Introduction
Sick of just watching streamed videos and audio tracks, and not being able to save them? So are many others, and this demand has given rise to nearly a dozen utilities that will record them to your PC.
The bad news is that the best recording utilities in this category are shareware not freeware. That is because the websites of some better free programs like StreamBox VCR and GetASFStream have been 'chased off' the web by copyright owners. You can still occasionally locate the aforementioned software on obscure download sites, but none of them are stable enough to warrant listing here.
An alternative for most users is to use a free web service like KeepVid to download the streaming media, and if that approach does not work on a stream, you can simply record the streaming media while it is playing on your PC. Sure, there is some loss of quality, but the great advantage of this approach is that you can record it in a form that is free of any protection and can therefore be replayed through any device supporting the appropriate file format.
While it is possible to record streaming media, you need to be very aware that a lot of streamed content is copyrighted and that recording such content may violate the copyright laws of your country. So, in advising you about products that record streaming media, I am assuming you only want to record non-copyright material.
Rated Products
Platforms/Download: Mac OS | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware
| Our Rating: 4/5 |
|
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Platforms/Download: Mac OS | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware
| Our Rating: 4/5 |
Read more...
Platforms/Download: Linux | Mac OS | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware
| Our Rating: 3.5/5 |
Read more...
Platforms/Download: Linux | Windows (Desktop) |
Version reviewed: n/a
Gizmos Freeware
| Our Rating: 3.5/5 |
Read more...
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Comments
There is a portable version of Audacity. It's available at portableapps.com:
http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/audacity_portable
For the past several years, I've been using StreamWriter (https://streamwriter.org/en/) to record a favorite weekly Internet radio program; with that particular station's stream at 128 kbps, each four-hour installment weighs-in at around 225 MB (I then use a simple editor, MP3DirectCut, to edit out station IDs and promos). It's a free app (donations accepted).
StreamWriter can record audio as either MP3 or AAC files; other features include the capability to record multiple streams simultaneously, schedule recordings, and either be installed or run as a portable app.
Virustotal shows it to be 100% clean (as do Avira, HitmanPro and Malwarebytes).
Highly recommended.
Jing is useless, whether for a meagre 5 minutes or not. The developer has adopted a ridiculous "verification" process whereby the app won't run unless the user has registered for an account with a third party provider. That provider's registration process is dysfunctional: you can spend all day trying to get it to accept your newly created password but you still won't be able to register. Complete waste of time.
I think this is one of the best or it is the BEST streaming media recorder is Jing and Audacity. A friend of mine insisted me to try this and she says it has cool features and it is a great software. I doubted at first but after trying it , I 100% agreed to her.
MP3 Direct Cut is also a nice little freeware program. It takes a bit of time to configure the audio source, but, once that's done, it works very well.
One simple question: what are the FILE SIZE RESTRICTIONS on these SOFTWARE. Ok Jing is 5 mins.
I have read CAMSTUDIO is 2 GB... What is KRUT's?
I am interested in knowing either in TIME UNITS (MINS, HRS, SECS) or FILE SIZE ( KB,MB or GB) the limitations of these SWR.
If they are limited to 5 mins or something like that, it's of zero interest to me.
Now if there are ways to change the recording parameters, such as FRAME RATE, to accommodate more time in order to comply with a given MAX FILE SIZE, then I would appreciate knowing.
Unfortunately NONE of these in their WEB SITES, PAGES, FAQ or whatever is clear on that point.
I just finished testing Jing, CamStudio and Debut (free version) for use in recording streaming videos to save on my computer. I have a Win 7, 64 bit machine. In my opinion, Debut wins hands down in this regard for ease of use and video quality while keeping the file size small. I had a lot of problems and errors with CamStudio 2.7 and became frustrated after tinkering with it for most of an afternoon. I got great results using their lossless codec, but the file sizes were astronomical, and using other codecs resulted in poorer quality than with Debut. Sometimes after recording I could not save the file to disk as I would receive an error and the recording would just disappear. The program was just in a word...clunky. Jing was a total waste of time. I should have read the fine print, as a five minute recording limit is worthless to me, so I immediately uninstalled it without further use. Otherwise, Jing may be a good program if short video captures is all you would need.
There are many softwares i would like to recommend as there are only a few softwares which are present here. All the softwares which i am recommeding here are the softwares which are easy to install, compatible ,user friendly and free to download. The list is as follows:
Any video recorder
[Moderator's note: Commercial program names edited out. Undesired program suggestion edited out. Unnecessary comment about the review edited out. Money making suggestion edited out.]