RapidSolutions MP3VideoRaptor Platinum review

MP3VideoRaptor allows you to search for and download music tracks and videos. It's similar to RadioTracker 4.0 Platinum (See What's New, Shopper 241), which records from internet radio stations.

In RapidSolutions' words, MP3VideoRaptor records from "Web 2.0 radio stations" that let you listen to exactly the music you like. These include Songza.com, SeeqPod.com and ProjectPlaylist.com. The software automates the process of visiting the sites, searching for songs and recording the stream. It tags each track with the artist, track name, album and other ID3 information. It uses a similar process for videos from YouTube, ClipFish.de, CnetTV.com and others.

The Autoload tab lets you choose a genre or make a list of your favourite artists. It then downloads everything appropriate. Using a 2Mbit/s ADSL broadband account, we were impressed that the software downloaded almost a full track per minute. If you want a specific video or track, choose the Surf & Catch tab. Simply visit a site in the list, watch the video or listen to the music and MP3VideoRaptor will capture it. We would have preferred the list of pornographic sites to have been hidden away out of sight, though.

You can change the quality settings in the options panel, but the default is set to a sensible 128Kbit/s. MP3VideoRaptor leaves music files in their original format, but you can choose to convert them to MP3, WMA, WMAPro, OGG or M4A (iPod format) on the fly. Videos are converted to WMV7, but you can choose presets for iPods, Sony PSP, specific mobile phones and XviD. You can also synchronise downloaded music and video to an MP3 player.

The legality of MP3VideoRaptor is a grey area, and it's your responsibility to ensure that you don't do anything illegal. A pop-up window in the software even reminds you not to share MP3s and to support artists by buying their albums. MP3VideoRaptor is undoubtedly a clever piece of software that works well, but be careful how you use it.