WMR Pro Recorder
When used as a recorder you'll find that WMR Pro is the easiest way to record Windows Media (TM) Video and Audio, Internet TV, Internet Radio or any other content supported by Windows Media Player. Recording can be done at the time of play - Real Time Recording - or later - URL Recording.

WMR Pro Player
When used as a media player WMR Pro Player memorizes all the streams you visited or played and creates Day History playlists. You can then replay and record your favorites at different times. You can also replay and record video and audio played with Internet Explorer or Windows Media Player while the program is closed. WMR Pro can read your history files and find out previously played media.

Internet TV, Radio, Video / Audio Programs
In addition, WMR Pro brings you a broad collection of recordable Internet TV, Internet Radio and other Video / Audio programs. You can play, record, update and organize the streams listed in these categories.

Run the examples below to get familiar with some of WMR Pro recording and playing modes.

Real Time Recording
1. Make sure the recorder is in Capture Mode. Click Setting / Capture to turn Capture ON.
2. Click View / Internet TV and right click one of the shows from the MUSIC or FAVORITES sections.
3. Select Play Stream. When the player makes the connection WMR Pro captures the link and shows Recorder Ready: followed by the name of the file. In the RxTx window you can see if the stream data is present or absent.
4. Click Record to start recording.
5. Go back to Internet TV and select another shows to record.
6. While recording click View / Play Current Recordings to preview the files saved in your computer. Click Next on the Media Player to move to the next recording.

Playing Day History
1. Click View / Internet TV and right click one of the shows.
2. Select Play Stream. When the video begins go back to Internet TV and select another show.
3. After playing a few shows click View / Play Day History to playback the history file. Use the Next button on the Media Player to move to the next show.

• Make sure the recorder is in Capture Mode. Click Settings / Capture to turn the
  Capture ON.
• Play a Windows Media video or audio stream from your Internet Explorer browser or Windows Media Player. Shortly after the play begins the stream address is captured and displayed on the Capture screen. Once the stream address is captured Media Player can be closed or moved to another stream.
• The last captured link is always highlighted in the list. To record click the Record button on.
• To simultaneously record more items from the list select the items and click Record. Or right click the selection and select Record from the pop-up menu.
• To stop the recordings in process click the Stop button on the main screen or right click the File Name in the Recording window and select Stop Recording.

URL Recording
URL Recording can be used to record streams previously captured, cached by the browser or added to the Saved Links data base. When recording a saved link the Capture Mode can be either ON or OFF. Follow the steps below.

• Click View / Saved Links to open the Saved Links data base.
• If you only want to record one stream double click the link. To simultaneously record more items from the list select the items and click Record. Or right click the selection then select Record from the pop-up menu.

Note: In all cases the recorder makes a request for accelerated downloads to the remote server. Most of the servers comply with this request for On Demand (timed) HTTP and RTSP streams. In this case the download time (DL Time) is shorter or much shorter than the actual play time of the stream (5 to 10 times for Cable or fast DSL connections). Live streams however are always streamed which means the broadcast data rate is the same as the bit rate of the stream.

Renaming files

• Before starting to record a link you can change the file name. Right click the link and select Rename File from the pop-up menu.

The Recording Window

The Recording Windows opens any time you start a recording. Here you can see the recording activity as shown below.

Status: Status of recording and the protocol utilized.
DL Time: Download Time is the accumulated time when data is present. Note that this time can be shorter or longer than the actual play time of the stream.
Progress: Download or Recording progress.
Received: Data received in MBytes (Mega Bytes)
Rate: Received data rate in Kbps (Kilo bytes / second)

Select one or more items under File Name and right click the selection to access the recording options:

• Stop Recordings: Cancel one or more recordings in process and make the files seekable
• Preview Current Recording: Play the currently recording file from your computer. The file is not seekable at this time.
• Record Again: Cancel the current recording and start a new recording of the same file.
• Play Stream: Open a connection different than the recording connection and play the remote stream.
• Server Response: For HTTP or RTSP streams shows the response of the server (if any) to the request made by the recorder.
• Close Recording Window: Close the Recording Window and cancel all current recordings . Before closing the Recording Window you should stop all recordings as shown above.

Day History
WMR Pro Player saves all visited or played streams in a playlist history file. The file is called History followed by the creation date. To playback the links listed in this file click Play Day History under View. Or if WMR Pro Player is closed double click the file name to play using your normal Windows Media Player. To move to the next stream in the history file click the Next button on the Media Player. Note that sometimes web sites that own the content may change the stream URLs in which case you need to revisit the web site to update the invalid links.

Note: To create the Day History file you need to:

• Have the Capture Mode enabled
• Play the streams using Internet Explorer and/or Windows Media Player

Recording Day History streams
With the recorder in Capture Mode (Capture ON) double click the History file. As the saved streams begin playing the file name and URL are shown on the Capture screen. Click Record to record.

