Recording RTMP Webcams from cam4(HowTo record XXX/adult web-cam videos from cam4.com)

[crs]

Originally Posted by Admin

Keeping it simple: WM Capture will always work, since it doesn't have to decypher any encrypted protocols.

Cam4 isnt encrypted through ...

[Elgero]

In case anybody is interested, I have fixed the Cam4 Grabber tool again. I fixed it to automatically record one girl, but now I have enough videos of her.

This version doesn't login and check your favorites list, but it will simply download the webpages. You will have to copy and paste the broadcaster names yourself.

Note: If you're, for example, not interested in Male/Transgenders, then keep those categories unchecked, because in that case there's no point in downloading and checking those pages. Updates are done every 2 minutes.

http://upsto.re/CEE4aw

[xaboxa]

Thank you very much Elgero !

[Roma Romanoff]

Thanks Elgero! Think this is great programm.

[Stream Ripper]

Awesome - thanks Elegro!

[Calvin1961]

Hey Elgero,

Thanks for making this great tool available again :-) I can report it works well here.

I have a question: I presume you have opted for the "scan web pages" approach to detect when a broadcaster is on to remain as "stealthy" as possible ?

I notice from watching the traffic flow that you only scan the top 2 pages of each category selected. This I presume means they won't be detected until they climb this far in rankings ?

Would the method to detect broadcasters discussed by Marcodp2004 discussed here: http://stream-recorder.com/forum/rec...x-t2704p3.html also be a viable option that would circumvent this weakness - albeit, maybe giving away more clues as to what we are doing ?


All the best,

Calvin.

[Elgero]

Originally Posted by Calvin1961

I have a question: I presume you have opted for the "scan web pages" approach to detect when a broadcaster is on to remain as "stealthy" as possible ?

No. I fixed this tool just to record one girl, so I'm not going to spend more time on it than absolutely necessary. I'm only sharing it because I now have enough videos of her. It has nothing to do with being "stealthy", just the easiest (not the best) way to implement it.

Originally Posted by Calvin1961

I notice from watching the traffic flow that you only scan the top 2 pages of each category selected. This I presume means they won't be detected until they climb this far in rankings ?

Yes, the girl I wanted to record had 500+ viewers in a matter of minutes, so I didn't have that problem. If you want to record women with only 5 viewers, who are always listed on page 3/4, then this tool won't detect them. No offense, but why would you even want to record those women anyway? Most women on page 1 aren't even very attractive, as the most attractive women on Cam4 go to Chaturbate or other camsites, sooner or later.

The original tool I had last year would login and check your personal favorites list, but that was way too cumbersome, because Cam4 would change hashes/cookies/login procedure every two weeks, requiring an update of the tool. Like I said above, for recording just one girl this was the easiest way to implement it.

Originally Posted by Calvin1961

Would the method to detect broadcasters discussed by Marcodp2004 discussed here: http://stream-recorder.com/forum/rec...x-t2704p3.html also be a viable option that would circumvent this weakness - albeit, maybe giving away more clues as to what we are doing ?

That wouldn't work at all. It would mean that with 100 broadcasters in your watchlist, you would have to make 100 connections to the server every few minutes.

[Cbater]

After a year of sadness with Jaksta and Firefox Macros. This must be the Light!!!

Many, many thanks, Elgero (my hero)

@ someday the cb downloader in my pm box from you and i will love you more

[Calvin1961]

Originally Posted by Elgero

No. I fixed this tool just to record one girl, so I'm not going to spend more time on it than absolutely necessary. I'm only sharing it because I now have enough videos of her. It has nothing to do with being "stealthy", just the easiest (not the best) way to implement it.

It's kewl - I wasn't demanding that you "fix it" or "change it". It was more a case of me becoming aware of what your tool could and could not do. I can understand your reluctance to get on the treadmill of code maintenance, it can be a VERY unpleasant chore if you are not in the mood to do it.

I go through stages of enthusiasm - I recently just had one, and re-engineered my "script based" approach to the problem, with a considerable improvement in performance. I dare say having now achieved the new goal, it will stay in this state for quite a long time until inspiration next strikes :-)

Originally Posted by Elgero

Yes, the girl I wanted to record had 500+ viewers in a matter of minutes, so I didn't have that problem. If you want to record women with only 5 viewers, who are always listed on page 3/4, then this tool won't detect them. No offense, but why would you even want to record those women anyway? Most women on page 1 aren't even very attractive, as the most attractive women on Cam4 go to Chaturbate or other camsites, sooner or later.

The main problem with only looking at the rankings is the "USA and Europe" centric nature of the site. If I want to concentrate on performers in Australia or New Zealand (where I am) they OFTEN barely rate a mention on the "male", "female" or "other" pages and so are missed. With Cam4 I often find the mob mentality of viewers leads to some VERY odd choices on occasion.

I mostly manually trigger operations here using my scripting system that ultimately using RTMPDump. It works fine and is now a bit more robust to the 101 STUPID malfunctions that constantly plague Cam4.

