How to save streaming movies from websites

[SwitcherX]

Here's a quick intro that will save movies from over 90% of the sites on the web.

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1) Download and install Net Transport and Url Snooper 2.  URL Snooper 2 comes with WinPcap drivers.  You probably have to install them too.
 
2) Run URL Snooper 2 and click on the Options tab and then select your network card.  Click on the Search tab and for Protocol Filter pick all.  Sometimes things slip thru if you use 1 of the multimedia options.
 
3) Open up your favorite browser and go to a webpage that has a streaming video that you want to save.
 
4) Click on Sniff Network in URL Snooper 2 to start sniffing.
 
5) On the webpage that you went to, click on play movie or whatever to start playing the movie.  If the movie starts playing automatically when you go to the webpage, you should do step 4 before step 3.
 
6) Go back to URL Snooper 2 and in the main window you'll see a bunch of URL's listed.  One of them will be the URL for the movie.  Search thru the list and clikc on the URL that it is.  At the bottom of the window you should see it highlited.  Right click on it to save to the clipboard as ascii.
 
7) Start up Net Transport and click on the new button.  When the popup box comes up, paste the URL you saved in to the url field and click ok.  Net Transport will then go out and start saving the movie.  When it's done it'll put a check mark next to the file name.

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URL Snooper 2 and Net Transport have a lot of options.  None of them were used in the above intro.  Read the documentation that comes with them to see what they are.  There are some nice ones that can make life easy.

Here are a couple of websites that will expand your streaming media capturing consciousness:

The Streaming Media Recording Forum

Net Transport Training Area

[sheber]

Many thanks! As it turns out, I only had half of the tools.

[Angelusx]

Also there are to other ways I know of, if the site uses quicktime or if that is your default player if you have the full version you can save movies. Or get flashget and copy the url to the movie file and start a new job that will also work, but probably not as well, as the method in the other post.

[oh1costas]

GOD BLESS YOU!

[ElmerFudd]

If you're REAL lucky, and you have free Quicktime, the following works in Firefox for Windows XP:

Play the movie, then go into your C drive
Click on Documents and Settings
Click on your account name (often YOUR name)!
Click on Application Data
Click on Mozilla
Click on Firefox
Click on Profiles
Click on your Profile (usually something like dslkhfkjshf.default)
Click on Cache
Sort it by Date
Something that looks like this:
85AC017Dd01
that is meg+ sized will be near the top, just copy it , paste it somewhere, and change it to:
somename.mov

Viola, the playable Quicktime Movie!

[SwitcherX]

Quote:
GOD BLESS YOU!

*blush*  

[Sonic_Morph]

............or you could try this:  SDP Streaming Video Downloader


Works a treat.

[SwitcherX]

Quote:
............or you could try this:  SDP Streaming Video Downloader


Works a treat.

It looks like it only grabs 1 streaming protocol.  Net Transport can grab everything.

[TheZookie007]

WM Recorder is the best I have seen for capturing WMV/WMA files and the like. I don't really use NetTransport that much (although I do have it) -- looks like I should start doing so. I also recommend Streambox (if you can get it) for saving RealMedia stuff.

[BarnacleBill]

thanks SwitcherX!

It took me awhile, but I finally figured it out.  It's weird that it brought out in me the same frustration I get when I'm working on my car....

Thanks a lot, figuring it out makes me feel just a little smarter than I was before and I need all the help I can get...

[TheZookie007]

Simply go to:

http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php

and plug in your URL in the appropriate textbox, click the button, and there you go!

[SwitcherX]

Quote:
Simply go to:

http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php

and plug in your URL in the appropriate textbox, click the button, and there you go!

But then you have to save it from there...

[TheZookie007]

...and your problem is...?

[TheZookie007]

It turns out that the JaviMoya site might have actually cribbed its code from another site. Up until a few days ago, JaviMoya had even cribbed this other site's look-and-feel. In any case, KeepVid does a very good job of saving Flash video from more than 30 sites like Google Video, iFilm, YouTube, Grinvi, ThatVideoSite, and more. Their short FAQ tells you how to convert the .FLV into other formats, too. Another site that purports to do the saving is FileLeecher.

If you want a standalone program to do the thing with, you can use Vdownloder, a program that can download videos from Youtube, Google video and Grinvi and then save them in AVI or MPG format.

