clips as you wish by dragging and dropping them, with the top-most item being the first. Give a name for the combined recording, and press the Combine button.

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The Combine option can also be accessed from the Main Menu icon screenshot or by pressing the + key on your keyboard's number pad.

Small Interface

If you are capturing a lot of media from the Internet (a playlist of songs, for instance) then you may wish to use the Small Interface by clicking screenshotin the toolbar.

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The progress of active recordings will appear in a movable box at the lower right of the screen. You can turn off this option in Settings -> Personalization -> "Display progress alerts when minimized". The Small interface can be dragged to different locations on your screen and you can return to the Main Interface by clicking screenshot.

Setting the Output Folder

You can change the default output folder to which files are saved in by clicking screenshot in the toolbar. You can also change the location via Settings -> Output Folder.

Audio Settings and Naming (a.k.a. Tagging) Rules

Please view the Settings sections on Audio Recording and Naming Rules.

Capture Method - Digital Video Recorder

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Videos from some streaming websites cannot be directly downloaded or recorded using the Stream Capture method. For these cases, Replay Media Catcher has a powerful Digital Video Recorder feature. In this mode, only one recording can be done at a time.

Currently, DVR supports a wide variety of popular sites including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney, and more.

To select Digital Video Recorder, click on the camera icon in the top right toolbar. The Digital Video Recorder feature is available on computers running Windows 7, 8, 10, 11.

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DVR Online Videos with the URL Bar

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As with the Stream Downloader capture mode, website URLs can be dragged & dropped (or copied and pasted) into the URL bar at the top of the Replay Media Catcher interface. Thescreenshot clipboard icon can also be used to paste a URL that you have copied from the browser. Then press the screenshotDVR button to the right in the URL bar. Replay Media Catcher will go to the site and attempt to make a recording of the video there. If the recording fails, you may need to use our DVR Browser to specifically start the recording, especially if login credentials are necessary.

DVR Online Videos with the DVR Browser

Replay Media Catcher includes a convenient web browser for making digital video recordings of online media easier. To open the DVR Browser, click the globe icon in the toolbar screenshot. The DVR Browser window will open and you'll get a list of popular video streaming websites.

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You can click on a service thumbnail to go to the site, or you can enter any URL in the URL field. Reopening the DVR Browser will take you back to the last site you visited, and the screenshot Home button will return you to this main list.

Once you found a video you want to capture and it's playing in the DVR Browser, click the screenshot REC button. The browser window will close and the video will be recorded in the background. You can check the mini live preview of the recording in the lower left corner of the Replay Media Catcher interface.

Note: Replay Media Catcher uses audio redirection by default, so there will be no audio.

DVR recordings are meant to be done in the background, so there will be no audio playing in the DVR Browser or during an active recording. If you do hear audio from the video, then our audio redirection is not locked into the media or you have turned off the setting. Close and reopen the DV Browser. If you want to hear the audio while a recording is taking place, turn Off the Audio Redirection option in Settings -> DVR.

Additional options:

  1. Recording Duration: If you want to record for a specific amount of time, enter the number in the screenshotRecording Duration box at the top right of the DVR Browser window. Recordings will then ignore the silence detection routines (see Settings -> DVR). Be sure to include enough time for any commercial breaks.
  2. Settings: Some websites open embedded windows to play their videos. When that happens, you need to turn on the Adjust embedded player for DVR setting via the screenshot DVR Browser Settings gear icon.

DVR Automatic Silence Detection

Automatic silence detection is controlled via Settings -> DVR where you can enable or disable the Split on silence feature.

Replay Media Catcher's DVR includes methods to detect if there is silence during a recording. This typically indicates that a video has completed or that a commercial break has been encountered. By default, Replay Media Catcher will "split" a recording when silence is detected and create separate recordings. This conveniently allows you to subsequently delete advertisements and only watch the content you are interested in. Video recordings can then be recombined into a single video as previously described for audio recordings.