The latest "feature" that cause ENDLESS headaches is their wondrous "change resolutions" approach to the broadcast stream. The idea is actually sound, if upload bandwidth becomes an issue, drop the senders video resolution to keep the framerate reasonable. Their implementation however TOTALLY SUCKS.

A lot of broadcasters flip resolutions every 10 SECONDS, their camera driver deosn't like this much, you often then get greeted with several seconds of BLACK while their cam readjusts, only to have the whole sequence repeat moments later. I also find a reasonably high proportion of senders ultimately have trouble with after "flipping" 20 or 30 times (often within a couple of minutes) it crashes their camera and/or broadcast session, meaning they have to close the broadcast session and restart it. On occasion it ALSO TOTALLY crashes their camera driver requiring them to reboot their WHOLE MACHINE !

The other symptom is this IDIOTIC code effort from Cam4 is the VERY ODD situation you sometimes see with URLSnooper. It would appear that this "flipping" occasionally results in the generation of multiple RTMP streams from the same sender, only one of which is "live" the others are dead and orphaned. Trying to pick the right stream to use with RTMPDump can be tricky. My MkI script system I wrote dealt very POORLY with this and caused me endless problems. I've managed to make MkII a bit more robust in dealing with picking the "wrong" stream.

Originally Posted by Elgero

The original tool I had last year would login and check your personal favorites list, but that was way too cumbersome, because Cam4 would change hashes/cookies/login procedure every two weeks, requiring an update of the tool. Like I said above, for recording just one girl this was the easiest way to implement it.

I agree using the Cam4 stored "favourites" list would be a nightmare. Your new approach of a manual list is FAR better. If I had the ability to create such a tool I'd actually be probably putting a strict limit (maybe 25 or 30) on the number of profiles that can be "checked".

I've already found the "orphaned stream" situation can trip your tool up to Elgero. The librtmp module chokes on it and responds in the log with "cannot connect to stream" or similar. Presumably it has picked up a "dead" stream, not the currently live one :-(

Originally Posted by Elgero

That wouldn't work at all. It would mean that with 100 broadcasters in your watchlist, you would have to make 100 connections to the server every few minutes.

I am using this approach in my MkII script system. It actually works VERY well, the server response is a single 1 line text message, either an rtmp string, or "not_broadcasting" and a few other possible responses, so the traffic generated is VERY low, probably less than loading the standard web pages !

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone reading this as to their experiences, especially with the "new features" of Cam4 like their constant resolution flipping and orphaned streams problems. Has anyone found any better approaches to dealing with this ?

I've actually commented to friends about HOW POOR Cam4's software effort is. The site has a list of defects that extends to pages in length, virtually EVERY aspect of the site has multiple failure modes that often manifest themselves. Frankly, if I had written the existing code base of Cam4 I doubt I would have the courage to admit it ! I think doing so would lead to to your reputation as a software writer being damaged irreparably !

One friend of mine actually complained to Cam4 about the shockingly poor technical performance of the site. He was a major broadcaster who generated a LOT of income for them. After being ignored for quite a while, and sending multiple complaints, they responded by simply cancelling his profile and taking his stored tokens. Suffice to say he doesn't have much complimentary to say about the owners any more ! The attitude I seem to perceive it simply "we have your money now, so we don't care how much you complain, we will do NOTHING"

[Elgero]

Originally Posted by Calvin1961

The latest "feature" that cause ENDLESS headaches is their wondrous "change resolutions" approach to the broadcast stream. The idea is actually sound, if upload bandwidth becomes an issue, drop the senders video resolution to keep the framerate reasonable. Their implementation however TOTALLY SUCKS.

To tell you the truth, I've never noticed the "change resolutions" approach, but I'm sure that's because I never use Cam4 anymore.

Originally Posted by Calvin1961

I've already found the "orphaned stream" situation can trip your tool up to Elgero. The librtmp module chokes on it and responds in the log with "cannot connect to stream" or similar. Presumably it has picked up a "dead" stream, not the currently live one :-(

That it picks up a "dead" stream is a server problem, because Cam4 Grabber does the exact same rtmp handshake as the swf player to request the rtmp url of the video stream from the server. I do know that Cam4 uses two streams, one for logged in viewers and one for guest viewers. When it's not possible to record a webcam as a guest, then you won't be able to view the webcam, as a guest, in your browser either. Viewing/recording webcams when logged in always seems to work fine. Cam4 has this problem for years now and that's also one of the reasons why the first version of this tool required you to enter your login details. Maybe Cam4 does this on purpose, to force people to register an account.

Originally Posted by Calvin1961

I am using this approach in my MkII script system. It actually works VERY well, the server response is a single 1 line text message, either an rtmp string, or "not_broadcasting" and a few other possible responses, so the traffic generated is VERY low, probably less than loading the standard web pages !

Yes, it does work for a simple script, but not when you have 100, 200, 300 broadcasters in your watchlist. This means that you're hammering the server hundreds of times every few minutes. It takes about 300ms to get a response from the server, so checking hundreds of broadcasters can take a few minutes, especially if you get a few timeouts.