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Asuming you have defined the appropriate SVCR Settings, lets try to capture a stream. The link or URL:
pnm://usa.wrn.org/08002.ra
is an on demand audio stream from Radio Australia provided by the World Radio Network. The provider permits download of this stream
via normal FTP. Hence, I assume there is
no legal problem downloading it with SVCR
as long as you respect the copyright and
use the stream for personal use only. The
copy protection switch is set so you can
also use realplayer plus to record (capture)
the stream. (This is one of the few streams
I have seen that will permit the reaplayer
record function.) The stream works and has
these properties as of the date of writing
this users guide. There is no guarantee it
will always work or be permissable to download.
To capture the stream, copy the above link
to your clipboard, start SVCR running and
click the paste icon 
on the SVCR tool bar. This will paste the
contents of the clipboard (pnm://usa.wrn.org/08002.ra)
into SVCR. When you click the paste button
you will see the New Item window open:
The link has been copied to the Location
box, the Destination box shows what directory
the download file will go to, the Filename
box shows the name of the local download
file 08002.ra in this case. Click OK and
the download should start and you should
see something like this:
Click the stop icon 
after a minute or so and play the local,
file 08002.ra with realplayer. If the stream
does not download then there is a problem.
In ths case the first thing to check is if
the stream server is up. Paste the above
link into realplayer and see if realplayer
will play the stream. If it does the server
is up and running and there must be something
wrong with your setup or installation of
SVCR. See the Error Messages and When a Stream Won't Download.
In the New Item window, the Protocol is automatically
set at Auto. This means SVCR will automatically
select the appropriate download protocol,
pnm, rtsp, mms, http etc. Generally, leaving
it set at Auto is OK but sometimes you may
need to select a specific protocol to get
the stream to download. See When a Stream Won't Download.
You can edit the Filename box in the New
Item window if you want to change the name
of the local file where the stream is captured.
You can also change the directory by clicking
the elipsis (. . .) to the right of the Destination
box.
There are a number of tabs in the New Item
window. The Time, Proxy, Connection, FileConfirm
and PostProcess tabs are identical to and
serve the same function as those in the Settings window.
The purpose of the Autho tab is to handle
those streams that require a username and
password, i.e. those you subscribe to and
often have to pay for.
Information posted on The Streaming Media Recording Forum indicates that the SVCR password authentication capability does not work.
The Schedule tab function is to allow the user to schedule downloads ad various times.
I have had problems getting this capability
to work. You may have better luck. For example,
I can get the Beta 3.1 scheduler to work
as long as the scheduled time is PM. If the
scheduled time is AM, SVCR 3.1crashes. The
scheduler in SVCR Beta 3.0 does not seem
to have this problem. Remember if you schedule
SVCR to download a stream at some future
time using this capability, you cannot exit
SVCR. If you do you will lose the scheduling
information.
I use a macro/scheduler program to run SVCR
at programmed times and find this more convenient
and a more flexible approach to automating
downloads. It can be used to automate post-download
processing such as indexing etc. It can also
be used to select different download Protocols,
change the download file name etc.
SVCR seems to handle on-demand realmedia
streams well. In some cases you may need
to select a protocol rather than rely on
the Auto protocol selection (see When a Stream Won't Download ). SVCR also seems to work well for live
realaudio streams. However, there seems to
be an issue with live realvideo streams where
the audio is captured but the video is not
captured correctly, often freezing on the
first frame when the local file is played
back. SVCR Version 1.0 Beta 2 could not capture
live pnm and rtsp realvideo according to
the Release Notes from Streambox. Part of the Beta 2 code
was patched into the Beta 3.1 SMF version
by Flying Raichu to restore pnm and rtsp
capability, so it might be that the modified
Beta 3.1 will not handle live realvideo as
well. Just a supposition.
SVCR Beta 3.1 does not work in every instance
for asf streams. In most of these cases the
Beta 3.0 version will work. Not sure why
this is so. If you can get Beta 3.1 to work
I would recommend using it as it seems to
be more stable than Beta 3.0 (See Known Problems ).
When SVCR captures live asf streams the resultant
file is not indexed. This means it will not
play in Windows Media Player 7. It will play
in Windows Media Player 6.4 but the slider
will not work, that is you will not be able
to move the media player slider to fast forward.
To fix this you need to index the stream.
You can do this with Windows Media ASFIndexer
which is part of the windows media tools
package, a free download from Microsoft.
Yaan2 has written some tools to fix captured live
streams that are also useful. Other ASF Tools are
also available.
SVCR can be run from the command line. With Window 9x, click Start, Run and enter this line (you need to know the directory where SVCR is installed) :
"C:\ . . .(where your vcr is installed). . .\vcr.exe" pnm://usa.wrn.org/08002.ra
This will launch SVCR and start the download
without invoking the New Item window. Note:
running from the command line will always
use Auto protocol selection.
The command line option makes it convenient
to run SVCR from macros and scheduler programs.
You can also start more than one stream downloading
by using the command line :
"C:\ . . .(where your vcr is installed). . .\vcr.exe" URL1 URL2 URL3