Folks,
My first post about StreamFab, but I've been using DVDFab for many, many, many years. While I'm glad to see the Discovery Plus downloader -- I'm sorry -- but it's just not even worth using. Let me explain:
As many folks have mentioned throughout this forum, the audio and video is very often out of synch. This just isn't tolerable, whatsoever. Given that other downloaders (mainly Paramount Plus) have given me excellent, perfect results, somewhere around half of the downloads from Discovery Plus have been out of synch. I'll have to look up how to add my "log file" to a message, but it's about 100%, sheer insanity to believe that "my computer" and its settings that work perfectly with Paramount Plus "would be the problem" with the brand-new Discovery Plus downloader. I sure believe that the Discovery Plus downloader "isn't ready for prime time."
There is another issue with Discovery Plus, and actually pretty much everything I have touched since we had to get past version 4.0.0.0 in order to get anything to work. It is a really big, giant, huge, ENORMOUS issue -- "file sizes that are insanely too big." For instance, one simple "hour long episode," which clocked in at 42 minutes long, came out as 4.29 gigabytes in size. We all are "downloading" these files to some form of media, and if what StreamFab gives us is two or three times larger than other alternatives we have available, we're just not going to use StreamFab.
So, I sure believe that the folks programming the StreamFab downloaders really need to "optimize" the files it is creating (reencoding or whatever it might be called, from downloader to downloader), in order to make StreamFab a useful, competitive product.
Let me give you some numbers:
If we aren't already aware of this, anyone can sign up for a streaming service, start playback on a web browser, and use the "screen recorder" that is built into Windows 10. It's part of the "gaming" functions, and after a couple of settings changes, it works quite well. Yes, it take a lot more work than "loading up a bunch of episodes in StreamFab," but "it works," very reliably, and the video and audio quality is just fine. With the settings I use -- Standard video quality at 30 fps / 128 kbps audio recording -- the results are perfectly fine for "streaming service" recordings, and the average "one hour episode," which usually comes to 42 to 44 minutes without commercials, tends to create files right around 3 gigabytes in size.
One of the main reasons I "bit" for the StreamFab All In One "lifetime" subscription was because during my trial period, recording some programs from the Smithsonian Channel via Paramount Plus, those proverbial 42-minute videos came in right around half the file sizes -- around 1.5 gigabytes per 42-minute episodes. "Cool, I can cut my media storage requirements in half." That was with 4.0.0.0, and boy, "those were the days."
Now, the files created by StreamFab are MUCH LARGER than what I can get without paying quite a bit of money for StreamFab, and just "screen recording" them. Add in "the audio and video aren't in synch," and, well, my sizeable investment in "StreamFab technology" sits there, doing nothing. "It's just not worth it."
Again, I have total difficulty believing that this is due to my computer -- I have looked "behind the scenes" as StreamFab works, and I'm relatively aware of what it does -- it downloads the file from the streaming service, then it starts creating a new file, from scratch. Which reminds me about how the average 42-minute episode would download and "finish processing" in about 15 minutes with version 4.0.0.0, instead of at least 30 minutes longer than that with subsequent versions.
So, as if we don't already know about these issues, here is my perspective about them. I am no longer "wasting my time" and "wasting my disk space" using any of the StreamFab downloader modules. I can be very patient, and I intend to do so, but if you folks would look into these issues, please understand that "you need to look into them," and make improvements. Because your program simply isn't even worth using, as it stands now.
Thanks for listening, and I hope to see some improvements over time.
squirrel9
My first post about StreamFab, but I've been using DVDFab for many, many, many years. While I'm glad to see the Discovery Plus downloader -- I'm sorry -- but it's just not even worth using. Let me explain:
As many folks have mentioned throughout this forum, the audio and video is very often out of synch. This just isn't tolerable, whatsoever. Given that other downloaders (mainly Paramount Plus) have given me excellent, perfect results, somewhere around half of the downloads from Discovery Plus have been out of synch. I'll have to look up how to add my "log file" to a message, but it's about 100%, sheer insanity to believe that "my computer" and its settings that work perfectly with Paramount Plus "would be the problem" with the brand-new Discovery Plus downloader. I sure believe that the Discovery Plus downloader "isn't ready for prime time."
There is another issue with Discovery Plus, and actually pretty much everything I have touched since we had to get past version 4.0.0.0 in order to get anything to work. It is a really big, giant, huge, ENORMOUS issue -- "file sizes that are insanely too big." For instance, one simple "hour long episode," which clocked in at 42 minutes long, came out as 4.29 gigabytes in size. We all are "downloading" these files to some form of media, and if what StreamFab gives us is two or three times larger than other alternatives we have available, we're just not going to use StreamFab.
So, I sure believe that the folks programming the StreamFab downloaders really need to "optimize" the files it is creating (reencoding or whatever it might be called, from downloader to downloader), in order to make StreamFab a useful, competitive product.
Let me give you some numbers:
If we aren't already aware of this, anyone can sign up for a streaming service, start playback on a web browser, and use the "screen recorder" that is built into Windows 10. It's part of the "gaming" functions, and after a couple of settings changes, it works quite well. Yes, it take a lot more work than "loading up a bunch of episodes in StreamFab," but "it works," very reliably, and the video and audio quality is just fine. With the settings I use -- Standard video quality at 30 fps / 128 kbps audio recording -- the results are perfectly fine for "streaming service" recordings, and the average "one hour episode," which usually comes to 42 to 44 minutes without commercials, tends to create files right around 3 gigabytes in size.
One of the main reasons I "bit" for the StreamFab All In One "lifetime" subscription was because during my trial period, recording some programs from the Smithsonian Channel via Paramount Plus, those proverbial 42-minute videos came in right around half the file sizes -- around 1.5 gigabytes per 42-minute episodes. "Cool, I can cut my media storage requirements in half." That was with 4.0.0.0, and boy, "those were the days."
Now, the files created by StreamFab are MUCH LARGER than what I can get without paying quite a bit of money for StreamFab, and just "screen recording" them. Add in "the audio and video aren't in synch," and, well, my sizeable investment in "StreamFab technology" sits there, doing nothing. "It's just not worth it."
Again, I have total difficulty believing that this is due to my computer -- I have looked "behind the scenes" as StreamFab works, and I'm relatively aware of what it does -- it downloads the file from the streaming service, then it starts creating a new file, from scratch. Which reminds me about how the average 42-minute episode would download and "finish processing" in about 15 minutes with version 4.0.0.0, instead of at least 30 minutes longer than that with subsequent versions.
So, as if we don't already know about these issues, here is my perspective about them. I am no longer "wasting my time" and "wasting my disk space" using any of the StreamFab downloader modules. I can be very patient, and I intend to do so, but if you folks would look into these issues, please understand that "you need to look into them," and make improvements. Because your program simply isn't even worth using, as it stands now.
Thanks for listening, and I hope to see some improvements over time.
squirrel9
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