Replay Media Catcher 2.1 User Guide
Click here for printable version of this User Guide

User Guide

Overview
How to Record Media
How to Rename Files
How to Play Captured Files
Other Options

Troubleshooting

Overview

Replay Media Catcher is a great way to capture streaming Flash video, and streaming MP3 audio. Most of the popular media sites use Flash, and until now, there was no way to capture these streaming files on your PC.

New with version 2.0 is the Automatic Naming feature. Any MP3 file, and videos from the most popular sites, are given descriptive names automatically. This makes it easier than ever to manage your recorded media collection.

Here's how Replay Media Catcher appears in action:

Besides being a handy recorder, Replay Media Catcher makes it easy to manage your captured media. It's easy to play captured media, edit MP3 tags and rename files. Your recorded files appear in an easily managed list. And you can even record full files just by playing a small piece.

In Demo Mode, Replay Media Catcher captures 75% of every file. This lets you experiment with the software to ensure it works properly for you. Once you order, that limitation disappears, and you can capture entire files.


How to Record Media

Recording media is easy. Here's how to do it:

  1. Open Replay Media Catcher. It appears like this:



  2. Click Start Recording. The button changes like so:



  3. Play the audio or video you want to capture. Recorded files start appearing in the files list like this:



  4. Once recording starts, you don't need to watch what you're recording. You can stop watching or listening, and go play something else to record. Recording continues automatically.
  5. Click Stop Recording when you're finished recording.

It's that easy!

While capturing, you will see one of the following icons next to the recording:

 

Here's some helpful hints about recording:


Using the MP3 Snagger plug-in:

New with Replay Media Catcher 2.1 is the MP3 Snagger plug-in. If you're having trouble recording songs from a music site, try activating the MP3 Snagger plug-in, and you may get better results. (The MP3 Snagger is inactive by default.) Here's how to activate it:

  1. Go to Tools, Settings. The settings dialog appears:



  2. Ensure the MP3 Snagger plug-in is checked.
  3. Click Close.
  4. Go to your music site, and try restarting the music playback.

Note: The MP3 Snagger starts in the inactive state every time you open Replay Media Catcher.


How to Rename Files

When recording, the files you capture occasionally may have cryptic names which you'll want to change. If you've captured an MP3 file, you can also edit the MP3 tags for that file. It's easy to do.

Here's how to rename files:

  1. Right click a recording to rename. The pop-up menu appears like this:



  2. Select Rename from the menu. The rename dialog for videos appears like this:



    If it's an MP3 file, you can rename the file and also edit the MP3 tags. Here's how it looks:





  3. Enter the new file name (and MP3 tags) and click Accept.

For MP3 files, you can engage the automatic song lookup feature by choosing Resolve Tag via Music DNS. This matches the song against a database of millions of songs to determine the proper artist, title, album and other information.

Important: Changing the file extension will almost always create an unplayable file. It is recommended to just change the name only.


How to Play Captured Files

Playing your recorded videos is easy with the included FLV Player software:

  1. Right click the file to play. The pop-up menu appears like this:



  2. Select Play Media.
  3. The video file plays using FLV Player.


Other Options

Here's some other handy things you can do to organize your recordings.

To clear all recordings from the list:

  1. Right click any file.
  2. Select Clear all finished to create an empty list, or Clear and delete all to clear the list and delete all saved files listed.

To cancel a recording:

  1. Right click the recording.
  2. Click Cancel and Delete Transfer or Cancel and Save Media.

To change the folder where recordings are stored:

  1. Click Tools, Settings from the menu. The settings dialog appears:



  2. Click the folder icon under Media Catcher Storage Directory to change the folder.


To view all saved recordings:


Troubleshooting

If you have trouble recording, please try the following:

  1. Click record in Replay Media Catcher before you begin playing the content that you want captured. In some cases you may need to start Replay Media Catcher before you open the source you will be capturing from.
  2. If you have already played the content once before capturing, you may need to clear your temporary internet files so that Replay Media Catcher can detect the content. To clear your temporary internet files from Internet Explorer 7, click on Tools then Internet Options then click the Delete button under the Browsing History section of the General tab. In the Temporary Internet Files section, click the Delete Files button. Once you have deleted your temporary internet files, try recording again.

 

If you still have trouble recording, it's probably because the media is in a format that Replay Media Catcher doesn't yet support - most likely Windows Media or Real. Here's a quick way to tell if a video stream is Flash:

  1. Right click on the video in the Web page.
  2. If it's a Flash Video, you'll see "Flash Player" mentioned in the pop-up. Here are some examples:





To record other formats, try either Replay A/V or WM Recorder. Both are excellent products, and have a free trial option.