Grabbing, Ripping, and Saving Streams

Sometimes the problem with a stream is that it flows by you too fast. It's gone before you've had a chance to appreciate it. Sure, you can replay it, but wouldn't it be nice if you could grab those fleeting images and sounds and save them to enjoy later? Wouldn't it be nice if you could time-shift streaming media the way you can time-shift a program on TV with your DVR?

Well, given the right software, you can. There are, in fact, a whole bunch of software programs for grabbing streams. They are called either stream recorders or rippers (named after CD ripping software). And while some people see the whole practice of ripping streams as ripping off, others see the practice as fair use and the Internet as the last bastion of openness and freedom. Those who fall into the latter camp have created a market for stream recording software.

One company playing a prominent role in this market is Applian Technologies, Inc. of San Anselmo, CA. The company sells (at modest prices) five different media recording software packages and a number of bundles, including: Replay Music (for recording MP3s and podcasts), Replay Radio (for capturing and saving your favorite Internet radio shows), WM Recorder (for recording Windows Media streams), RM Recording (for recording Real Media streams), and Replay Screencast, which is a screen capture tool. All products run on the Windows platform.

Then there are some nifty Applian bundles, including the Replay Video Suite, which combines RM Recorder, WM Recorder, and WM VCR, a scheduler, which allows the user to start recording Windows Media streams at preset times like a VCR. Another bundle called the Replay Media Center combines the company's audio and video tools into a recording package for the ultimate online digital media fanatic who wants to be able to grab just about any media that comes down the pike.

The Replay Video Suite is particularly interesting. With one mouse click you can use one of the video recorders (RM or WM) to save a music video, news feed, corporate Webcast, or subscription or pay-per-view content. Any Windows Media or RealAudio/RealVideo link is automatically saved as a recorded file on your PC. With RM and WM recorders you can record at the highest quality on a slow connection, watch partially downloaded streams, resume recording where you left off, record several streams simultaneously, and you can even record password protected streams. WM Recorder supports .wmv, .wma, .asx, .wmx, .wvx, and .wax files, and RM Recorder supports .ra, .rm, .rmvb, .ram, .smi, and .smil files. Both tools can record MP3, MPEG, AVI, and WAV files. One of the difficult tricks to recording a stream is finding out the URL of the stream you want to record. Both Applian RM and WM Recorders have a special "URL finder" that does this task for the user automatically. The Replay Video Suite sells for $49.

So what kind of people need (or think they need) to capture streams? Well, according to Tom Mayes, Applian Technologies' Chief Operating Office, about 95 percent of his customers are "entertainment consumers," he says. Many Replay Radio users are "talk show junkies who would rather die than miss an episode of Rush Limbaugh or All Things Considered."

Likewise, Replay Music users are music junkies--"the younger crowd, kids who want to fill up their MP3 players," according to Mayes. Video stream-grabbing consumers are a bit more diverse, and Applian video recording products actually provide the company with a way of anonymously tracing which destinations users are visiting and viewing. This helps Applian to survey user habits and preferences and helps them better market their products. Mayes says most users of Applian video recorders are accessing music videos and adult content. But there are also a number of stream recorder users in education and government. Mayes says his company saw a big sales spike the last time the space shuttle launched. Many people wanted to be able to capture NASA video streams of all aspects of the flight.

Mayes explains that he can't track what kinds of streams users of the Replay Radio and Music are grabbing, because those two products are what he calls "sound card" recorders." Software like this can record any signal produced by your sound card (Internet stream, music from a local CD, audio from a video game, etc.) including live input or microphone. The software does not actually record the stream per se but instead the audio coming from the sound card, which is then actually re-encoded as an MP3 file for output. (This is also a function that many popular CD recording products, like Roxio’s Easy Media Creator, also offer.)