Hi:

I've tried using Tubetv and videodownloadhelper and couldn't get them to work for me. I tried Miro and it keeps quitting.

I read somewhere that I could use the activity window to capture video but i think my OS is too old. I have Tiger 10.4.11.

Any ideas to do this simply? It takes too much bandwidth to watch videos on my satellite internet and I need a solution.

Thanks.

Rita

Real Player works for me.

Since we discussed this topic before in Anything that can save online videos? (and threads linked to there), what exactly didn't work for you in the suggestions offered? Remember that regardless of the type of your internet hookup, you've got to download your movies at least once...

Snapz Pro can record regions of the screen live, it may be able to "slurp" video off your screen from whatever player happens to be in use, and save it to file.

Geez, I must be getting old. I forgot about that post. In fact, I tried looking up posts about this before I posted this, and couldn't find them!! Anyway, with Tubetv and videouploaderhelper I get error messages saying it is not a movie file. I haven't tried the others. When I get a chance, I will try some of the other suggestions on the link you supplied. I wish I could use the activity window. That would be so much easier I think.

Thanks, Jon. I may have to try that. I still have a lot of choices, just getting discouraged. Rita

Thanks. I may have to go that route. We'll see. Rita

FWIW, I'm running Mac OS 10.4.11 on an iMac G5 (2.1GHz iSight) and the Activity window option works just fine, albeit not with every single video you see online. Despite this limitation I use it almost exclusively to save online video to hard disk.

OK, I'm going to try that first. I have to wait until 9 p.m. pdt because of my bandwidth issue. Can't wait to try it. Thanks. Rita

I was reading online exactly how to download videos to my desktop via the activity window. One guy said:

Well after the download of that video,add the ext “FLV” than find a video converter to convert you FLV file to MP4 or any other format.Be aware all those videos storing at any internet home page are in this format “FLV”.

Is that true? I know I have to add the .flv extension but do I have to get a converter. I thought by using the activity window I could bypass that step. Otherwise, what's the point?

You don't need a converter to view those flv videos, because there are free flv viewers around; I often use SWF & FLV Player, but any flv capable player will do.

When you want to manipulate flv videos and the video software you use cannot handle flv clips, you’ll have to convert them to another format. That’s where a converter comes in. But once again, this is NOT needed to simply view flv clips.

Good! That's what I thought. The simpler the better. Thanks. Will try this tonight. Rita

A final (?) comment: when you use the Activity window to download a video, you may have to start viewing the video on the web page first to have it listed in the Activity window. After you've Option-double clicked the correct flv entry in the Activity window to download the video and you see it appear in the Downloads window, you can stop the web viewer (and with it the second 'download' stream). This can be helpful if your download bandwidth is limited.

Hi:

I pasted the url of the youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zAMdYC80sE) and got an error message: "watch.html is an application" do you want to download an application? (or something like that). I pasted the url into another window to make sure it was good and it was. Don't know where to go from here. Could you try to do this with the above url and see what happens?

Thanks. Maybe it's just this type of video.

Rita

I tried that link in Safari 4.0.5 and didn't get that message. FWIW, Real Player launched automatically and I could have used it to download the video if I had wanted to.

Like Jon I don't get an error message when I follow that link of yours, but am presented with the YouTube page '2012 Event Horizon: Prophecies and Science of a Golden Age, by David Wilcock'. But since I can elicit that message by Option-double clicking your link, I suspect you may have done something similar.

Anyway, the idea is to just to follow your link to that YouTube page and start the main feature clip there. Then open the Activity window and find the largest entry there. That turns out to be the one that ends with 'id=f7300c7580bcd2c1' representing a video weighing in at 192MB. You can select that entry and copy it, but simply Option-double clicking it will start the download. And as I suggested above, stopping the YouTube video in the main window next will optimize your use of your download bandwidth.

As Jon suggested, you can also use RealPlayer and configure it to download videos; see Jon’s 2nd post in the thread Best way to "screenshot" or save online videos? for some pointers. It should work as easily as using the Activity window, and I would suggest you try both and pick the one you like best.

Thanks. I did exactly what you said and it still gives me the error message. Darn!!! I guess I will try real player. I don't have it so will need to download it. Hopefully, the free version will work for what I need. Thanks again.