If a longer period of silence is detected, Replay Media Catcher will completely stop the recording under the assumption that the video has completed. This "timeout" feature can be adjusted in Stop if no sound (sec) in Settings -> DVR. Please refer to the Settings section of this User Guide for more information.

Guides: Exploring the Media Guides

Various Guides are available to help you find Videos, Music, Radio, and Podcasts to download and record.

Some guides let you download and schedule downloads directly from within the guide itself. Others require Internet monitoring or audio recording to be switched on to capture media as it plays in the guide.

Guides that allow direct downloads let you schedule content for download or recording. Using the guide as a reference for scheduling recordings ensures that correct information will be entered into the Scheduler.

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Schedule Recording

Replay Media Catcher contains a sophisticated scheduler that allows you to schedule regular and unattended downloads and/or recordings. The scheduler takes into consideration the time zone of the source and takes daylight saving into account, automatically adjusting the time difference. This is particularly important for regular radio recordings.

Replay Media Catcher does not need to be running when a download or recording is scheduled. It will automatically start using the Windows Task Scheduler.

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  1. screenshot New Schedule icon: Click the New Schedule icon to create a new schedule from scratch, or use the Guides to get initial schedule information.
  2. screenshot Save Schedule icon: The Save Schedule icon will become active when there are unsaved changes to a schedule.
  3. screenshot Delete Schedule icon: Deletes the selected schedule.
  4. screenshot Run Now Schedule icon: Clicking Run Now will run the recording immediately. The recording will last until the end time set in the Schedule options.
  5. screenshot Import icon: The Import icon allows you to import previously exported schedules.
  6. screenshot Export icon: The Export icon allows you to save a schedule file to your computer for later use.

You can configure a scheduled download or recording as follows:

Monitor Webcams and Live Streams

Replay Media Catcher contains a sophisticated monitor, which allows you to monitor webcam and live stream pages so that you never miss a broadcast.

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You can configure the web page containing the webcam or live stream to monitor as follows:

Settings Tab: Customizing Replay Media Catcher

The Settings tab allows you to customize the behavior of the software. All settings have tooltips that provide information about them when you hover your mouse over them. If you want to return to the default settings, press the IMG_321 Reset button located on the right, under the main toolbar.

Personalization

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Output Folder

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By default, your recordings will be placed into an Applian\Replay Media Catcher folder inside your Documents folder. You can easily change to a number of different common folders. If you have a "cloud" service installed, Replay Media Catcher will recognize it and provide that as a save location option as well. Links for three common cloud services are supplied if you wish to install them.

If you want a custom location for saving the downloaded and recorded media, select the Custom and specify a custom output folder in the Output Folder field at the bottom of the screen.

Internet Downloads

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When you turn on the Auto mode for Stream Downloading, Replay Media Catcher will watch network traffic for data that looks like media. Replay Media Catcher does this using either the WinPcap Monitor or Applian Network Monitor driver. If you are not seeing any media being downloaded when Auto is ON, then you may need to switch to the other driver. WinPcap is the preferred driver due to fewer conflicts with other software, and Network Monitor is specifically recommended for downloading media over VPN connections.

Audio Recording

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DVR

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Naming Rules

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Replay Media Catcher uses a curly-bracketed (aka braces) shorthand for naming files. This shorthand allows for easy naming of recordings based on a series of rules.
Track: {title} {album} {artist} {genre} {trackno} {year}
Date of the recording: {D} - day, {M} - month, {Y} - year, {H} - hour, {MI} - minute, {S} - second
{id} - Uid, the order in which the file was downloaded in the file listing. Clear the listing and restart to reset the Uid.
Folder Separator for creating subfolders: \

So, if you want a tagged file to be named by album, artist, and then title with underscores between, you should use {album}_{artist}_{title}.

If you want to put the tagged file into subfolders, artist first and then album, and include the track number, you could use {artist}\{album}\{trackno}-{title}.

If a recording is not automatically tagged, you might need to manually tag it for the file naming rules to apply. Right-click on the recording and choose Properties.

