This Company and their software

artsunlimited

Any chance you can share what settings you use? I usually end up with files that are way bigger then they need to be or too low of a bit rate that the picture quality suffers.

KidJoe

Oh, sure - let me know if these aren't what you're looking for.

I record a TS file at 8.2 Mbps constant rate, which for a full two-hour recording gives me around 8GB file/9210 kbps total bitrate. Audio bitrate is 640kbps A52/AC3, either stereo or 6 channel, depending if I'm ripping from my Firestick or my Comcast DVR, respectively.
But because I then convert it to mp4 using Wondershare Uniconverter - to crop or enhance it, or edit out commercials, or splice it to remove "next episode" notices, whatever - that drops the file size to 6.38GB (average mp4 direct download) 8441kbps total bitrate, and the audio to 320kbps AAC, either 6-channel or stereo. If I rip using mp4 rather than TS (which is the setting Hauppage recommends), the audio is only 64kbps, so forget that. The only thing I ever fooled around with much was the audio bitrate, which defaults to either 128 or 192kbps, I forget which, so I'm sure you and other tech whizzes on this forum can probably see a lot better ways to get much better results.

artsunlimited

Their domain was just updated today, although it was locked from being updated or transferred. Either they made a change to it or a government agency took it over. The domain doesn't expire until next year, and so there was no reason for them to make a change. Keep an eye on https://torrentfreak.com/ as they cover such things as government takeovers.
Cats4U

Yeah, the creation date was the day after that forum convo where they got a lot of support from everyone to regroup and make the software available (I don't have a phenomenal memory, it's still open on my browser because I was taking a stroll down memory lane and reading it last night.) Am I correct that .bz indicates it was located in Belize - as in physically? I thought they chose that location because they could sort of be under the radar, and I never thought of the government of Belize being that hostile takeover-y, but hey, live and learn.

NewMelle

I got the same results. There is no longer an IP for the domain name. Or at least no DNS record.

https://www.whois.com/whois/redfox.bz

JeffDavis

The feds like to put up their own banner when they seize a site, like a dog pissing on a tree. I got my AS license just 6 days ago. Inconvenient, but I'm more hopeful about AS than SF. It's been over 4 months for SF, less than 24 hours for AS. I get the sense that they are a more competent crew. Maybe a cyber attack that required them to take everything down to clean it and restore from offline backups?

artsunlimited

They could be switching hosts as well which is why they updated their domain. It’s in their best financial interest to continue on regardless of what’s going on.
slottedpig

Yeah, but wouldn't they tell people beforehand? It's definitely to their financial benefit to keep going, especially with the change in licensing in January to only 1-2 years (devs don't work cheap, so lifetime licenses probably were costing them more than they could afford).

slottedpig

Arts I’m with you this is why once we get back in touch we should ask to setup some other form of comma just in case the site gets boned we can see what’s up. Almost every other community I’m a part of has this and AS is a phenomenal community to be a part of, the devs are simply the best in the biz. I’m think cyber attack is also a very likely situation especially with the way things are going down now world wide.

JeffDavis

I had AS running overnight (not downloading, just the program up and running). When I tried to download a movie in the morning, it responded, completed the search and showed the available options (codecs, resolutions, etc.). When I clicked download, it responded normally except no bytes were being transferred, it was waiting. I closed the program and tried to restart it, but got the "cannot access the internet" message. Since my web browser was working, I concluded it meant that it could not access the AS server.

artsunlimited

The feds like to put up their own banner when they seize a site, like a dog pissing on a tree. I got my AS license just 6 days ago. Inconvenient, but I'm more hopeful about AS than SF. It's been over 4 months for SF, less than 24 hours for AS. I get the sense that they are a more competent crew. Maybe a cyber attack that required them to take everything down to clean it and restore from offline backups?
JeffDavis

OMG that's too funny! And terrible timing for your purchase, let's hope you can laugh about it by next week! I'm thinking that whatever occurred wasn't planned, so hopefully they can recover from it so we can both return to what makes life worth living.;)

slottedpig

Arts I’m with you this is why once we get back in touch we should ask to setup some other form of comms just in case the site gets boned we can see what’s up. Almost every other community I’m a part of has this and AS is a phenomenal community to be a part of, the devs are simply the best in the biz. I’m think cyber attack is also a very likely situation especially with the way things are going down now world wide.

NewMelle

Am I correct that .bz indicates it was located in Belize - as in physically? I thought they chose that location because they could sort of be under the radar, and I never thought of the government of Belize being that hostile takeover-y, but hey, live and learn.
artsunlimited

No idea. According to the WHOIS it was registered with Tucows which is in Canada.

artsunlimited

No idea. According to the WHOIS it was registered with Tucows which is in Canada.
NewMelle

RF1 is in the Netherland Antilles according to his [now vanished] bio, so I always had the impression the whole setup was Caribbean-adjacent.

