Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Internet Tools
Firefox extension: VideoDownloader does just what it says
VideoDownloader is a slick Firefox extension that allows you to save content from websites, including embedded videos at sites like YouTube. The extension adds a small icon to Firefox's status bar that, when clicked, offers a pop-up window with a download link of the actual file you want. Simple and painless. The one catch I've run into so far: the files from some Flash-embedded sites like YouTube are .FLV, and while I have the latest Flash player installed, I can't seem to find it, and not even Safari will open these with a File > Open command. Other than that, this extension has worked great for grabbing all sorts of media so far.The list of sites this extension works with is lengthy, but really it should allow you to grab embedded content from just about anywhere. Unless, of course, the site has already been turned on to haxies like this and they've already launched countermeasures. Until then, enjoy.

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
fra said 11:10AM on 5-22-2006
iSquint coverts FLV files to Quciktime files quite speedy
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Ultim8Fury said 11:25AM on 5-22-2006
FFmpegX also now deals with FLV video.
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Ken said 11:26AM on 5-22-2006
You can't just open an FLV video file with Flash Player.
Instead, you can use VLC player, which has played any weird codec/format combo.
(By the way, since this is my very first post, great site!)
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LeFly said 11:33AM on 5-22-2006
...and, VLC 0.8.5 will play the FLV files from YouTube without any conversion.
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sinsigns said 11:33AM on 5-22-2006
You can also try a flash video player like http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=Flash_Video_Player . With this you can play the videos on your machine and also offer them as streams on your website.
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Askar said 11:39AM on 5-22-2006
WOW, very nice, is there such a thing for Safari?
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karsten said 12:09PM on 5-22-2006
try this bookmarklet for safari...it's like the extension but just as a bookmarklet :-)
javascript:void(open("http://videodownloader.net/get/?url="%20+%20escape(location)%20+%20"&orig=ffp&ver=1",'VD','fullscreen=no,toolbar=no,status=no,menubar=no,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,directories=no,location=no,width=800,height=400'))
good luck
Karsten
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Luke Macyszyn said 3:27PM on 5-22-2006
Hey Dave,
What is that Google Calendar icon/plugin?
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David Chartier said 8:48PM on 5-22-2006
#8: Funny you ask, as I just uninstalled it today. It's called Google Calendar Notifier, I think, and it's currently at version 2.1 (you can get it from Mozilla's directory). Problem was I could never get it to work. I also figured that, since I have all my notifications emailed and I live inside my email anyways, I don't need Firefox also on my back about an event.
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