HotTube Movie Ripper and Player Help

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Important Notes:

The software is designed to use with Windows XP, Vista or 2000 with Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater and Adobe Flash 8 or greater plug-in required to play Videos on the targeted site and your computer.

The Capture Program is designed to capture all Videos WHILE they are being cached (by streaming the first time) to your computer from the targeted website using Internet Explorer 5.0 or greater. Firefox or other browsers will not work with this software.

Contact sales@webmediaspider.com from your PayPal email address if you have problems capturing and saving Videos with this software for one on one help if needed after License purchase. Make sure to indicate your Product Name: HotTube Movie Ripper and License number, PayPal email address and operating system, connection speed, etc. and any helpful information about the problem so that I can help you. Also, questions and feedback from Licensed users are welcomed.

IMPORTANT VISTA user notes:

The HotTube Capture Program must have read/write access to your computer. It is designed to work with computers where the user has administrator rights. You should be in full control of your computer not as a logged in user.

A program has been included, ControlUAC, to allow you to Enable or Disable the Vista UAC control. This program requires a reboot of your computer after changing states of the UAC before the program will continue execution and capture videos properly.

To accomplish this without problems in Vista the User Access Control must be disabled. This should have been done when the program was 1st executed. If not, see instructions at: Vista UAC Help

The built-in list contains NON-Adult sites

Many adult sites are also supported by the program, like Redtube.com, PornHub.com. etc but, they are NOT in the default Built-in site list that comes with the program to protect NON-Adult underage minors. (If you would like a tested list of supported adult websites, contact WebMedia Spider with your purchased license number and PayPal email address to prove you are an adult and WebMedia Spider will email you a copy.) You can also edit this site list your self with the built-in editor.

Specific Instructions for Ripping a Video (Windows XP/Vista/2000):

For best results close ALL Internet Explorer browser windows (or Tabs) BEFORE starting the program,

Double-Click the HotTube.Video Capture icon on your desktop to start the program.

Your FREE TRIAL:

Your free trial allows you to see the FULL functionality of the software and to play and save the captured Videos on your computer after they complete capture by the Capture Program. You only get TWO free fully functional uses of the program so do not close the program until you have tried all the functions and saved all the Videos you want :)

Licensed Users:

Licensed Users have the same functionality as the FREE TRIAL but as long as your license period is active you will be able to Rip (Save) the Captured Videos to your computer for playback using the built-in HotTube Video Player or any other player that supports the HotTube Video Player File Formats. You may also save the files to your Flash drive to be copied to or played on other computers with a player that supports the HotTube Video Player File Formats.

HotTube Video Player File Formats supported:

The player will play the following formats:

Adobe Flash FLV, MP4 and SWF (ALL of these file formats ARE Captured by the HotTube Capture Program.)
JPG,GIF and PNG picture formats (These are not captured by the Capture Program but an option for capture may be added later.)
MP3 Music File formats (no Video)

Special Note: To play a MP4 File with the HotTube Video Player the file must first be saved with a .FLV file extension.

Example: Saving MyFile.MP4 to play with the player -> Change the filename to: MyFile.MP4.FLV.
This allows you to remember it will play in a MP4 Player as well.

You can also download a FREE MP4 Player HERE which does not require changing the file extension.

WebMedia Spider is not associated with this FREE MP4 Player

Instructions To Capture Videos with the Capture Program:

1) Start the program with all browsers closed (to cut down on capture confusion.)

2) YouTube.com will automatically open for your convenience, but if you wish to close it, do so. You can use the Edit List button to edit the websites in the drop down list and also chage the star-up site from YouTube.com to whatever site you want it to be.

3) Click the Shrink/Grow Button Label to maximize the interface.

4) Click the Open a Video WebSite button and choose from a website in any of the lists provided OR open a site manually in Internet Explorer.

5) The website must stream Adobe Flash content with the an Adobe Flash Player:
If you Right click on the Video you choose to play (streaming media) you can see if the stream is compatable for capture by the Capture Program.

6) Once the Video starts on the website and at least 32,000 bytes of the video have been streamed by the site for Flash FLV media, the Capture Program will start indicating capture of the Video IF THE SITE IS SUPPORTED. MOST SITES ARE SUPPORTED.

Note if you are capturing Flash SWF media that is loading (usually for game playing) the capture will NOT Capture the Video until AT LEAST 500,000 bytes have been streamed by the website. The Capture Program WILL NOT capture SWF file sizes less than 500,000 bytes in size. This is to prevent you from having to remove Flash SWF adverstisements that plague most of thes Flash SWF sites.

7) Once you Start a video on a site and it begins streaming. DO NOT close the WebPage containg the Video until it completes streaming if you think you want to capture it. You can remove ANY video from the Capture Program that starts capturing that you do not want by using the REMOVE CAPTURE FROM LIST menu option after selecting the Capture in the list with your Mouse. Make sure you verify the Video is the one you want to remove by matching the small Sampler Video to the one selected from the List and the website. You can close the webpage streaming the video before or after you remove the capture from the list.

