Any software that can save online videos? I mean the harder ones like flash etc.
I tried video box but can't seem to do the job anymore. thanks.

You might want to check out the suggestions made in the thread Software for saving flash videos? The simplest method uses Safari's Activity menu item (under the Window menu), while others involve dedicated software.

thanks A. that was my thread I started.
I just tried activity monitor, does not work, option double click safari in activity montor, get some window asking something about statistics.

Tacit does not recommend snapz for flash and thats enough for me.

No one has properly explained the firefox plug in option, so I'm still here back at square one.

I wonder why? I've never experienced any issues recording Flash content. The key to successful recordings with Snapz Pro is to thoroughly explore the myriad of options offered by the application. I HIGHLY recommend it!

For Youtube videos using Safari, ClicktoFlash does an adequate job.

For videos from various sites using Firefox, I find the NetVideoHunter Ad-on extension works well.

Not the Activity Monitor app, the Activity window in Safari. Found in the menu bar at Window-->Activity.

Real Player works for me.

I have had luck with iTube Grabber.

Guys, lets start over.
Forget about you tube and other easy sites.

I'm talking about the adult tube site for example.
Or check this out;
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/clips/meet-the-family/237295/

The "meet the walkens" clip comes on after a 15 second verizon commercial.

Is there anything (besides a screen grab software -- which I think Tacit was saying would bring in huge files files which I don't want) --
that could do a proper download of the clip to the desktop?

Sites like that usually use flash for the video but almost always "wrap" it in a way that makes it impossible for the average user to extract. (youtube does this also but it's so popular that commercial programs have been made specifically for it)

NBC's page is particularly complex. Sometimes you can search the page source for ".SWF" and find the item, but they appear to be using a mix of javascript and flash with calculated page addresses and cookies which would make it rather tricky to pick apart.

One other approach is to open the page in firefox and use their object inspector to try to find the video object. While in theory this is guaranteed effective, it's often very hard to find the object on a complex page.

Some flash and java pages will cache videos once downloaded, and you can find them in their cached locations. Online games that save your score and progress use a similar technique. (it's not cookie-based)

Hi Guys:

I was looking into this subject earlier today. I was learning the different ways to save downloaded videos to the desktop. Does that work easily?

Also, I know this sounds dumb, but I have to ask. I have dialup, so it takes forever to download a video. Once I download it and save it, will it open up immediately whenever I want to see it, or do I go through the download process again, even though I have the link or whatever on my desktop?

Thanks.

Once a movie is downloaded and saved on your computer, you should be able to play it immediately without downloading again. You do need an appropriate player to view, but that's not usually an issue.

Thank you!!! Good news! Rita

Virtual, thanks for the frank answer. It looks hopeless for know. I'll post again in a year or two, maybe things will have changed.

never forget it's in their best interest to prevent you from saving it to your computer. if you can't save it, if you want to see it again, you have to hit their banner ads again. It also leaves control of the content in their hands... if they want it to "go away", they delete it from their site, and it's gone.

The biggest problems I have with that are (1) neat things that I want to watch later that I know are going to get removed or rotated out after awhile and I won't have access to them anymore, and (2) when someone needs to do a presentation etc and isn't going to have internet access and wants to use the video.

totally agree, that's why I post. Hopefully someone will beat this one day.

snapz pro is basically meant for this.

I downloaded iSkysoft for this purpose. I can't get it to work so am waiting for support to help me.

I'd stay far away from anything related to iSkysoft, if only because of the way they spam forums and blogs with ads for their products. For more info and others to avoid, check out the incomplete list of junk "converter" companies/apps at http://oncallnerd.com/blog-spam-hunt.

Thanks for the heads up. It may be junk (or not). I would blame the spam on the fact that they have an affiliate program which always generates spam, unfortunately.

I've tried a few apps to do a genuine save of videos online.
But some videos seems seem so ebmedded and hard to download, that I've given up.
I know where are some video screenshot apps, but they are always pricey and the videos tend to me quite large in size.

Any ideas? thanks!

This topic has been addressed in this thread and also another (link provided in one of the replies in that thread).

Jon,
thanks,ok, how would real player download and save a a couple of these videos to my desktop?

http://www.lipitor.com/personalStories.aspx

Install RealPlayer. When you start to view a video, RealPlayer Downloader bounces in the dock. Select its icon and you'll see its window showing the movie that is being played. Select it and it will automatically be downloaded to ~/Movies/RealPlayer Downloads. You can change the download location via RealPlayer Downloader > Preferences. Alternatively, you can manually launch RealPlayer, go to the Window menu and open RealPlayer Downloader from there.

Jon, thanks, there is no sound though to the Real Player download.

There's another way to deal with flash viddys which i can offer.

When we go to a page like that one and play a video in Safari (take the first one called "Dean K." for example), a temporary file gets created. Depending on OS version it could be in different places... but hunt around for something called FlashTmp0

In 10.6.3, it goes into the hidden temp & cache area:

ls -ln /private/var/folders/*/*/TemporaryItems/
total 19400
-rw-r--r-- 1 501 501 9929167 May 12 00:30 FlashTmp0

That there is the "Dean K." viddy after the download has completed (almost 10 megs). So ---before doing anything else--- move it from that TemporaryItems folder onto the desktop, and rename it with a .flv extension. For example, lipitor-vid-1.flv

That file right there now can be played with VLC (and probably via Perian too, idunno). And there may be many converters out there, but the one i know about is called Flv Crunch. So... if need be, simply run that flash video .flv file through "Flv Crunch" and make it into a .mp4 (or something) which QuickTime can play.

The End.

Thanks Jon. I've been wondering how to do that.

Thanks Jon. I was wondering how to do that.

For me, Real Player worked as advertised.

It seems that Safari, Activity window is doing the job. Real player do anything I cannot get from Safari?