• NEW : Download up to five stations at the same time within RipCast
  
• NEW : Support for ripping Live365.com streaming audio
  
• NEW : RipCast Agent - will open when you click a streaming audio link in your web browser
  
• NEW : Station browser caching - station browser will store contents on harddrive so you can view station browser with out using bandwidth
  
• NEW : Bandwidth monitor for all downloads
  
• NEW : Preview stations in Winamp before you record
  
• NEW : HTTP Proxy support w/basic authentication
  
• NEW : ID3 information automatically added to all MP3's
  
• NEW : Auto save rips from different stations in different folders
  
• NEW : New interface for the current downloads tab to support multi-download management
  
• NEW : Download history displayed on current downloads tab
  
• NEW : My Rips list shows the total number of MP3's in download dir and sub-dirs

• CHG : My Rips list now shows the path relative to the download dir
  
• CHG : Delete downloads directly from My Rips list

• FIX : Changing download dir fix
  
• FIX : MPEG headers start at byte[0] of downloaded tracks, improves compatibility with MP3 players, burners, decoders and hardware devices
  
• FIX : No more switching to continuous mode in the middle of rips
  
• FIX : No more [Front-Cut] appended to the beggining of all files when no stream title given immediatly
  
• FIX : My Rips listing Memory leak fixed
  
• FIX : My Rips recursive directory listing bug fixed.
  
• FIX : Favorites menu problem when deleting entrys fixed

Using the station browser
The station browser is used to get a listing of SHOUTcast broadcasters from which you can download from or listen to. You can load the genre from two locations, either from SHOUTcast servers or from the Local Cache. Loading from the Local Cache will load broadcasters from a file that is stored locally on your computer. To use the Local Cache you must have already done a complete load of a genre from the SHOUTcast servers. Each time you load the station browser from SHOUTcast it will save what it has loaded locally to 'cache' so you can view it quickly in the future. If the Local Cache radio button is disabled then that means no cache files were found for the selected genre. To view a genre just press the 'Refresh' button. Anytime during the load of that genre you can press the 'Stop' button and the Station Browser will display what it has loaded up until that point.

The Station Browser contains important information about each broadcaster. First is its current rank in the selected genre. Then its name and the song they are currently playing. If the "Now Playing" field is empty it means that the station isn't currently broadcasting track titles. For these broadcasters we cannot gather information about when each song starts or stops, therefore we cannot save each song as a separate MP3. Additionally the Station Browser contains the bitrate of the stream, the number of listeners, maximum listener capacity, and the stations website. The Bitrate is equally proportional to the audio quality. It is also equally proportional to how much bandwidth you will consume. Dial-up users should stick to 24Kbps or 56Kbps. If the song sounds like it skipped from one point to another, it means that you are downloading a stream where the bitrate is higher then your internet connection can handle. A lot of broadcasters have a variety of bitrates to choose from, try to find the one that gives you the best quality for you Internet connection.

To download from a broadcaster just double click an entry and the download should begin. If you choose to listen to a station before you start a download you can right-click an entry and select 'Preview in Winamp'. You must have Winamp installed to use this feature. Winamp will consume bandwidth of its own to listen to the station. You should stop Winamp from listening/previewing the station before you start a recording so you don't consume twice as much bandwidth. From the context menu you can also add a broadcaster to your favorites menu or visit the broadcasters website.

Note : The information that is loaded into the station browser is out of our control. SHOUTcast.com controls the station browser information.

Current Downloads Tab
The server address box is where you can manually enter the address of a broadcaster. By pressing 'Connect' you will start a new download.

With RipCast you can download from up to five broadcasters at a single time. The downloads list is where you can view/modify the status of each download. By double-clicking a download you will launch the downloading song in your default media player. Right click a download to get a context menu of options which you can perform on this download. The 'Auto Enqueue New Tracks' menu item is used to turn on or off the enqueuing of new songs to Winamps playlist. From the menu you can also play the current song in your default media player, add the current song to Winamps playlist, add the station to the favorites menu or stop the recording. If you have stopped a recording you can re-start recording from the context menu if you choose.

As each song downloads it will be added to the 'Download History' list. Here you can view what songs have been downloaded and from which stations they came from. By double-clicking a file you will launch the song in your default media player. You can directly delete a file by pressing delete or by clicking 'Delete File' from the context menu. You can also clear the list or add all downloaded files to your Winamp playlist.