8. The RE-NAME menu item allows you to use YOUR name (or site's video title) instead of the default Tmp name provided by the Capture Program. You can change this name anytime before the Video is saved or at the time you save it. It is suggested you copy the Title of the video off of the website page streaming the Video and Paste it into the TextBox when you change the name.

9) The SAVE CAPTURE TO PC menu item allows you to save the completed OR partial capture of a video. To make sure you have saved the COMPLETE video, play the video after it is saved an look at the end point of the video in the player to assure yourself it has fully captured. If NOT wait until it completes streaming or re-start it by refreshing the webpage or re-opening the page with the video and let it stream again. You can use the Refresh button ot the F5 key to refresh a page in Internet Explorer. Saving the video saves what has been captured, full or partial, and both are playable.

10) Once a Video is Captured and Saved, you can close the page containing the video.

11) Multiple videos can be captured at one time, but is suggested that you wait until you get used to using the program before attempting this to prevent confusion. The use of Tabs (Right click video and open in New Tab) in Internet Explorer is stronly suggested when opening a NEW video to capture.

About the Video Sampler:

The small Video Sampler menu item is used to keep you in touch with the Videos that are streamed from the website pages and each video is directly associated with the captured video items in the list. It is to be used as a visual indicator to help you with multiple captures. Also, assigning a name with the RE-NAME menu item will help with this as well. The Video displayed in the sampler is updated every 100,000 bytes for each capture independently. You can change the update cycle by selecting the Update Files every 100K, 250K, 500K or 1 MB option button. If you wish to refresh the sample before the sample is updated by the Capture Program click the Play in Sampler menu option. If the Sampler annoys you click the Stop Sampler button.

The Video Sampler can be played in Full Screen by clicking the full screen button on the Video control in the sampler window. This can be used to indicate the quality of the Video being captured. You can also Start (menu Item) and Stop the samplee anytime by clicking the Stop Sampler buttons.

NOTE FOR DIAL-UP:

For DIAL-UP users it is suggested that you only try to capture one Video at a time. If not, the bandwidth limitation will make the Capture Program think that it has finished capturing the Video from the site and keep asking you to check the WebPage to see if the stream has completed. This can also occur if you try to capture more videos at one time than your computer's internet connection can handle. Also, if you are using a Dial-Up Hi Speed option the video can capture much quicker but will have a choppy effect but with full audio. If you turn your HI Speed off the video will capture normally but will take much longer to capture but it CAN BE CAPTTURED WITH FULL QUALITY WITH DIAL-UP. It just takes quite a while. A 10 min video can take up to 1 hour with dial-up but with broadband speed it may take less than the time than it takes to play the video entirely depending on the internet connection speed.

Special Note:

If a Video does NOT start capturing after the Video is well underway on the website page then you may need to REFRESH the page containing the Video by clicking the Refresh button on the IE browser page (or F5 on the Video's browser page). MOST sites with Adobe Flash Video can be captured, but some cannot be captured with this software.

Removing a Capture or unwanted Flash Advertisements capturing:

Sometimes on the web page where the video is streaming there are other advertisements that the Capture Program tries to capture. If you wish to remove these (or any other capture) simply select (click) the capture from the list and verify by its preview that it is the one you want to remove and then click the REMOVE CAPTURE FROM LIST button. By removing a capture and closing a video's web page you also free up bandwidth for your internet connection for other possible captures.

Saving the Capture:

If the controller thinks the video has finished capture of a video it will ask you to verify the Video has finished on the site before saving. If you are not sure click Play the video in the fiull player or sampler and check to see if the entire Video is there that you want to save. The Video saved is represented by the sampler's content.

AutoRip:

AutoRip can be enabled or disabled by checking the AuoRip checkbox. With AutoRip enabled ALL videos played completely on a site will be captured AUTOMATICALLY to the default download folder. Before or After they are captured you can change the names of these videos.

Hide Button:

This button allows you allow the program to run from the Sytem Tray and hidden except for the ICON in the Sytem Tray to Show or Close the program. One way to use the program is enable the AutoRip feature and use Hide to put the program in the system tray and it will capture videos you play completely on sites (Do not close the webpage until the video is complete or you will have a partial capture !) . When you close the program and re-open it you will have access to the Edit Completed Downloads menu item you just AutoRipped and you can Re-Name, Copy to another location, or Delete the videos captured in the Default Downloads folder.

Note Bandwidth issues:

Because of Bandwidth constraints of multiple captures the Sampler may pause momentarily if the Video stream stops before the Video has finished playing on the web page and the controller may think it has finished capture. If the video stops streaming allow it time to start streaming again and the controller will continue the capture. If the video will not continue streaming without a refresh you may have to remove the capture and refresh or re-load the Video's web page to restart the capture.

Completing the Rip (Saving the video capture to a file when AutoRip is not used):

After capture is done, the Capture Program will let you save it anywhere on your computer. The default location for saving Videos is the Default Downloads folder called My Media under the HotTube program's folder, but you can save it to your Flash device or other USB connected storage devices, or other recognized drives on your computer.