Saving WMV videos?

August 17, 2004 8:27 PM

Saving WMV videos to disk?

Help! I'm at work, and I just got a list of URLs of WMV video files e-mailed to my Outlook account. If I click on them, Windows Media Player opens up and plays them. I want to save them to disk. How can I do that? I can't right-click on the URL in the e-mail as I would a link on a webpage, and Media Player offers no "Save As" function that I can see. Thoughts?

posted by Vidiot to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

Click on them as normal in Outlook, wait for them to load in WMP, then go to "File -> Save Media As..."

bingo!
posted by cheaily at 8:38 PM on August 17, 2004

Response by poster: Hmmm. My Windows Media Player doesn't have that option. Under the File menu, I can "Add to Library", "Import Playlist to Library", "Export Playlist to File", or copy a playlist to CD.
posted by Vidiot at 8:41 PM on August 17, 2004

open notepad.
type the following, pasting in your url in the indicated place between the quote marks:

<a href="paste the url here.wmv">right click</a>

save the file to your desktop as snagit.html and close notepad.

double click the snagit.html icon on your desktop. this will open in your browser with a link to the movie that you can right click on and save.
posted by quonsar at 8:43 PM on August 17, 2004

Response by poster: damn, q, that's a great idea.
posted by Vidiot at 8:47 PM on August 17, 2004

Vidiot: what version of media player are you using?

Alternatively, Quonsar's idea.
posted by cheaily at 8:48 PM on August 17, 2004

Response by poster: Now if I could only get the IT folks to unlock our systems so I could save something like this, I'd be set. But I don't think there's much you can do to help me there. Thanks!

on preview: v7.01.00, cheaily.
posted by Vidiot at 8:49 PM on August 17, 2004

I just need to stay........ [crossing my fingers this gets deleted] Sometimes quonsar, you make it all worth it.
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:31 PM on August 17, 2004

Or, you could grab a copy of wget and do it that way.
posted by neckro23 at 3:59 AM on August 18, 2004

For streaming mms:// URLs (although it works just fine for http:// URLs as well) there's always asfrecorder.exe, which also comes with some source that'll build on most Unix type platforms.
posted by majick at 7:00 AM on August 18, 2004

Google search for the URL itself. Like this, then right click and "Save As".

If it's a stream then use StreamDown.
posted by ed\26h at 8:02 AM on August 18, 2004

mplayer -dumpfile file.wmv -dumpstream url

Mplayer for all your needs. :-)
also works for all sorts of other streams etc realplayer/asf etc etc
posted by stuartmm at 9:21 AM on August 18, 2004