Preview Recordings
While one or more files are being recorded you can preview all recordings in process using the option Play Current Recordings from the View menu. In this case the player reads the files that are currently saved in your computer. All recordings in the Recording Window can be previewed. Click the Next button on WMR Pro Player to move to the next recording. Note that a recording in process is not seekable until the file is either Complete or Canceled.

The Mini Mode
Mini Mode hides the Media Player controls thus maximizing the video window size. To activate this mode click the Mini button located in the lower right corner of the program window (see WMR Pro image above). The first click moves the window to the upper right corner of the screen. Then the window can be resized and repositioned. To restore the controls click again the Mini button. The Mini button position is memorized when the program is closed.

Turning the player ON or OFF
To turn WMR Pro Player ON or OFF (video only) click the Player button. Click the Close (x) button on the video window to close the WMR Pro Player. When WMR Pro Player is ON all content played with Windows Media Player is shown into the WMR Pro window. The only exception is for the minimized position when Windows Media Player is shown in the Toolbar mode. To re-enable your normal Windows Media Player close WMR Pro Player.

• To schedule a recording right click a selected item then click Schedule Recording in the pop-up menu.

• The Scheduler menu option (Settings / Scheduler) determines how the scheduler starts and stops the recording.

• If the Scheduler is ON the recording begins when the current time is greater than the start time but smaller than the end time. When these conditions are met the scheduled recordings begin while WMR Pro is active or when you open the program.

• If the Scheduler is OFF no scheduled recordings begin however the current recordings in process continue until the end time is reached. To activate the scheduled recording set the Scheduler in the ON position.

• The Schedule Mode is memorized when you close WMR Pro.

• To stop a scheduled recording in process before it times out right click the File Name in the Recording Window and select Stop Recording from the pop-up menu.

Capturing recordable links in real time

• Make sure the recorder is in Capture Mode. Click Settings / Capture to turn the
  Capture ON.

• Play a Windows Media video or audio stream from your Internet Explorer browser or Windows Media Player.

• Shortly after the play begins the stream address is captured and displayed on the Capture screen. Once the stream address is captured Media Player can be closed or moved to another stream. If option Saved All Visited Links is enabled in Settings all captured links are saved in the Saved Links data base.

• You can select the file types that will be captured in Settings/Recording Options.

• Turning the Capture OFF while playing a stream stops the play.

Recording captured links

• The last captured link is always highlighted in the list. To record click Record on the program menu.

• To record one or more items from the list select the items and click Record or right click the selection then select Record from the pop-up menu.

Renaming files

• Before starting to record a captured link you can change the file name. Right click the link and select Rename File from the pop-up menu.

The default recording directory created when the program is installed is
C:\WMRPro Recordings. To change this folder use the option Recording Folder in Settings/Options.

Current users of the WM Recorder or RM Recorder should not use the WMR/RMR recording folder as the recording folder for WMRPro.

• To play back one recorded file double click the file name. Select two or more files, right click the selection and select Play from the pop-up menu to play the entire selection.

• To open Windows Explorer and show the recording folder click Open Recording Folder.

• Right click a directive file (asx, wvx) and select Show ASX/WVX File Content to see and record the links in the ASX playlist. ASX files containing one link only are not shown.

• The option Make File Seekable should be used if the recorded file was not made seekable during recording. This situation could occur if the recording was not properly closed. By default all recorded files are be made seekable when the recording is finished or closed. Note that VBR (variable bit rate) audio files cannot be made seekable. In this case the file should be converted to MP3 or WAV.

• If you double click a file that is currently recorded you can see what is actually being recorded. In general all Windows Media files downloaded from the Internet are not seekable when played back in a local PC before the file is reprocessed. You can use the Make File Seekable option to make the recording seekable up to the current point. When doing so a file with the extension _seek.asf is created.

Recording saved links

• To record one saved link double click the link (URL). Select two or more links (up to 30), right click the selection and select Record from the pop-up menu to record the entire selection. Note that the recording speed of each stream is a function of your connection bandwidth.

• In general ASX/WVX files do not contain stream data. These are text files which contain one or more addresses of video or audio streams. When recording ASX/WVX files the links listed in the file are recorded in order. If you want to simultaneously record listed streams close the current recording, open the Saved Recordings screen, right click the saved ASX file and click Show ASX/WVX File Content. Then select some or all files in the list and click Record.

• TCP (mms://) and RTSP (rtsp://) links may require a longer time to connect if the option Check All WMP Protocols is enabled in Settings/Recording Options. This is because the recorder checks the HTTP, RTSP, TCP versions in this order. If you are certain that MMS or RTSP is the correct protocol you should disable this option.

• In general the HTTP and RTSP versions of On Demand (timed) streams accept the recorder request for accelerated downloads. This results in faster recording of these streams (5 to 10 times the play speed).

