Help download this flash video

November 13, 2009 1:13 PM

I'd like to save the video from this article and convert it to a avi or something windows can play. I've tried several utilities, but can't seem to get it. Any ideas?
posted by corpse to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Download it from YouTube.
posted by 47triple2 at 1:29 PM on November 13

I'm sure there's a better way to do this, but what I have done in the past is used the firefox add-on video download helper to get the file, and then use zamzar.com to convert it into the format I wanted.
posted by phunniemee at 1:30 PM on November 13

Here's the download link.

Since it's just H.263 video and ADPCM audio in an FLV container, I'd download an ffmpeg binary of the type appropriate for your system, put the FLV file and ffmpeg in the same folder, and do

fmpeg -i marching_band_for_web.flv -vcodec copy -acodec mp3 -ab 128k mynewvideo.avi

to copy the video, transcode the audio to MP3, and dump both to an AVI container.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 1:43 PM on November 13

Step1.
Find it on Youtube (thanks 47triple2!)

Step2.
Change the link from
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTSzM0Ww-Co
to
http://pwnyoutube.com/watch?v=vTSzM0Ww-Co

Step 3.
Download either the MP4 (ideally), or FLV if pwnyoutube doesn't let you get the MP4. Save to desktop or wherever

Step4.
Go to http://www.media-convert.com/, choose the MP4 or FLV from step 3, select Windows in the Output preset, and then wait a while. Download your video. Job done!
posted by derbs at 1:56 PM on November 13 [3 favorites]

ps. if you just want to watch the video yourself, rather than send it to someone else, and you want to miss out Step 4 (which can take a while), you can download VLC which can play both MP4 and FLV video files
posted by derbs at 1:59 PM on November 13

derbs is the winner. Thanks.
posted by corpse at 2:36 PM on November 13

The easiest way to do this:

install the downloadhelper firefox addon

download any video on a web page using the menu on the toolbar

play the resulting video using mplayer or vlc which can play pretty much every video codec out there without reducing quality by transcoding
posted by idiopath at 2:53 PM on November 13