How can I Join and Convert F4F Files?

I have downloaded some F4F files from a news site. But VLC player and the Flash player cannot open them. I Googled and found these information:

• F4F is Adobe's fragmented MP4 file format for HTTP Dynamic Streaming.
• A tool called F4F Packager could convert an F4V file to several F4F files and a manifest file(F4M).

Tried some downloader apps and toolbars, but few of them could handle such F4F files. Some screen capture tools is capable of recording the F4F streaming. However i prefer to downloading the original video to keep the quality. Finally, i tried a tool that i installed to download YouTube videos- Bigasoft Video Downloader Pro and got a upgrade window. It is excited to find they add a new F4F Merge panel and it works!

Then i read the upgrade info and it seems new Video Downloader Pro is capable of downloading F4F streaming directly! So there is no need to use other toolbars to rip F4F fragments. Tried Midici, NBC, NBCSports, Francetv, CTVnews, all works. Nice tool!

Something about Apple audio file formats

I always hear about someone couldn't play some audio on Mac. So in this article, I'd like to show which format is Apple defined and how to play other audio files on Mac.

There are three audio formats defined by Apple:

• AIFF is used to store uncompressed audio data.
• CAF is used in Apple QuickTime, iTunes and other media player and creator.
• M4A same as MOV, but only contains audio stream.

All of the above audio format files can be played or edited well on iTunes, Quicktime player, FCP, iMovie, etc. Another popular audio format which can be played by almost all players on both Mac and Windows is MP3. MP3 (MPEG-1 Layer 3) defined by ISO-MPEH consists of a raw audio stream compressed in MP3 codec and an optional ID3 tag at the begin or end of the file.

How to convert lossless audio to Mac compatible audio? 

If your original audio file is lossless audio format, like OGG, FLAC, Monkey’s Audio .APE, Wavpack (.wv), TTA or WAV, in order to keep the best quality, try to find a tool to convert them it to AIFF. If lossing quality does not bother you much, MP3 is the best choice.

Natively Convert TiVo to iPad on Mac for a Playback

As a professional digital video recorder, Tivo keeps movies, TV shows in *.tivo format. We can easily transfer such video to Windows and enjoy it with a player which supports mpeg-2. However, it seems not possible to enjoy TiVo videos on Mac or Apple devices, like iPad.

Yesterday, I tried several video converters which I have and found one stable TIVO converter which converted all my recorded files without issue. One month ago, I got this Bigasoft Converter tool to merge my vob movies and download YouTube videos. Now I prefer to play with this tool and find more features.

For people who has TiVO and need to enjoy the videos on Mac, maybe try it which called Bigasoft Total Video Converter. Here is main steps from their guide:

Step 1 Load TiVo Videos to TiVo Video Converter
Click "Add File" button to import the TiVo files to the software. You can also drag and drop TiVo videos to the interface of the software. Then the following window will pop up, after fill the Media Access Key in, your TiVo Videos are loaded successfully.

Step 2 Set the Profile as MP4, MPEG, AVI, WMV, FLV, MOV, MP3 etc.
There are presets for portable media devices, like iPad, iPhone, Samsung phones, tablets, etc
After all settings are done, click the "Convert" button to start converting TiVo videos.

It also helps to merge, trim, or edit tivo videos. More details:
http://www.bigasoft.com/articles/tivo-converter.html