Two brief UI questions: Location of saves, Ctrl+W scope

[Daddy-o]

I create MP3 podcasts from streaming video and VLC works great.

Over time I can't figure out how VLC determines its 'save' location. It is not the last-save-location, but it is a previous location. But occasionally it updates.
Since I generally save several podcasts in succession to one folder it would be nice to know how to change save location manually along the way, since the location seems to consistently open at the initial session location for the whole session.

Question 2:
What is the scope of CTRL+W? I just learned the shortcut and so far I notice it does this:
Clear playlist
Clear last network stream URL (from CTRL+N)

TIA