A good site for more easily searching through YouTube for videos you want is  Qoogle. Just type in the search term in the box, and it brings up thumbnails and captions of the sought-after item. Click on the thumbnail and a pop-up vid player allows you to view it. Then pop the URL into KeepVid or whatever and it is on your hard disk.

And a good search engine for files on the RapidShare network is RapidShared.

Now, if anyone could tell me how to save those Flash videos from the AXE "Order of the Serpentine" site, or from news sites such as ABCNews.com, I would be a happy camper indeed!

[Goldeneye]

Perhaps stupid question, what do I need to play the YouTube files I download?

[TheZookie007]

Most, if not all, files stored in YouTube are in the Flash video format (.FLV). There are a number of standalone players that can play .FLV files, such as VideoLAN Client (VLC), which is available here. It's not perfect (for instance, I cannot seem to make the .FLV file seekable when playing them in VLC), but it plays a wide variety of video formats as well as .FLV files.

[Goldeneye]

Is there a way to convert FLV files BACK into more standard formats?

[TheZookie007]

Yes, but you should expect some degradation in picture quality. You can see here for a FAQ on how to go about it.

[Inherency]

Quote:
Is there a way to convert FLV files BACK into more standard formats?

You might find Riva useful.  I think its intention is to convert mpeg variety files into flv, but it works the same if you manually change the output.  It can be found here: http://www.rivavx.com/index.php?encoder&L=3

[fun_bags]

Thanks, for the info.

[Goldeneye]

This Riva stuff is by far the most confusing I've come across.  I downloaded GeoVid's Flash to Video encoder and that should work but is just giving me white screen with no sound.  Everything else has massive trial restrictions or is complex as hell.  Keepvid's not even letting me download some of the vids I want.  There's gotta be an easier way to simply obtain files and convert them.

[MasterDragonfly]

Assuming you figure out the downloading part, I find 'ffmpeg' on Linux to be quite handy doing the conversion.

If you don't have Linux, either set up an old box with it and put it on your network, or get VMware installed on Windows, then create a VM, install Linux there, and you're golden.

[Goldeneye]

That, too, sounds complex.  Oh well.

[TheZookie007]

Recently, yeah, KeepVid and that Javimoya site have had a few small problems with saving some videos from YouTube. The video will save but when I play it back in VLC Media Player, there are five vertical purple stripes down the screen. Bummer.

[Goldeneye]

It'll show me the download link and then say there's nothing there.  I really wanna save YouTube videos because it seems like every day now I'll go back to watch an old one and it's gone or the user's entire account is gone.  I had a subscription to a user who had hundreds of concert vids, now they're all gone.  But every fucking way to go about saving/converting them seems so damn needlessly complicated.

[TheZookie007]

Makes me nostalgic for the good old days when everyone used QuickTime instead of Flash video.

[glacier]

SwitcherX, many thanks.  However, after my first grab, Net Transport won't open for me.  Any ideas?  Thanks again.

[glacier]

I've only caught one successful download.  I can't get the damn net transport to open!

[TheZookie007]

URL Snooper used to work for me, but soon after I installed my wifi card, it stoppped working...I haven't used NetTransport (even though I have a copy of it) since between my copy of WM Recorder and Streambox, I usually get what I want. I may just uninstall URL Sniffer, install NetTransport and re-install URL Snooper, for the heck of it.

[SwitcherX]

If you use Opera for your browser, there's a widget called VideoDownloader that can download videos from most video sites.

[Dearc]

Quote:

If you want a standalone program to do the thing with, you can use Vdownloder, a program that can download videos from Youtube, Google video and Grinvi and then save them in AVI or MPG format.

Dude, you rock! Took me a while to figure the details, but I tried the FLV way first, didn't go as nicely. VDownloader works perfectly! Thanks.

[DimaX]

Quote:
............or you could try this:  SDP Streaming Video Downloader

Works a treat.

Thanks great stuff!

[origa]

Firefox or Macromedia have completely messed up caching.  Cached FLV files are now blocked from copy / paste, and then are deleted when the video stops playing.  

Incredibly frustrating.  

[rtpoe]

But you can get Add-ons for Firefox that will do that for you.  UnPlug, for example.

[TheZookie007]

I just came across this site.

http://orbitdownloader.com/

Apparently, it can download practically everything: streaming video, FLV files (like from YouTube), even those difficult to get embedded video like from Yahoo! Video or from sites like imeem or Last.FM. I will install it and try it out and tell you all how it goes.