To anyone who downloaded the app today, 0.936B, from the site - after you install and launch, you’ll see that there’s been an update already to the software. This fixed a small bug this morning that resulted in the status update bar being invisible until you resized the application window. Make sure you click ‘update’, which will take you to 0.937B.

We’re not posting much on this blog lately because our launch of the Graboid Community has had such success. If you haven’t already, visit the forum at www.graboid.com/forum and post/comment/complain/praise to your hearts content. Our intent is to make the Graboid Community the destination for anyone who loves videos. Something has to come after mySpace and Facebook….

We’re looking for a batch of avid Graboid users to beta test the next-generation of Graboid software. This new version is coded from scratch, and incorporates a built-in media player, a refined web-based interface, auto-updating, and many more exciting new features.

UPDATE: E-mails to accepted applicants have already gone out (be sure to check your spam/junk folders for an e-mail from beta@graboid.com). We are no longer accepting new beta testers.

On some computers, when installing Graboid 0.96 for the first time, there will be an error during preference setting, indicating that the directories could not be changed. The application will then leave preferences and then not buffer properly. Restarting the application will fix this, and the directories will be set properly.

If you haven’t already, visit our new Graboid Community Forum.  

You asked for it, so here it is: The Official Graboid Community Forums.

We’re going to be making the Graboid Community an important part of the Graboid web experience, offering news, technical support, discussions, and other social features to our users. Also, over the next few weeks we’ll be migrating support for free Graboid users to the forum. We will be asking these users to share their questions and answers there so that we can concentrate on offering the highest level of personal e-mail support to our premium members, while offering an excellent way for free members to receive the information they need.

Your existing Graboid usernames and passwords will work, so there’s no excuse not to participate. So, head on over and let’s get the Graboid forum rolling!

If you have any suggestions for additional discussion forums you’d like to see, let us know in the comments section.

This the first in a series of blog posts about best practices when it comes to using Graboid Video. I’m sure we don’t know all the tricks that you do, so we’re looking forward to user commentary. We’ll compile all the blog posts into a revised user manual, that will then get updated when the new version comes out.

Things you should know to optimize your video watching experience after you’ve downloaded a video:

1. Stream a few minutes first to make sure it’s what you want (especially for TV episodes). If it doesn’t stream, then make sure it has a green thumb. If it doesn’t have a green thumb, it will probably still work, but don’t be upset if it doesn’t. If it has a red thumb, it may still work, but download at your peril.

2. When files are downloaded, they are put into a folder on your PC that can be accessed by you to play them on software other than Graboid Video. Graboid uses a piece of software called VLC player to play videos, but you can use other software such as PowerDVD. The location of the folders is shown/changeable in File-> Preferences when Graboid is open. If you move these files around, Graboid can’t access them, so if you want to play them in Graboid, then leave them in their original folders.

3. Videos come in all sorts of different formats. Some are DVD format, some are .avi, some are multiple .avi files. Graboid will play them correctly 90% of the time. But if it doesn’t work, you can sometimes get the files to play by accessing them directly on your PC and using different video play software.

4. If you don’t get sound or you get the wrong language while playing, go to the VLC player AUDIO drop down menu and try changing audio tracks. This will almost always fix the problem.

5. Keep enough space on your harddrive! These files are huge, and if you run out of space during a download, unpredictable things happen, although most of the time Graboid will simply give you an error message and stop downloading. You can pick up where you left off once you’ve cleared some space on your drive.

6. Once the file is downloaded, it will go into ‘Processing’ status. This can be for a long time (hours), or for a short time (seconds) depending on the file format, and whether error-correction is needed. When streaming files, every packet has to be correct, which is why downloading is more reliable than streaming. Once a file is downloaded, Graboid Video has some powerful error-correction algorithms to go in and fix any broken file segments. Just let it finish.

I’m sure this is just a subset of interesting things you’ve figured out about using Graboid to download video. Looking forward to hearing more.

———————

Future Best Practices, and feel free to suggest others:

• Finding videos to watch
• Streaming videos
• Watching on your TV (burning discs, wifi streaming…)
• When things go wrong

There are a few people who’ve experienced a problem with downloading/buffering after downloading update version 0.96. We’ve testing upgrading internally with no issues, so we’re trying to figure out what is causing the problem for those users.

If you’ve experienced a problem with the update, first try closing Graboid, waiting 5 minutes and restarting it. This should reset any existing connections to the service, which should then clear up any connection issues. But if the problems persist, please e-mail us here and include your Graboid log files. You can find these log files in your download directory, in a folder called “Graboid Temp”. The files are called “graboid-debug.log” and “graboid-simple.log”. In case you don’t know where your download directory is, you can find out in the Graboid application under “File -> Preferences”.

If you are experiencing any of these problems and want to revert back to the previous version, you can download it here.

There is no problem with the Graboid Video service in general - all servers are up and running.

In the course of developing the new version of Graboid, we discovered a simple fix for some problems in the current version. That’s the reason for the minor release 0.96 you’ll see today when you launch GraboidTV. It’s not mandatory, but it may fix a few of those nilObject exceptions.

We’ve been hard at work on the next revision to Graboid Video, and we’d like to give you a sneak peek at one of the most exciting new features: playback INSIDE Graboid. In this screenshot, you’ll also get a glimpse of the new graphical design and layout of Graboid — the look and feel may change before release (around Christmas), but we hope you like what you see.

* The content depicted is not representative of any file you might find using Graboid and is for demontration purposes only.

We’ve never been hesitant to address legal issues relevant to Graboid Video, but please keep in mind that we are not lawyers, and our own legal jurisdiction is in Canada, where we have researched the law extensively. So here are a few thoughts in response to questions raised in the commentary of the last blog post.

1. The License Agreement point about using your bandwidth to deliver service to other users is an artifact of using legal language from other services as a starting point for our own. We should’ve caught this before now, and we appreciate having it pointed out. That clause will be modified immediately. There is no element of Graboid usage that allows or encourages you to share video with others.
2. Graboid Video (the company) is completely legal in Canada. If we were located in the US, we would be completely legal as well, although we might have to slightly modify some of our operating principles to comply with elements of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) that don’t apply in Canada. We didn’t move to Canada so we could start this service. We actually like it here. Universal health care, no guns, and it’s easy to get a job driving a snowplow!
3. Users of Graboid Video are not breaking any laws that we know of, and we know of a lot. Sharing copyrighted material, without permission, is illegal. We have not been able to find case law or media reports of anyone, anywhere in the world, ever being charged with illegally VIEWING copyrighted material. All such reports involve sharing, not viewing. We’ve made this point before in this blog, asking anyone who knows of such a case to let us know. We haven’t received any responses.
4. We won’t be turning over names to the RIAA. Particularly because they’re the music industry guys, not the movie industry guys. As for the MPAA or anyone else, if we’re served with a court order to release the names of our users, we will comply. However, we do not keep records of what individual users are doing with our service, just the amount of bandwidth used.
5. Nothing we do, nothing we say in this blog, and nothing your own lawyer tells you, can prevent you from being sued or charged with a crime. That’s just the way the legal system works. If you think that OUR comments on YOUR legal situation somehow protect you, they don’t. We’ve paid for great legal advice from multiple legal firms, and even they say that their advice is simply advice and they’re not responsible if we get sued. The same applies to us - we’re just telling you what we think, because you asked. We’re not your lawyer or your mother. Make your own decision.

Thanks for using Graboid. If you feel like being argumentative about any of these points (especially you, Brent), then we’d love to entertain a discussion, but not in this blog. Send me an email. I’ll add to this post if warranted.