How to record a SopCast stream using a Mac with freeware VLC?

[audiar]

Hello

New to the forums so excuse my n00b-ness.

Im trying to record sopcast streams using VLC on my mac but cannot get it to work using the windows directions (though i am following using similar or the same buttons in the directions).. anyone have any ideas?

Do you use DarWine or Crossover to run Sopcast on your Mac?

What version of VLC do you use? Version 0.98 worked just fine with Sopcast in Windows and Mac OS. You may have problems with the latest version though. So try get a previous version first.

You can also try to record with MPlayer instead. MPlayer can dump streams to hard drive the same way VLC does it.

Here how you can run Sopcast on a Mac with DarWine:

1. Install X11 from Apple Install Discs that came with your Mac or Mac OS X
2. Download Darwine for OS X and install it.
3. Download MPlayer for OS X and install it
4. Download and install SopCast for Windows 1.1.2 (later versions may not work)
5. Run Installer to install SopCast 1.1.2
6. Double click on Sopcast.exe installed in wine folder C_Drive subfolder sopcast
7. Leave Sopcast Login as anonymous, click login
8. From X11 terminal (xterm), type command: top
9. Look for PID (process ID) of winehelper
   
   If you get
   

   775 WineHelper 0.0% 0:0:43.23 5 ......

   then 775 is the PID of winehelper
10. Ctrl C to end top function in Xterm and exit screen
11. In the terminal kill winehelper process:
    

    kill -9 (PID of winehelper)

    If PID = 775 then type
    

    kill -9 775

12. Enter into sopcast address bar the sopcast address you want, e.g. sop://broker1.sopcast.com:3912/6001 then click on big blue button with right arrow, a non-working viewer should slide out
    
13. Run MPlayer. Open Preferences and under miscellaneous click "use cache".
14. In Mplayer select "open location" and enter
    

    mms://127.0.0.1:8902

    (if 8902 doesn't work, try 8903 or 8912)
    Be patient, the caching could take a minute or so.

Here is another solution using WineBottler:

1. Get or Have X11 (It is installed in Snow Leopard)
2. Install WineBottler
3. Using the WineTricks of WineBottler, install the VLC player from the menu of choices (you can try MP9, but I had some issues with it)
4. Quit Wine, then Restart Wine
5. Download Sopcast 3.2.4 and click on the exe file (wine will auto install)
6. Quit Wine, then Restart Wine
7. Open Sopcast.exe from Wine File Manager, login anonymously, go to Option tab at the bottom of the window
8. From the Option tab - click on the box 'use my own media player' and then browse and link the VLC.exe in the VLC file folder
9. Start stream using sop address. (Because the direct links don't with your Mac browser, you need to right click on the link and select 'Copy link location' and then paste into your Sop browser bar)
10. Player will slide out and buffer, but will not show anything.
11. Click on the Pop Video Player Out button of Sopcast (the overlapping square buttons to the left of the play button)
12. VLC will pop up and stream will play bee-yoo-tee-fulll-eeee*

* Note: when you want to quit or change streams, SopCast locks up when you close the VLC window. You can easily shut it down by using the Task Manager of Wine and then restarting SopCast

And yet another solution using Web version of Sopcast (SopCast WebPlayer):

1. Install SopCast as mentioned in the previous post
   Upgrade VLC to the latest version (the one that comes with Winetricks may work as well)
2. Download & Install Firefox 1.5.0.12 from OldApps.com
3. Install the Sopcast plugin for Firefox from:
   http://www.sopcast.com/download/mozactivex-ff-15.xpi
   1. Drag and Drop the file mozactivex-ff-15.xpi into the Firefox window. The installation window will popup.
      Click the "Install Now" button to install the plugin.
      
   2. Config the plugin by entering the following URL into the address bar of Firefox:
      

      about:config

      Select the security.classID.allowByDefault, Right-click on it and select "turn it on". Make sure the value is "true" now.
      
   3. Restart Firefox
   4. Navigate to
      

      http://www.sopcast.com/player/index.jsp#

      If you have installed the SopCast WebPlayer, you should be ableto see the WebPlayer's user interface.
4. Shut down and Restart Firefox
5. Load a page with embedded SopCast WebPlayer
   
6. As before, Stream will buffer and not play. Click the Pop out button as before, and Viola!... it is playing!

Unless you manage to use IE in Mac OS, don't try to use SopCast WebPlayer in it. And you may have problems with the latest version of Sopcast.

[audiar]

Sorry, I'm using Crossover to enable sopcast. now what?

The following shows how to record Sopcast stream with Mplayer. The instructions use MPlayer GUI, but I recommend to use the command line mplayer for recording instead.

How to record Sopcast stream with Mplayer for Mac OS X

1. Open the location with MPlayer as mentioned above.
2. To record Sopcast straem, go to MPLayer preferences. Under miscellaneous, select "Advanced setting". Enter the following:
   

   -dumpstream mms://127.0.0.1:8902

   You may need to change the port to 8903 or 8912.
3. Click OK and MPlayer should restart. It will look like frozen. The GUI may even crash. But you will get a files called stream.dump
   on the top level of your hard drive directory of Macintosh HD.
   
   If the recording is working, the file size will be growing.
   
   To stop the stream, you will need to kill the process from the terminal:
   

   kill -9 (PID of mplayer)

   Don't use the PID of MPlayer OS instead.
4. Return to MPlayer preferences and uncheck "Advanced setting".
5. Rename stream.dump to some_name.wmv, and open the file in MPlayer, Quicktime with Flip4MacWMV or VLC