Recommendations for downloading and saving streaming video?

June 9, 2009 12:44 PM

Recommendations for downloading and saving streaming video from youtube, hulu, megavideo?

This has been covered before in Meta but not since 2007 and this seems to be an 'evolving' discipline. There is also lots on the web but a lot of it seems to be about potentially sketchy, looks-like-freeware-but-it's-not programs with questionable reviews. I'm primarily interested in lifting from megavideo. I'm not particular about format and have VLC, which if what I have read is correct, will play pretty much any format (and not having to convert formats seems like a desirable thing). Any suggestions based on your experience welcome (pc running windows xp). Thanks!

posted by bluesky43 to computers & internet (8 comments total)

I use keepvid for YT vids. Don't know about other sites...
posted by dawdle at 12:55 PM on June 9

If you use firefox, the Video DownloadHelper addon lists it as a supported website.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006
posted by royalsong at 12:59 PM on June 9 [1 favorite has favorites]

Video DownloadHelper is really handy for getting streaming audio, too, as well as converting formats (though I haven't tried it out).
posted by filthy light thief at 1:01 PM on June 9

I use Easy YouTube Video Downloader with Firefox, which downloads to FLV, 3GP, MP4 and HD. It is, however, limited to Youtube videos. In terms of Firefox extensions, it seems as though your options for megavideo are limited, if any.
posted by youarenothere at 2:49 PM on June 9

I use a Python script called youtube-dl to download YouTube videos. I like it because you can easily feed it an input list of videos to download in the background, and it can automatically rename clips as well. It can also generate a list of video URLs for use with other download managers like DownThemAll as well.

For Hulu I think you would have to go with some kind of screen capture software.

VLC is indeed the best video player for this kind of thing.
posted by fearthehat at 3:02 PM on June 9

I use Yousable Tube Fix for YouTube (Greasemonkey Script). Can't say I've tried to get video from the other two sites.
posted by ThaBombShelterSmith at 6:55 PM on June 9

I haven't done it in a while, but I used to have no trouble just opening Safari's Activity window when on a Megavideo page and option-double-clicking the movie file from the list to download it. The resulting file would play fine in VLC.

For YouTube I use this bookmarklet to add a link to the downloadable MP4 version of videos. Easy peasy.
posted by bcwinters at 7:11 PM on June 9

Thanks very much for all the suggestions! I ended up going with the Firefox extension. It seems to work pretty well although one video got coded with a green strip down the middle. Others hae been ok. There is a separate utility that has to be downloaded to do conversions which seems to work fine. I wish there was some way to turn off the extension when I don't want to use it (videos and photographs are automatically detected as possible downloads in the extension) but there doesn't seem to be. Thanks again!
posted by bluesky43 at 7:46 AM on June 11