Q: Does Snatch make perfect copies or grab the actual Real stream?

A: No.  It captures the decoded audio and video as Real sends it to
   the sound device and X server.  The result of grabbing the data
   will only be as good as RealPlayer's playback; it will be exactly
   as you see/hear it.

   Snatch does not touch the Real stream and does not know how to talk
   to a Real server; it lets the stock RealPlayer do the decoding.
   Snatch does not modify or patch RealPlayer in any way or defeat any
   encryption or password mechanisms built into RealPlayer.  Snatch is
   merely a glorified software camcorder with an easy to use
   interface.

Q: Does Snatch just take lots of fast screen captures?

A: No.  Snatch watches events going to and from the X server and
   captures the appropriate video frames off the wire.  It will not
   grab at the wrong rate, hose the machine/X server or 'capture'
   frames that aren't actually displayed.

Q: Can I capture with the RealPlayer window hidden or iconified?

A: Yes. 

Q: Will Snatch try to restart RealPlayer if an error occurs?

A: Yes, but mostly for timed recording.  If RealPlayer crashes or
   aborts streaming due to a network error, Snatch will start a new
   copy if needed and try to pick up any timed recording where it left
   off.  If capture is happening in manual mode, Snatch assumes that
   user is present and can generally handle any problems better than a
   dumb, automated Robot, and as such won't try to interfere.

Q: Is there a 2GB file limit?

A: The short answer depends on Linux version.  Snatch uses 64 bit file
   operations, so there's no limitation there.  Captures on Linux 2.4
   will go past 2GB smoothly.

   Many/most machines still running Linux 2.2 can't have > 2GB files
   as Linux 2.2's ext2fs is limited to 32 bit offsets when running on
   32 bit machines.  For these machines, if the selected output is a
   *directory* Snatch will close a grab file when it hits 2GB, open a
   new file, and continue. If a specific *file* is set for output,
   Snatch will not be able to continue past 2GB.

Q: When I selecting silent video playback, the RealPlayer window
   mostly stops responding and fills with garbage.  Can I fix this?

A: No, it's intentional. 'Silent video' stops all X updates from going
   to the RealPlayer window; it's meant to squeeze any extra
   performance possible from a machine with slow graphics hardware or
   slow processor or both.  Remember that Snatch doesn't capture the
   Real stream, it captures the video RealPlayer sends to the display.
   Any dropped frames due to poor machine performace will show up in
   the output as jerkiness.

   Although the video requires cycles to display, RealPlayer is also
   spewing lots of updates to the interface during playback (like the
   time display, scrolling info, etc).  For best performace,
   *everything* gets turned off.  In this mode, all interaction with
   RealPlayer should be made through the Snatch Robot.  Turning off
   silent video will bring the RealPlayer window back to life.

Q: I begin playing/recording with audio playback set to silent, but
   changing the setting later has no effect until I start a new
   stream!  Why?

A: Snatch doesn't currently try to set up the soundacard for playback
   after a stream starts because it originally faked successful
   returns to various sound API ioctl()s that might have failed
   (requiring RealPlayer to try an alternate setup).  Trying to
   emulate given settings with on the fly resampling is rather complex
   given the fairly innocuous nature of this 'bug', and not bothering
   to fake through it correctly would just crash RealPlayer or garble
   the output.

Q: I'm watching/recording video and switching between audio playback
   and silent playback. When I turn off silent record, the audio I
   hear is out of sync!  What gives?

A: Right now, Snatch tracks audio sync only for the output file.  It
   doesn't try to re-sync the sound card if you reenable audio
   playback during a stream.  The captured file *will be fine*.  I
   didn't go through the extra trouble mainly because on-the-fly
   resync would require extra memory, buffering, and I didn't know if
   anyone cared that much.

Q: Can I use libsnatch without the Snatch Robot application?

A: Yes, all the configuration a user can effect from the robot can be
   done via environment variables.  In fact, the shared lib was
   written and tested and used thoroughly before the Robot was even
   started.

Q: What does Snatch occasionally cause: "undefined symbol:
   XGetGeometry" or some other undefined symbol?

A: RealPlayer is trying to start up external applications; Snatch
   isn't yet smart enough to know that these external applications are
   not RealPlayer and thus tries [unsuccessfully] to use the same
   library capture tricks.  The errors are harmless, but they do mean
   Real will not be able to spawn web browsers or other 'external
   synchronized multimedia events'.  I personally don't consider that
   a huge loss.

   This also happens for one other common reason: Having EsounD support
   enabled, but no EsounD daemon running.