[wazo]

Ill put as much information as I think is necessary and will skip the long story of how I figured this out. More to the story though: where there’s a will, there’s a way: Don’t give up!

What is cam4.com & why does there have to be a whole topic on it?
cam4 is a free adult webcam site that, as many other live cam sites, common methods of download will not work for it. It uses the RTMP protocol and a flash player. After searching the web I found no solutions to the problem, and this site has other solutions so I thought I’d just add one more for everyone to enjoy.

Ok, What programs don’t work when recording adult videos from cam4 web-cams?
Replay Media Catcher (Actually this does work, but it will stop downloading prematurely after around 30 seconds, give or take 29 seconds.)
FLV Recorder (Does download, but the saved information is unplayable under any player)
VLC player (This one was just out on a limb, and it doesn’t not work (under current nightly beta builds as of 7/12/08)
A few other unheard of programs, I don’t even remember the names.

What CAN record adult videos from cam4.com?
Only Orbit (which happens to be FREE) will work with proper use and tweakage. So finally....

How do you download live webcam video from Cam4 using freeware Orbit Downloader?!
Step 1: Find the stream you want and open it in a supported browser.
Step 2: Open Orbit
Step 3: Start Grab++
Step 4: Refresh the page
Step 5: The stream will now show in Grab, so check the "Cam?*****.flv" stream and hit download.
Step 6: Download for 10-20seconds
Step 7: HIT PAUSE! It will prompt you that you can not resume, click ok and have the download stopped completely. This step IS THE FIX. YOU MUST DO IT.
Step 7 1/2: Go ahead and view the file in Media Player Classic (K Lite Codex). It will say it can’t render the video. (Once in a blue moon it will play) Don’t rename the .flv.ob! file, just force it to open.

Step 8: Resume the download. (This will over write the file and start a new, working download).
Step 9: Without stopping the download you can play the .ob! file with no problems. When the stream quits and/or your done watching it, pause it again and delete it from Orbit ONLY and DON’T REMOVE THE FILE. It will NEVER say its done, you just have to manually stop it, it will still work.

Hope this helped anyone with problems. It MAY work on other websites too, try it out, it wont kill you to try.

A note on audio: Audio problems vary from player to player. Flash Video Player can play the audio, but you cant skip around in the recording. Media Player Classic cant play audio, but you can skip around in the recording. VLC can play audio, but cant play video, and you can skip around in the recording. You have to give a little to get a little in this area, if/when i find a fix, ill let you know.

Note: if I find something else really fixed this, an easier/faster way, or something else ill update. Please leave a comment if this helped you out on any other sites, or just a thank you is well appricated. Also feel free to PM me.

[Stream Ripper]

Thanks for the tutorial :-) :

I'd also like to add that Screen Capture Software programs do work on Cam4 as well...

I just tested Replay Screencast AND WM Capture now on cam4 and it worked fine, keep in mind though in the playback you want to keep the window the same size as the cam window, as increasing the size will cause the playback video to get blury.

[wazo]

Originally Posted by Stream Ripper

Thanks for the tutorial :-) :
I'd also like to add that Screen Capture Software programs do work on Cam4 as well...

Did you mean screen? Thats what you linked to.
I actuly started with CamStudio, but quickly got fed up opening other programs or having chat programs pop up in my recordings so I wanted a better way to record. (I was thinking of putting in a back story about how I figured this out and why I wanted to do it, but figured people didn't care about the story as much as they would want the fix.)
Thanks for pointing that out, I forgot to mention that that works aswell.

[Stream Ripper]

Originally Posted by wazo

Did you mean screen? Thats what you linked to.
I actuly started with CamStudio, but quickly got fed up opening other programs or having chat programs pop up in my recordings so I wanted a better way to record. (I was thinking of putting in a back story about how I figured this out and why I wanted to do it, but figured people didn't care about the story as much as they would want the fix.)
Thanks for pointing that out, I forgot to mention that that works aswell.

Ah yes I did, typo, and i fixed the link. thank you. :-)

[Stream Recorder]

Replay Media Catcher 3.0 can perfectly record rtmp flash videos from cam4.
Tutorial: How to record/capture/download/rip/save adult/sex/porn webcam videos from cam4 with Replay Media Catcher

[JiJi]

ACK! Is there a way to force Orbit Downloader to end / "complete" a stream?

I didn't do the trick for a stream I'm recording that ended just now, and the temp file won't play. I really don't want to lose this one.

