Different Versions
First, all versions of Streambox VCR are
beta versions with all that entails. No commercial
version was ever released.
Streambox released a number of beta versions
of SVCR during late 1999 and early 2000.
These are referred to as SVCR Version 1.0
Beta 2, Beta 3.0 and Beta 3.1. I assume at
some point there was a Beta 1 but I have
not seen it. SVCR was the next generation
of stream capturing software following X-FileGet
produced originally by 2B Systems which eventually
became part of Streambox. X-FileGet would
only capture realmedia streams from pnm or
http servers.
The Beta 2 version of SVCR was designed to
capture both real media (RTSP & PNM protocol)
streams and advanced streaming format (ASF)
streams. See Beta 2 Release Notes from Streambox for additional details.
The Beta 3.0 release made improvements for
ASF streams but removed support of RTSP &
PNM streams owing to a preliminary injunction
brought by Real Networks. See Beta 3.0 Release Notes from Streambox.
The Beta 3.1 release included minor improvements
but would still only work with ASF streams
and not PNM/RTSP streams. See Beta 3.1 Release Notes.
Since Streambox ceased development and support
of SVCR, none of the authentic beta versions
will work because of the "phone home"
feature. In its original form SVCR communicates with
a server at streambox.com via the internet
and would report information such as your
SVCR username and password that you supplied
when you first ran the program. It may have
also reported other information about the
stream you are capturing. As this server
is not operating now, the original SVCR programs
will hang because no one answers when they
"phone home". .
Fortunately this problem has been resolved
by Flying Raichu with some elegant modification
to the SVCR executable code. SVCR V1.0 Beta
2, 3.0 and 3.1 have been modified so they
do not "phone home" and so regain
the original functionality. Flying Raichu
has further modified Beta 3.1 to restore
the RTSP & PNM support! This version
is the Beta 3.1 Flying Raichu Version.
Flying Raichu has also provided another fix
to Beta 3.1, the Stealth-Mulfer Fix or SMF
version. This fix mimics realplayer functionality
in telling the streaming server what realplayer
version it is.
Flying Raichu provided elegant explanations
of these fixes in the svcrunderground site,
but that site is unfortunately not currently
available.
In this document the general reference to
SVCR or SVCR Beta 3.1 will mean the Flying
Raichu/SMF version of SVCR Beta 3.1. Specific
reference to SVCR Beta 2 and SVCR Beta 3.0
will mean the modified original Beta 2 and
3.0 versions.
