Automatically Transcode "buffer"

[SideshowMel]

This feature is available in Real Player, and is called PerfectPlay. Basically, when you view/listen to streaming media, it automatically records the last 3 hrs (approx) to a file, which helps with skipping and also to quickly review. A major problem with that feature, however, is that once you end your RealPlayer session, that buffered media is deleted. With VLC, you can use the Transcode/Save to File option and then play that saved file (while data is still being written to the file), but there are two problems I have noticed with doing that.

One, you have to go through that setup of Transcoding, then open a new VLC window to play the Transcoded file. If that file is still being written to, sometimes if it gets to what VLC thinks is the End of the File (even though the stream is still writing), it stops.

Second, even if you can avoid what I just mentioned, you might have to be several seconds behind "live", which can virtually eliminate your chances to win online radio contests, which are typically time-sensitive.

I should also mention that the PerfectPlay on RealPlayer DOESN'T do one very important thing: give you the option to save your "buffered" stream to a file. Obviously, I have already discovered how to do this with VLC, but the aforementioned limitations still exist. So, VLC could take the buffer one step further by saving the buffered media to a file once the user decides, or just when the VLC session is ended (a setting in the Preferences would probably control that).

Overall, I think VLC is the VERY BEST media player out there, but hopefully this suggestion will make it even better. Thanks.

OH, yeah:
VLC 0.8.6 running both on WinXP Pro SP2 and Fedora Core 5.
3 GHz P4 processor, 1 GB RAM

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

You can use time-shifting in VLC also ! You can also dump your files readed.

The GUI is not so good, we know that. We are trying to improve it.

[SideshowMel]

How do I use time-shifting and dump files readed? is that CLI-only?

***EDIT*** I guess I should also ask: what do those terms mean?