Or is there a way to add info to the file to have it be recognized as an FLV?

[wazo]

First off, if you want to force it to end you can hit "Delete" and unclick "Delete actual file" (or something like that) and the file will remain with the temp ending. Rename the file .flv for ease of use and then it will open.
However, if you forgot to use the "trick" then its less of a problem of not having ended, but the stream (as far as the program is concerned) never began. There seems to be a beginning bit that is missed when you cut into the stream (I think it has to do more with their security features than anything after looking through the code).
As far as I know it is theoretically possible to open the file and add that missing beginning code that is needed to play, but I have yet to get down and dirty with that idea. Perhaps I can look at that soon and see if there is a way to "recover" a bad recording.
My sugestion, keep it to see if somebody comes up with a solution in the next few weeks. When I get the chance I can start messing around with "bad" files and see what I can find out.

[JiJi]

That would be awesome if you could, wazo.

I totally forgot to do the "trick". I didn't realize I hadn't until the session was almost over. *sigh* I have the file tucked away, tho.

I'm no techie, but as far as I know, Windows can't recognize the file as anything specific. Did some Google-ing and came across hex editing. Cross-referencing with working FLV's, I noticed the Orbit temp file was scrambled at the beginning compared to the FLV's. I edited a copy of the temp file a little so as to match what was similar across all other FLV's I had, and now I think it's recognized as an FLV file. Tho, when I tried to run it through virtualdub, vd said it had no video stream. haha *sigh* That's as far as I can go with that.

[wazo]

JiJi, you are on the right track with hex editing. I don't know about using virtualdub though, I use media player classic myself, it works like a charm.

I went to edit my original post but I guess I can't anymore. Here is an update. The latest beta Klite Codec with media player classic can play the .flv files and audio perfectly. So thats no longer an issue.

Ok. After some testing and research here is how to fix files that won’t play using the method above. (IE, you goofed and forgot to pause it).
Here are the basics you should know: You must modify the beginning of the file, to do this you must use a hex editor. (I recommend Hexplorer, its free. Quick hint for that, you change the font size in View -> Options.) If you want a file that plays like any other, you WILL need some work, if you just want it and don’t mind messing around, then its easier. Here is the basic template of the beginning of any cam4 recorded file:

46 4C 56 01  XX 00 00 00  09 00 00 00  00 09 YY YY
YY 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  12 00 00 87  26 83 26 26

First, replace XX with 01 if your video has no audio. Replace it with 05 if you have audio.
Now for the more complicated part, you must determine the size of the body (the first one only). To do this you must compare the placement of two identical parts, for this we will use ’12 00 00’ as it is in all the bodies. Replace the first two lines with what you have so far, replace the Ys with 0s as a holder. Now press Ctrl + F to open the find dialog and type in ’120000’ into the Hex field. Click on Find All. Don’t be overwhelmed by the results, you only need 2. Click the box with a yellow background and black lines on it. Select “Hexadecimal”. Now double click on the first result. You will get a number in the second column (Before Position) (Ex. 181). Open calculator (or a hex calculator). Select Scientific mode and press F5 (or click “Hex”). Now type in the number you determined and subtract F. This is your body size. Now put this as your Ys but pad it with 0s to fill in the FRONT.
Here is an example. I got 181, subtract F is 172. So that will be 00 01 72. Understand?

My final ended up looking like this:

46 4C 56 01  05 00 00 00  09 00 00 00  00 09 00 01
72 00 00 00  00 00 00 00  12 00 00 87  26 83 26 26

- Save as a .flv file and enjoy.

I have been doing things like this for years, so I find it simple, but beginners may not. Let me know if I need to clean up any parts of the tutorial. For more information on Flash Video headers you can read here: http://osflash.org/flv. I do not feel like repeating all their information (when 99.9% of users wont care anyhow.)

-Wazo

[JiJi]

Hrmm... I seem to be stuck, I think.

When I double click on the first result (after selecting Hexadecimal) in the navigator, I get a 0. Something tells me that's bad. Did I mess up somewhere?

A screencap:

http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/9314/hex120000ht1.png

-----

I use ffdshow (tryouts) in combo with WMP (convenient brightness and contrast settings) for FLV playback. The latest builds of ffdshow can now decode nellymoser too!

As for virtualdub, there's a plug-in for the latest build that allows vdub to read and edit FLV videos. WMV files as well.