Rita

Thanks, Jon. I will try this as I cannot seem to get the activity window/download window technique to work for me.

Rita

Just to clarify, I made a typo. RealPlayer Downloader launched automatically, not RealPlayer. See my last post for instructions.

Success at last!!! I downloaded RealPlayer and then downloaded my video and played it!!!1 Yippee!! You guys rock!!!

Thanks so much for all the input and help.

Rita

I spoke too soon. RealPlayer worked for me once and that was it. I had downloaded 4 files and played them at my leasure. Yesterday I downloaded 9 clips. I watched one and deleted it. The others were still there in the downloader for today. When I opened RealPlayer downloader, they were all gone!! The RealPlayer forum was retired in 2009. One has to go on Facebook to connect with them, it says. No thanks!! Unless someone has an easy answer, I am off to try another way to save videos to my computer. Why does this have to be so hard?

Thanks. Rita

See if you have any downloaded videos in ~/Movies/RealPlayer Downloads. I have some in that location and they open and play with VLC Media Player when I double-click them.

Nope. Not there. Rita

In response to your remarks in another thread, I can’t say anything about iFunia’s functionality because I have never used it. In general you’d like to try something before you pay and find out it’s not what you were looking for. If the software meets that criterion, and you can be sure it isn’t doing anything nefarious under the hood, you’ve got little to lose but time and effort in trying it. But note that iFunia is for Leopard or higher, not Tiger.

That said, I can’t help but wondering why you never could get the Activity window method going. That’s easily the simplest way of doing this. If you followed the required steps exactly, it’s possible that your ISP may have been in the way, but I doubt that’s the explanation of your inability to get this to work.

I agree the activity window is the easiest but just doesn't work for me. I only download youtube and I know some download managers don't work with that.

you might try: ClipGrab. it works great for me, though I've also had good luck with Jon's suggestion of Real Player.

Following alternaut's lead I'm replying here instead of in the thread in FineTunedMac Feedback.

The only thing I know firsthand about iFunia is their products are advertised via spam posts/signatures/comments/articles/tutorials, but that knowledge is all the reason I need to never download or use any of their apps.

Well, since it won't work for Tiger, I won't even be thinking about it. Besides, I thought it was free. Want something free!!!

Hi Roger:

Thanks, I will look into that.

Rita

The issue has nothing to do with download managers, which in our case are identical except perhaps for the Safari version you're using (3.2.1; you might want to consider upgrading to Safari 4). But believe me, Safari can download YouTube videos this way: I do it all the time. If you do it right and it still won't work, there likely is something wrong with your setup (or with Safari's settings).

Assuming for a moment that your setup is fine, I suspect you're still not going about the Activity method the right way. You mentioned you got a watch.html related error. That happens when you Option-click on the YouTube link you posted above, and it downloads a 129KB file by that name that's of no use. Instead, bear with me once more and try the following:

In Safari:
- You open your YouTube link, and start the feature video there.
- Then open Safari's Activity window.

In Safari's Activity window:
- Find the listing for your video page. It has the same name as the YouTube page, but may be truncated as follows: YouTube - 2012 Event Horizon... Golden Age, by David Wilcock.
- Among the components listed for this YouTube video page you'll find the 192MB item I described above (towards the end of the page's listing). This item will not be present if the movie has not been started, but once started you can pause it.
- Option-double-click on that 192MB item to start the download. Safari's Downloads window will open and a new download called 'videoplayback' will appear there: that's your video.
- Let the download finish, and rename the file with the YouTube video's real name, and append .flv to the name. Done.
- You can play back the video with an FLV viewer, or with Quicktime (for example, you can drag the file onto the QT icon in the dock if you have it listed there).

If your experience deviates from the above description, you took a different turn somewhere. If you're sure you didn't, and it still doesn't work for you, there is a problem somewhere that we'll have to find and identify. But that's for later.

Thank you. That was very helpful. I haven't tried it yet, but you are right. It's not a download manager which is what I really need because of my bandwidth limits. I need to be able to schedule my downloads for after midnight. I've tried several schedulers with no luck. Most of them say they don't work with Youtube.

Thanks for your info, though.

Rita