Flash Video Downloader

In one of our previous Ask TUAW columns we addressed a question about downloading Flash videos from sites like YouTube and Google Video. We mentioned several shareware programs to do this including TubeSock and yFlicks, however recently a free solution has come to my attention called simply the Flash Video Downloader from Tesseract Software. The interface is very simple: you just copy and paste the URL from your browser for the page that the video appears on (i.e. you don't have to know the exact location of the video file, just the main page URL). The Flash Video Downloader apparently consults videodownloader.net for the actual file location and then sucks it down to your computer. Of course once it's downloaded you'll need VLC or something similar to play it. You can also set up a series of pages as a batch job and the Downloader will do its thing in the background downloading each video, then send up a Growl notification when it's done.

The Flash Video Downloader is not as slick as some of the commercial solutions out there, but it's a free download, and does get the job done.

[Via FreeMacWare]

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Source: http://tesseractsoftware.googlepages.com/flashvideodownloade…

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In one of our previous Ask TUAW columns we addressed a question about downloading Flash videos from sites like YouTube and Google Video. We...

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Tesseract Software

Version 1.3.2 is out. I will now save your settings between sessions.

Davie: to paste a url into the program, double click in the table under the "Video URL" column. I suggest you click on the "?" button in the lower left corner if you still need help.

May 09 2007 at 12:55 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Davie

How the hell do you use this program? It won't let me paste URLs and keeps telling me my download location is wrong.

April 29 2007 at 4:58 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ben

Once you have the .flv, I recommend iSquint to convert them to mp4. Then you can put them into an iMovie project or on your iPod or whatever.

April 02 2007 at 4:02 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Per

The plugin for Firefox called "Embed" also does the work pretty well.

April 02 2007 at 3:22 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

jbelkin

Flash will also play in QT with the plug in.

April 02 2007 at 2:31 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Brandon

I find it very easy to use the plugin video downloader for firefox, then once I've downloaded it, I open it up in QT (i have an FLV plugin that was free of course) and i export it to the format of my choice, it's pretty easy and quick

April 02 2007 at 12:56 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

artifex

If you're using greasemonkey, you can install the "youtube to me" plugin by josh kinberg off the userscripts site, and then you get a little FLV link at the very top of your youtube video pages. Easiest, most unobtrusive, and of course doesn't rely on contacting an outside host that may be down or may be watching you. :)

If Mat says it's ok, it's small enough I can just paste it into a comment here, too.

April 02 2007 at 12:43 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Colin

hey guys i took your advice for SafarStand, but when i pull a video off and try to run it on my computer, Flashplayer just opens up a window with the window name as the location of where the flashplayer program is. any ideas?

April 02 2007 at 12:17 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Tesseract Software

If it's not working for you, then you either don't have the latest version 1.3.1, or you are not using 10.4 or later. I've found that most problems people were having were because of one (or both) of these reasons.

I am currently working on a version that does not use videodownloader.net; which would make it way more reliable and faster.

April 02 2007 at 12:07 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Oh, and VLC is not necessary, since Perian does a great job for that purpose, and there is a little script somewhere that allows to put that fullscreen on QuickTime sans pro.

April 02 2007 at 9:39 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply