My cousin is on the web and I can't save the video!

[TechnoPro]

My cousin was on CNBC Europe. I'd love to save the clip for posterity sake. That and I have family with bad internet connections who are nagging me to obtain it for them. For the life of me, I cannot save the underlying video.

I've tried looking through the source, packet sniffing, looking through Temp and Cache files, basically any trick that I could think of. After 2 hours, nothing. Or at least nothing usable.

Anyone want to have a stab at it? Since this is maddening, I'll happily offer $10 to someone who can figure it out for me.

 

[RU482]

just do a print screen once every 1/30th of a second, each time saving it as a difference file name. Then, crop the images to the size of the movie player screen, and recompile them into a new video. Easy as that

 

[TechnoPro]

Originally posted by: redly1
just do a print screen once every 1/30th of a second, each time saving it as a difference file name. Then, crop the images to the size of the movie player screen, and recompile them into a new video. Easy as that

I don't know if I could hit the Print Screen key that fast.

I guess there are commercial screen recorder programs. I might give that a shot. I was hoping to end up with an .FLV file or similar.

 

[SSP]

The flash file dont want to play after downloading it. If worse comes to worse, get a minidv or a digicam with video and record it manually.

 

[JohnAn2112]

You should be able to use a program like FRAPS to record anything on your screen, no?

 

[nissan720]

You might email them and explain the situation. They might even be so nice as to send you a copy.

 

[novasatori]

http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp
maybe try the trial

i know there is a program out there that does the same thing completely free, its name eludes me though

 

[MrChad]

http://www.viloader.net/

 

[everman]

There are web sites that can rip video like that, tried it before for google video. I don't remember off hand though.

 

[Dessert Tears]

AFAICT, it's a true Flash stream served through a different protocol - the URL I was able to grab through some manipulation of the input parameters to the FLVPlayer.swf includes the prefix rtmp://. As you have learned, it's more robust than serving over HTTP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Messaging_Protocol

You can try the Red5 software linked from that Wikipedia entry. It seems like the movie handling is all hardcoded into the Flash player, so good luck with getting it from there. It may be possible to connect using a hacked Flash video player (just a custom SWF) with a large buffer, then copying the buffer before it flushes. I didn't see any hooks for dumping a stream to disk - it's probably intentionally omitted.

 

[TechnoPro]

Originally posted by: everman
There are web sites that can rip video like that, tried it before for google video. I don't remember off hand though.

There are many of them. They are each crafted for the specific protocols delivered by the popular flash video sites. Won't work in my case.

 

[HN]

Originally posted by: Flatscan
AFAICT, it's a true Flash stream served through a different protocol - the URL I was able to grab through some manipulation of the input parameters to the FLVPlayer.swf includes the prefix rtmp://. As you have learned, it's more robust than serving over HTTP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Messaging_Protocol

You can try the Red5 software linked from that Wikipedia entry. It seems like the movie handling is all hardcoded into the Flash player, so good luck with getting it from there. It may be possible to connect using a hacked Flash video player (just a custom SWF) with a large buffer, then copying the buffer before it flushes. I didn't see any hooks for dumping a stream to disk - it's probably intentionally omitted.

what's the full rtmp url you came up with?

 

[TechnoPro]

Originally posted by: Flatscan
AFAICT, it's a true Flash stream served through a different protocol - the URL I was able to grab through some manipulation of the input parameters to the FLVPlayer.swf includes the prefix rtmp://. As you have learned, it's more robust than serving over HTTP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Time_Messaging_Protocol

You can try the Red5 software linked from that Wikipedia entry. It seems like the movie handling is all hardcoded into the Flash player, so good luck with getting it from there. It may be possible to connect using a hacked Flash video player (just a custom SWF) with a large buffer, then copying the buffer before it flushes. I didn't see any hooks for dumping a stream to disk - it's probably intentionally omitted.

You got as far as I went. I was at that Wiki article and read up on this mystery protocol. I even used a hex editor to look at the actual temp file and analyze the protocol. The problem is that it is somewhat complex as far as isolating the actual data from the metadata. It behaves strangely. There's the usual preamble, and then some video data. Then, the stream stops for a bit as the video plays on. When it resumes, it appends that same TMP file with more preamble and protocol information and then continues with the data content. Rinse and repeat several more times and you have a 15.4 MB file filled with a lot of information, all unusable to me.

 

[LordSnailz]

technopro:
I got it ... only catch is, your cousin has to take the $10 you owe me and make me millions in 3 months, deal?

 

[TechnoPro]

Originally posted by: LordSnailz
technopro:
I got it ... only catch is, your cousin has to take the $10 you owe me and make me millions in 3 months, deal?

You really got it?

About that catch... I'll pay you another $10 to make that pitch to my cousin. As long as I get it on tape, of course.

 

[LordSnailz]

Originally posted by: TechnoPro

Originally posted by: LordSnailz
technopro:
I got it ... only catch is, your cousin has to take the $10 you owe me and make me millions in 3 months, deal?

You really got it?

About that catch... I'll pay you another $10 to make that pitch to my cousin. As long as I get it on tape, of course.

yeah, just to show there is some use to atot ygpm.