For media obtained via the Stream Downloader method, additional naming rules apply after the initial title is determined. Please refer to Advanced Settings for these site-naming rules.

Get Support Tab

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On the Get Support tab, you can learn more about Replay Media Catcher as well as gather useful information to technical support if there is a problem.

Converting Media Formats

On the Home tab, beneath the main toolbar, you will find the conversion preset pull-down.

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Selecting a preset from this drop down means that any download, recording or conversion started after the preset is changed will be converted to that format. If you don't want to convert the file, select Don't Convert, and you will see No Conversion Setting selected.

Conversions of media can either be done automatically, as mentioned above, or on-demand.

To perform on-demand conversion, choose a conversion setting, then right-click on the media in the Home tab and select Convert. Alternatively, if the media is already selected, you can choose Convert from the Main Menu screenshot. If you are scheduling a recording, you can set it up to perform conversion automatically (see Schedule for more information).

Quick Conversion to MP3

If you have a media file or files that you want to convert to MP3, you don't need to set a global conversion setting. Simply select the files to be converted in the Home tab. Next, either right-click on the file or use the Main menu to choose Save to MP3. Your selected file will be converted to a high quality MP3.

Importing Media For Conversion

You may have media from other sources that you would like to convert to a different format. First, import the media into Replay Media Catcher. This can be done either by dragging & dropping the file from Windows onto the Replay Media Catcher file listing, or via the Main Menu's Import option (press Alt+i on the keyboard).

Note: Media imported into Replay Media Catcher will stay in its original location. Conversions of the media will be saved to the same location. The imported media will not be moved to the Replay Media Catcher Output Folder.

Then, select a conversion setting from the pull-down and choose Convert from the right-click or Main menu.

Changing and Adding New Conversion Settings

You have full control over the preset conversion settings and can create, delete and modify them. However as new devices and formats are released, preset conversion settings will be updated, and these are automatically downloaded when you start the application.

To create, delete or edit existing preset conversion settings, select the Configure menu item from the drop-down. The Conversion Presets dialog will appear.

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Select the preset conversion setting you wish to modify from the drop-down list at the top.

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To add a new format without deleting the default one, simply click the Copy button first, give your new format a name, and then edit as you wish.

All conversion settings follow FFMPEG conventions.

Advanced Internet Downloading Settings

In general, you won't need to adjust the Advanced settings. These settings are accessed via the Advanced button on the Settings -> Internet Downloads page. Before you adjust these settings, you'll need to turn Off and back On the AUTO setting for any changes to take effect.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Disabling Secure Boot on Windows 8.1 Systems

The Applicationrecording mode requires Secure Boot to be disabled on Windows 8 systems. The benefit of the Applicationrecording mode is that each audio source can be isolated, providing a clean recording. You can still recording in Stereo Mix mode without disabling Secure Boot, but then the recordings might overlap with other audio playing on your computer, such as system sounds. You will need to be careful to turn off system sounds and not have any other audio play during a recording.

You might want to print out these instructions or have them open on a mobile/secondary device since disabling Secure Boot involves restarting your computer. You might also want to bookmark this page to return to after disabling Secure Boot.

  1. Press the Windows key + C, or (if you have a touchscreen) swipe in from the right edge of the screen to open your Charms.
  2. Click Settings.
  3. Click Change PC Settings.
  4. In PC Settings, select Update and Recovery.
  5. In the Update and Recovery screen, click Recovery at the left.
  6. Under Advanced Startup, click Restart now. The system will restart and show the Windows 8 boot menu.
  7. In the boot menu, select Troubleshoot.
  8. In the Troubleshoot menu, select Advanced options.
  9. In the Advanced options menu, select UEFI Firmware Settings.
  10. Click Restart button to boot into UEFI BIOS Setup screen.
  11. Each manufacturer lays out the BIOS differently. Look through the BIOS settings and disable Secure Boot. Save settings and exit.

Once Secure Boot is turned off, you will be able to use the Applicationsrecording method to get clean recordings.