Record streaming from Dreambox 500

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

I have a Dreambox 500 which I stream to my PC via the Enigma web interface and record via VLC. My question is this: is there a program that would interact more efficiently with Enigma (i.e. timer recordings, saved streaming settings etc.), or a means of customising VLC to achieve the above? I've tried both Ngrab/Ngrab lite and XMedia Coder, but neither worked reliably for the channels that I want to record. VLC works perfectly, but it's a little clunky to have to keep opening a network etc. each time I want to record.