NewMelle

RedFox1 lives in Sint Maarten according to his [now vanished] bio, so I always had the impression the whole setup was Caribbean-adjacent.
artsunlimited

Cyberspace is global. I once worked on a project with people from Spain and Mexico.

AllNight

When I try to hit their forum I get their forum's color scheme with the error message. So hopefully its just a site issue.
KidJoe

That's just due to browser storage / caching. If you try to go to their forum in a browser with cleared storage and cache (or a new browser install, you can check with a portable browser), you will get the same not found message as everything else, as their domain no longer resolves.

Given the amount of time everything has been down and no communication from anyone, this may not be just some maintenance issue, but some kind of takedown. Could be just the DNS, but it could also be that servers were seized. Even if no one was arrested, it would take some significant time and money to try to get the infrastructure back if the servers were seized. It's also possible that it could be some kind of exit scam thing, although that doesn't seem likely to me.

This was posted to reddit by Redfox1 (alan1476 on Reddit), a forum moderator:

Given how long everything has been offline now, it's not looking good. :( :( :(

artsunlimited

Cyberspace is global. I once worked on a project with people from Spain and Mexico.
NewMelle

And they were willing to wait for your hand-cranked internet to finally deliver your responses? ;D

AllNight

Well, the other thing is, this means no more updates for AnyDVD as well if everything really is gone.

artsunlimited

That's just due to browser storage / caching. If you try to go to their forum in a browser with cleared storage and cache (or a new browser install, you can check with a portable browser), you will get the same not found message as everything else, as their domain no longer resolves.

Given the amount of time everything has been down and no communication from anyone, this may not be just some maintenance issue, but some kind of takedown. Could be just the DNS, but it could also be that servers were seized. Even if no one was arrested, it would take some significant time and money to try to get the infrastructure back if the servers were seized. It's also possible that it could be some kind of exit scam thing, although that doesn't seem likely to me.

This was posted to reddit by Redfox1 (alan1476 on Reddit), a forum moderator:

Given how long everything has been offline now, it's not looking good. :( :( :(
AllNight

Except that's not RedFox1 - whatever he claims to be. No-Passenger9208 is the one making that assumption, no idea what they base it on.

slottedpig

That's not RedFox1, whatever he claims to be.
artsunlimited

Yeah there’s no way that even if the servers were seized that they don’t have an offline copy of the work they have done. That would make zero sense on their end and it hasn’t even been down 24 hours.

Cats4U

I got the same results. There is no longer an IP for the domain name. Or at least no DNS record.

https://www.whois.com/whois/redfox.bz
NewMelle

,BZ is Belize, a Central American country which I believe was formerly called British Honduras. When I checked earlier, the IP address listed for redfox.bz was 45.93.138.193.

When I checked whois.tucows.com, their registrar, it lists the address as Charletown, KN. KN is St. Kitts & Nevis, an independent country made up of two small islands in the Caribbean.

AllNight

Redfox.bz's last known IP is 45.93.138.193, which appears to be located in Lithuania (Hostinger):

ip:"45.93.138.193",
hostname:"lt.redfox.bz",
city:"Vilnius",
region:"Vilnius",
country:"LT",
loc:"54.6892,25.2798",
org:"AS47583 Hostinger International Limited",
postal:"01001",
timezone:"Europe/Vilnius",

asn:Object,
  asn:"AS47583",
  name:"Hostinger International Limited",
  domain:"hostinger.com",
  route:"45.93.136.0/22",
  type:"hosting",

company:Object,
  name:"Hostinger International Limited",
  domain:"hostinger.com",
  type:"hosting",

privacy:Object,
  vpn:false,
  proxy:false,
  tor:false,
  relay:false,
  hosting:true,
  service:"",

abuse:Object,
  address:"Europos pr. 32, LT-46326 Kaunas, Lithuania",
  country:"LT",
  email:"abuse@hostinger.com",
  name:"Hostinger Administrators",
  network:"45.93.138.0/24",
  phone:"+37064503378",

This could be just for their content delivery network, as I have no idea what other IP's were being used, or what other servers were involved.

artsunlimited

,BZ is Belize, a Central American country which I believe was formerly called British Honduras. When I checked earlier, the IP address listed for redfox.bz was 45.93.138.193.

When I checked whois.tucows.com, their registrar, it lists the address as Charletown, KN. KN is St. Kitts & Nevis, an independent country made up of two small islands in the Caribbean.
Cats4U

Right next to the Netherland Antilles, where RF1 is located. The IP addy may be in Vilnius, but you know that bunch could locate it on the moon, third pockmark over from Mare Crisium, if that served their purpose.

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