• When you click Add URL/Text the recorder shows the content of your Clipboard. If you copied a valid URL the File Name and File Extension will also be shown.

• While a recording is in progress you can preview what is actually being recorded. In the recording window right click the file name and select Preview Current Recording from the pop-up menu.

• The recorder shows files cached during the last 30 days. Only Windows Media Player and QuickTime recognized extensions are displayed. These files are usually found in Temporary Internet Files and are available when Internet Explorer browser is utilized.

• You can record files that you have previously played with the Media Player before installing WMR Pro or files played when WMR Pro is closed. To record one or more items from the list select the items and click Record or right click the selection then click Record on the pop-up menu.

• To remove files from the cache select the files, right click the selection then click Remove From Cache on the pop-up menu. Removing files from the cache is not always allowed by Windows.

Recording the ASX links

• To record one link double click the URL. Select two or more links (up to 30), right click the selection and select Record from the pop-up menu to record the entire selection. Note that the recording speed of each stream is a function of your connection bandwidth.

• TCP (mms://) and RTSP (rtsp://) links may require a longer time to connect if the option Check All WMP Protocols is enabled in Settings/Recording Options. This is because the recorder checks the HTTP, RTSP, TCP versions in this order. If you are certain that MMS or RTSP is the correct protocol you should disable this option.

• In general the HTTP and RTSP versions of On Demand (timed) streams accept the recorder request for accelerated downloads. This results in faster recording of these streams.

• While a recording is in progress you can preview what is actually being recorded. In the recording window right click the file name and select Preview Current Recording from the pop-up menu.

Updating existing recordable links

• Right click the item that you want to update and select Add/ Change Program from the pop-up menu
• In the Add/Change dialog window click Open Web Site.
• When the web site displays click Get Web Site to update the web site URL and description. Play the video or audio stream listed in the web site.The stream URL is captured and displayed under Stream URL.
• Make changes to the Description (if any) and click OK.

Adding recordable links to existing country/category

• Right click the country/category.
• Follow the steps above.

Adding new recordable links

• Right click an empty space in the list and select Add New Program from the pop-up menu.
• In the Add/Change dialog window enter a name for the Country/Category.
• Open the web site of interest. Follow steps 3 and 4 from above.

Validate recordable links

• To check all recordable links right click an empty space in the list and select Validate All Programs from the pop-up menu.
• To check selected links highlight the items of interest, right click the selection and select Validate Programs from the pop-up menu.

Link validation guide

Validation is done by making a connection to the stream file and detecting the incoming stream data. The following messages are displayed:

Connecting - connecting to the file
Recording - waiting for stream data on an established connection
CANCELED - site name doesn't exist, connection to the file could not be established, the remote server shutdown the connection, no stream data was detected during the first minute
OK - stream data detected. Note that in some cases the remote server only sends the file header to acknowledge that it is active (Buffering)

• Right click an item or an empty space of any screen to show the available options. Only items located in the first column of the lists can be selected.

• The recorder can only capture links that are successfully connected. Media Player failure to connect does not result in a captured link.

• The Open Stream option available in all screens opens your player to play the selected stream without recording. If the Capture Mode is enabled the stream address is captured and shown on the Capture screen.

• You can use the option Select Media Player in Settings to select your preferred media player instead of Windows Media Player. Note that there are many available players that can playback WMP files from a local PC however not all are able to access WMP files from the Internet.

• If during recording the stream data is absent for more than 2 minutes the recorder closes the connection and makes another connection to the stream file (Reconnect). The new data is added to the existing file however the lost packets are not recovered. A maximum of 30 reconnections are allowed before the recording is canceled.

• MP3 streams broadcasted using ICY protocol (Shoutcast radio stations for example) cannot be played by Windows Media Player. To listen to these streams in real time with the Media Player you can record the streams and use the option Preview Current Recording on the recorded stream. WMR Pro makes recordings compatible with Windows Media Player.

• To start WMR Pro or RxTx when you start Windows copy the program icon to your Startup folder (for Windows XP this is usually
  
  C:\Documents and Settings\---User Name---\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Using the data graph (RxTx)

• To attach the data graph display to WMR Pro check the button Data Graph (RxTx) in WMR Pro Settings.

• The graph shows the incoming data (Rx) in green and the outgoing data (Tx) in blue (when enabled). The default units are Kbps (Kilo bits per second). The graph displays the input / output data rates of your entire computer activity.

• To access the options right click the data graph and select Options from the pop-up menu.

• The numbers displayed at the bottom of the graph show the instantaneous Rx/Tx values. When the instantaneous rates are zero no numbers are displayed.

• To calculate and display the average of data rates shown in the graph move the mouse horizontally over the graph.

• Use the Toolbar option to place the graph on the task bar. To move the graph window to another position on your desktop click anywhere inside the graph and start moving the window upwards.