Mark B
08-15-2013, 02:15 AM
Hi everyone,
Apologies if this has been covered previously, but I can't find any reference to it on the forums - probably because the search engine doesn't allow 3-character searches, so neither "MLB" nor "MLB TV" are allowed.
I'm trying to capture streams from MLB.TV, which is MLB.com's audio and video service where users can catch up on archived games and watch live baseball games as they occur. A large percentage of the time, Replay Media Catcher works fine for them (it would be great if they downloaded as MP4s instead of FLVs, but I digress), but if the stream is longer than normal - say, due to a rain delay or a particularly eventful pre-game or in-game ceremony, or just a slow game - and this causes the file size to go over 4GB, Replay Media Catcher halts the download, writes the existing data to the FLV file, and ends the job. This leaves an FLV file which initially looks fine, but when you try to seek to the end of the file, it will revert back to the start as the actual file data doesn't exist beyond the point at which the 4GB limit was hit.
This doesn't quite cover the problem, though - as most of the MLB.TV streams are fed at different bitrates, you may still be able to download the full stream, just at a lower bitrate. MLB.TV's bitrates are 300k, 500k, 1200k, 1800k and 2400k. If you always go for the highest quality, but this file happens to be 4.1GB, you will not be able to download it using Replay Media Catcher. But, if you try downloading at 1800k instead of 2400k, this file will most likely be under the 4GB limit if the 2400k file is 4.1GB, so this download works fine, albeit you are left with the lower quality file. There are cases, however, where the different bitrates seem to be unavailable, or triggered in a different way - this is usually evident in the nationally broadcast games. With these, only the 2400k stream is detected and downloaded, but if you lower the quality within the MLB.TV player, Replay Media Catcher does not detect the lower bitrate stream, despite the obvious drop in video quality in the player. A recent example of this is in the July 21st game between the Yankees and Red Sox. The game went 11 innings, lasted for 4 hours and 46 minutes and is larger than 4GB in size at the 2400k bitrate, and as no other bitrate is detected, the game can't be downloaded. However, I have been able to download the June 13th game between the Yankees and Athletics, which went 18 innings and lasted for 5 hours and 58 minutes, albeit at a lower bitrate; in this case, both the 2400k and 1800k bitrates were over the 4GB limit, the 1800k bitrate by around 15 minutes.
I originally presumed that maybe the files on MLB.TV's servers were stored in separate 4GB chunks, but don't think this is the case as the stream can be watched all the way through without any gaps in playback, and Replay Media Catcher doesn't download any new streams while the stream is left to run until the end of the game. I presume that if there were a separate chunk in which the remainder of the game is stored, Replay Media Catcher would detect that also.
I've looked through the Settings to see if there are any that I could alter to affect this, yet the only one I can see is the "Automatically resume when a secure RTMP connection is dropped" checkbox in the RTMP Tweaks menu, and this is already checked. I've also verified that my hard drive is using NTFS (just in case!) and that there is plenty of free space on the destination drive.
Would greatly appreciate any advice anyone has to offer on the best way to download these games which exceed the 4GB file size, and apologies for the very long first post!
And, finally, a feature request/suggestion - it would be really nice to see an average download speed for each file in the Status column. The file sizes rocketing up while downloading inspires confidence, but an average, or even a current download speed, would help you see just how much bandwidth is being used and which file is getting the data fastest.
Thanks! :)
Apologies if this has been covered previously, but I can't find any reference to it on the forums - probably because the search engine doesn't allow 3-character searches, so neither "MLB" nor "MLB TV" are allowed.
I'm trying to capture streams from MLB.TV, which is MLB.com's audio and video service where users can catch up on archived games and watch live baseball games as they occur. A large percentage of the time, Replay Media Catcher works fine for them (it would be great if they downloaded as MP4s instead of FLVs, but I digress), but if the stream is longer than normal - say, due to a rain delay or a particularly eventful pre-game or in-game ceremony, or just a slow game - and this causes the file size to go over 4GB, Replay Media Catcher halts the download, writes the existing data to the FLV file, and ends the job. This leaves an FLV file which initially looks fine, but when you try to seek to the end of the file, it will revert back to the start as the actual file data doesn't exist beyond the point at which the 4GB limit was hit.
This doesn't quite cover the problem, though - as most of the MLB.TV streams are fed at different bitrates, you may still be able to download the full stream, just at a lower bitrate. MLB.TV's bitrates are 300k, 500k, 1200k, 1800k and 2400k. If you always go for the highest quality, but this file happens to be 4.1GB, you will not be able to download it using Replay Media Catcher. But, if you try downloading at 1800k instead of 2400k, this file will most likely be under the 4GB limit if the 2400k file is 4.1GB, so this download works fine, albeit you are left with the lower quality file. There are cases, however, where the different bitrates seem to be unavailable, or triggered in a different way - this is usually evident in the nationally broadcast games. With these, only the 2400k stream is detected and downloaded, but if you lower the quality within the MLB.TV player, Replay Media Catcher does not detect the lower bitrate stream, despite the obvious drop in video quality in the player. A recent example of this is in the July 21st game between the Yankees and Red Sox. The game went 11 innings, lasted for 4 hours and 46 minutes and is larger than 4GB in size at the 2400k bitrate, and as no other bitrate is detected, the game can't be downloaded. However, I have been able to download the June 13th game between the Yankees and Athletics, which went 18 innings and lasted for 5 hours and 58 minutes, albeit at a lower bitrate; in this case, both the 2400k and 1800k bitrates were over the 4GB limit, the 1800k bitrate by around 15 minutes.
I originally presumed that maybe the files on MLB.TV's servers were stored in separate 4GB chunks, but don't think this is the case as the stream can be watched all the way through without any gaps in playback, and Replay Media Catcher doesn't download any new streams while the stream is left to run until the end of the game. I presume that if there were a separate chunk in which the remainder of the game is stored, Replay Media Catcher would detect that also.
I've looked through the Settings to see if there are any that I could alter to affect this, yet the only one I can see is the "Automatically resume when a secure RTMP connection is dropped" checkbox in the RTMP Tweaks menu, and this is already checked. I've also verified that my hard drive is using NTFS (just in case!) and that there is plenty of free space on the destination drive.
Would greatly appreciate any advice anyone has to offer on the best way to download these games which exceed the 4GB file size, and apologies for the very long first post!
And, finally, a feature request/suggestion - it would be really nice to see an average download speed for each file in the Status column. The file sizes rocketing up while downloading inspires confidence, but an average, or even a current download speed, would help you see just how much bandwidth is being used and which file is getting the data fastest.
Thanks! :)