The control buttons just perform the action on any item you have selected, whether it's from the 'Download History' list or the 'Downloads' list. The 'Enqueue' button will add the selected item to your Winamp playlist.

Monitoring Bandwidth Usage to Ensure Optimal Audio Quality
In RipCast's status bar you will see a pane that shows the 'Expected Bandwidth' and the 'Used Bandwidth' in bits per second. The 'Used Bandwidth' value only displays the total number of bits per second used by all downloads. It does not display Station Browser activity or external bandwidth usage. If the 'Used Bandwidth' value is consistently much lower then the 'Expected Bandwidth' value then there is a good chance that songs will skip. There are two reasons this will happen, either because the broadcasting server is 'lagging' or because your internet connection is. If your internet connection is too slow to meet the 'Expected Bandwidth' then you should lower the number of simultaneous downloads or choose lower bitrate streams. Also be aware that heavy external bandwidth usage outside of RipCast may cause songs to skip if it consumes bandwidth for large periods of time which is needed for the downloading streams.

What is RipCast Agent?
RipCast Agent is a tool that sits between your web browser and RipCast itself. RipCast will associate RipCast Agent with streaming audio links in your web browser. This way whenever you click a streaming audio link in your web browser RipCast Agent will open and allow you to rip the audio in RipCast or play it in a media player. With RipCast Agent you are no longer limited to easily listening to only what is available in the station browser. RipCast Agent works well for Live365.com streaming audio stations and many others. RipCast Agent only works for streaming audio that is compatible with RipCast, and not all streaming audio is at this time. Click here for a tutorial on using RipCast Agent with Live365 streaming audio.

Uninstalling RipCast Agent
RipCast Agent will still be associated with *.pls and *.m3u filetypes when you uninstall RipCast. If you want to restore these filetypes back to their original value you need to check the "Disable RipCast Agent" check box. When you close RipCast Agent make sure that box is checked and RipCast Agent will retore the filetypes back to their original state.



Configuring RipCast ----------------------------------

- Stream Options -
Stream options allow you to set the Stream Type and limits on recordings. There are two stream types - "split by title" or "continuous stream". By default RipCast will attempt to split all streams by song title. Once RipCast connects to the broadcaster, RipCast will determine if it can obtain a track title for the current stream. If it can't, it will download in continuous stream mode. If you select "continuous stream", RipCast will disregard all song titles and download everything to a single MP3 file. You can set limits on the continuous stream for MP3 time length or maximum file size. If you specify both a max time length and max file size, RipCast will stop recording when the lesser of the two limits is met. This option works well when you want to save an MP3 mix to fit a certain size, such as a CD.

- File Settings -
Here you can specify an alternate location for your RipCast downloads to be saved. If the 'Create download sub directory for each station' check box is checked then all downloads will be placed in folder with the name of the broadcaster from which that song comes from. If the 'Add ID3 info to all MP's' check box is check then all downloaded MP3's will include ID3 tags which contain information about the song such as the artist, track title, and genre. The RipCast Agent File Association check box will re-associate the necessary file types with RipCast Agent each time RipCast starts up so RipCast Agent can capture streaming audio links in your web browser.

- Auto Play Settings -
Why wait for the song to be downloaded before you listen to it. This is the whole point of streaming audio. Auto Play track allows this to happen. Your default MP3 player will automatically start to play the song after so many KB(buffer) have been downloaded. If the song stops playing shortly after the song starts playing that means that the buffer value is too low. You were listening to the song faster then you can download it.
Auto Enqueue is a feature that currently only supports Winamp Media Players. This will add each song that is downloaded to your winamp playlist so you are constantly listening to each track as they download. If for some reason the auto enqueue check box is not available and you have winamp installed then RipCast was unable to detect it - try reinstalling winamp.

- Smart Split Options -
Smart Split is a feature that helps RipCast detect the best point to split one song from another. Currently Smart Split works best when there is a definite silent point between songs. Thus meaning when broadcasters crossfade songs its harder to determine where one track starts and the other begins. This is still the first implementation of "Smart Split" and it hasn't been perfected. But it does work very well for a lot of stations. Being so, we allow you to disable this feature if it seems to be making matters worse in certain scenarios.

- Proxy Settings -
If you need to you can use a proxy server for your net connection. The proxy server must not re-format any data that is originally sent by RipCast or received from a broadcasting server.