[Yak Nicholson]

I know there have been many complaints about the new format for the Big Brother Live Feeds. Many don’t like the new “play in browser” that Real Player has switched to, and some just don’t like change. Well, there are a couple of options out there. (You still need to have purchased the feeds of course, and need a valid log in… if you haven’t purchased the feeds yet, but plan to, please consider purchasing through us! It would help us out A LOT! Click the Real banner on the left to order!)

Now, I have not yet found an option for Mac users (like me darnit! I will keep looking!) but for those Windows users, there are a couple of different players out there that you can use. Both options include an image capture option as well.

[TheKdd]

The two options, at the moment, that are out there are BBViewer, and B3Viewer. I am attaching B3Viewer in the next post for you to download with the instructions on how to use. Please note: I was not the creator of this program, so if you have questions or problems, we can try to solve them together, but I cannot guarantee it (especially since I can't even use it since I am on a Mac LOL)

BBviewer can be downloaded here: http://www.bbviewer.com/bb12.html
Refer to the website for details!

Once you get either one of these programs up and running, and you are watching the feeds happily, be sure to come to the Yak to discuss all the goings on in the house!

[TheKdd]

The detailed instructions, for those that have questions or problems are also below.

1) Download Viewer
2) Install Player
3) Run Player
4) Click SuperPass Login link in upper right.
5) Sign in
6) Click one of the links under WATCH FULL EPISODES in the center of page.
7) Viewer should acquire the superpass video player and switch to "Viewing" mode.
8) Start a video playing from Feed 1, Feed 2, Feed 3, Feed 4 buttons or by right clicking on a program in the Catalog View and selecting play.

FULL INSTRUCTIONS BELOW:

FIRST USE OF THE VIEWER

BE CAREFUL USING THE "1 STAR" BUTTON IN THIS VERSION!

This button is currently mapped to redirect the view panel to the superpass home page. The reason for this will be explained a later in this document. Clicking this will not crash the viewer or cause serious problems, but it will take you out of viewing mode and you have to do a few things to return to viewing mode.

When you first run the viewer, you will not have a valid session to superpass. You will have to create one for the viewer to gain access to superpass content. When the viewer is started without a valid session, in place of feeds, you will be shown a browser page with the superpass login page. Simply click the "Sign In" link on the upper right and you will be sent to the superpass login page (the viewer blocks the Superpass site from creating a popup for login as it usually does, you will receive the login page on the view page.)

Once you login, you will be redirected to the superpass main catalog page.

Now that you are at the Superpass catalog page, you have an active session and can proceed to viewing. The player will automatically acquire the Superpass player as soon as you navigate to a superpass page with video content. Simply click any of the video links on the catalog page and you should be taken to a page with a player which the viewer will acquire.

As soon as you go to a page with video superpass video content and the viewer acquires the superpass player, the web page will be replaced with only the video player. From this point on you will only see the player, even if you close and reopen the viewer program (unless your session expires, but it appears that IE cashes the session for quite some time.)

ONCE YOU HAVE AN ACTIVE SUPERPASS SESSION:

When you run the player while you have an active session, the Superpass video player will always fill the viewer screen. In this state you can use any of the toolbar Feed icons to go to a feed, or use the Catalog View panel to select Superpass BB programming.

There is a bug in the embedded version of Internet Explorer used in the viewer which causes video playback to fail often when first loading a page with the Superpass player. This only occurs when you first start the viewer or when you navigate to a video page during the session setup process above. When this occurs, you will just see the Superpass player but it will not start playing video. Just select a feed button or Catalog content and playback will start. Since this only happens at startup, it should not pose any problem. I will be addressing this issue in a future version when I have more time.

In this version I have also noticed that video playback sometimes stops when messing around with the menus. When it stops in this manner, you can not restart video by clicking on a feed button or Catalog content. You can resolve this by exiting and restarting the viewer. You can also resolve the issue by clicking on the '1 Star" menu button to navigate back to the superpass catalog page and then returning to a video page (see, told you there was a reason for that button). I just noticed this yesterday and have not had a chance to look into the problem yet.

TOOLBAR/MENU

Toolbar menu, the toolbar menu can be "stickied" open, or can be minimized to act like a normal windows menu. To toggle between "sticked" and "minimized" just double click on one of the menu tab names at the top of the window (Feeds, Capture/Review, Settings). When "minimized" the menu panel acts as a fly out menu panel.

When minimized, just click the menu tab name (Feeds, Capture/Review, Settings) of the menu you wish to access and it will popup.

When "stickied", click on the menu tab name (Feeds, Capture/Review, Settings) to switch to that menu category tab.

Feeds Menu, to select a feed, just click on the feed icon for the desired feed.

On the right side of the menu bar, you can select a different visual style for the player by clicking on the "Style" menu option.

The "About Box" can be viewed by click on the blue circle with a question mark on the right side of the menu bar.

SUPERPASS CATALOG

To close the Catalog View pane click on the X in the upper right of the pane.

To open the Catalog View if not visible, click on the "Catalog" button in the SuperPass panel of the Capture/Review menu tab.

The superpass panel can be stickied or minized much like the menu bar. To switch between "stickied" and "minimized" mode, simply click on the pushpin button in the top right of the Catalog View pane.

When in minized mode, a button will appear at the edge of the view window with a "Catalog View" button. To view the Catalog View, simply click this button.

When the Catalog View is in the stickie mode, you can drag the panel and dock it to any edge of the viewer window. You can also pull it off the window so that it is "floating" when floating, you position the panel anywhere, even outside of the viewer window itself.

When dragging the Catalog View window, "docking guide buttons" will appear over the Viewer window. Simply drag and drop to one of these buttons to dock to that edge of the viewer window. To leave the Catalog View in floating mode, just drop it anywhere besides one of the docking guide buttons.

To play videos listed in the Catalog View, simply right click on an item and select "Play".

Main features:
Pin to top (always on top window that can't be hidden by other windows)

* Image capture directory setup
* Image capture
* Creates default capture directories under Documents/B3VViewer/Capture-Images and Documents/B3VViewer/Capture-Videos on first run
* Open video capture folder for browsing
* Open image capture folder for browsing
* Catalog View programs can be started by double clicking (previously you had to right click and select "Play")
* Window title will display "Pinned" when window is pinned to "always on top"
* Window title will display name of program playing when playing content from Catalog View
* Image capture and Pin on top icons in the quick access toolbar (tiny icons at top next to the big BV button) provide quick access to pin on top and image capture.

[Mystycl]

holy crap!

[TheKdd]

LOL Well I'm sure most people can figure it out on their own, or only with the first few instructions, but I posted the other here just in case there are questions or problems, maybe it will answer some.