August 2008, about.com, quotes and reviews from the article:

"RapidSolution Software AG, the makers of Tunebite and Audials One, has improved on its Videoraptor and released MP3videoraptor 3. It's an Internet media search program that records music and video from a number of websites, including, Last.fm, YouTube, and SoundClick. It also has a ringtone maker to generate ringtones for your cell phone, an ID3 tag editor, and a built-in CD burner.

Pros:

    * Excellent features for finding media on the Internet

    * Multi-stream recording

    * Good file format support

Getting Started

System requirements:

    * Operating system: Windows XP / Vista

    * CPU: 1Ghz minimum

    * Hard drive space: 100 MB+

    * Memory: 512 MB RAM

    * Internet connection type: Broadband

Interface: Users of Tunebite, Radiotracker, or one of RapidSolution's other products in the RS Audials range, will immediately be familiar with the user interface (UI) of MP3videoraptor. There are three main tabs at the top of the screen that make it easy to navigate through the software's functions. A nice feature that helps you to quickly learn MP3videoraptor's interface is the use of tooltips; hovering your mouse pointer over each of the buttons gives you a quick description on its function. The overall look and feel of the UI is one that is intuitive, well designed, and efficient to use.

Configuration: There are quite a few settings in the options menu that you can tweak depending on your personal preferences. On the general options screen you can change how many times MP3videoraptor tries to connect with a particular media stream before it gives up, and the number of simultaneous files that are encoded at any one time. For files that are saved to your hard drive, a handy option lets you set where they are stored; different types of media can be saved in separate folders which helps in organizing your audio and video collection. Finally, there are options to configure how the program connects to the Internet, a parental control facility, and settings to synchronize your MP3 player or other mobile device.

Music search: The first tab on MP3videoraptor's menu (and the most used) enables you to search for MP3 and video files via a search box; you can also click on the Artists button which brings up a list of genres and suggested artists. Once MP3videoraptor begins searching, you will start to see results almost immediately and can click on them to start downloading to your hard drive. If you get a lot of results, you can further refine the list by typing in a term that masks out other results; you can also filter the results by media type (videos and MP3s, videos only, or MP3 only). Overall, the music search facility in MP3videoraptor works extremely well by providing a large number of results, and provides a good filter system that enables you to quickly source the media you want. The only downside is that the genre and artists list isn't in alphabetical order and makes browsing the list slow.

Autoload: MP3videoraptor's new Autoload feature makes downloading your favorite genre or artists a breeze. After making your selections, clicking on the Start Autoload button launches MP3videoraptor into a seek and download frenzy. The big advantage of this mode is that you can use the full bandwidth of your Internet connection to quickly build up your media library. If you're worried about downloading too much in one go, then switching on the download limiter will stop MP3videoraptor after a certain number of files (the default is 100). Just like the Music Search mode, the downside is that the genre and artists list isn't in alphabetical order.

Surf & Catch: The last tab across the top of the screen is Surf & Catch. As the name suggests, this is a mode that can record audio and video streams from websites such as Pandora, Last.fm, MySpace, and YouTube as you surf. Unfortunately, the only browser that works with it at the moment is Internet Explorer. That said, it is easy to use and grabs streaming audio and video without a hiccup. One word of warning to parents using this mode, there are a number of, ahem…porn site links - it is advisable to use the parental lock feature to hide these.

    * Output Audio Formats: M4A, MP3, Ogg, WAV, WMA, WMA Pro

    * Output Video Formats: 3GP, MPEG4, SonyPSP, WMV7, WMV9, XVID

Built-in Player: MP3videoraptor's built-in player is quite basic, but has all the usual functions of an integrated player. It also comes with a playlist shuffle option which is useful for listening to music in the background while you work.

Edit ID3 Tags: You can manually edit ID3 metadata if you need to which is a useful feature for organizing your music library.

Recording Quality: The quality of the recorded audio and video using the different encoding settings in MP3videoraptor yielded excellent results.

Additional Tools

CD Burner: Integrated into MP3videoraptor is a CD writing tool that can create data CDs (MP3 files etc.), or audio CDs that you can play on most CD capable players. It is fully wizard-based and helps you through the process of burning your collection for safe keeping.

Ringtone Maker: One of MP3videoraptor's great bonus features is the ringtone maker. If you've got a cell phone that supports MP3, AMR, or MMF file formats then why not use your music to make a ringtone? The ringtone maker is wizard-based which makes the whole process very straight forward. You have the option to use music that you have already recorded with MP3videoraptor; use one of your CDs to rip a section of music, or even record from external sources such as microphone, line in etc. Once you have generated your ringtone, you can transfer it to your cell phone via WAP or download the file to your hard drive for cable transfer.

Conclusion

Is it worth buying?

If you use the Internet to frequently listen to music and watch video clips, then MP3videoraptor is an invaluable tool that will enable you to save this content to your hard drive. The new Autoload feature makes light work of quickly downloading media from the Internet, and is a great way to build your media library. The Surf & Catch option is also an excellent feature for grabbing content while your surf... That said, MP3videoraptor excels at finding and recording media on the Internet, and is a great alternative to risky download methods such as P2P file sharing."

MP3videoraptor direct