Download Streaming Videos Without Quality Loss

[Eva-Unit01]

Does anyone know of a program or firefox addon that can download the original version of videos from streaming sites. I know that Veoh has "Veoh Web Player" which does this but I have yet to find an equivalent program or firefox addon that can do this for any site.

[filmboss80]

https://www.videohelp.com/tools/Video_DownloadHelper

[jagabo]

Yes, DownloadHelper for the easier sources (like the average Youtube video). For RTMPE encrypted videos use StreamTransport.

[Eva-Unit01]

DownloadHelper? Really. I've used this addon before and the quality seemed bad. Does it download the file that was originally uploaded to the site, or does it just download the flv file without reencoding (technically no quality loss)?

Also does streamtransport do the same thing that veoh web player does, except for any site? So, say someone uploads an extremely high quality X264 MKV to megavideo. Would Streamtransport download the same file in the condition it was uploaded (in MKV format and same quality)?

[jagabo]

No program will download files that were originally uploaded to Youtube. Youtube doesn't make them available. Most other video sites don't make the originals available either. I don't know about MegaVideo.com.

DownloadHelper will allow you to choose between the available streams, including high def MP4 files when available. It downloads them as-is, no reencoding.

I just tried a random video from MegaVideo.com. I got a high res AVC/AAC FLV file. I don't think any program will allow you to download the originals uploads there without a paid account.

[Ai Haibara]

It's probably a safe bet to assume most of the video-hosting sites don't keep the original video after their systems re-encode it and post. Most of the time, the videos would just take up large amounts of space on the service's servers that could be used for something else, and a number of their users probably don't want the videos downloaded, anyway.

It'd be nice, though - aside from those who might have issues with watching streaming video, there's always the possibility you could tell YouTube's systems, "Hey, I didn't like the way you encoded my video. Re-encode it again, and this time, do it right." :P

[Pinstripes23]

It's probably a safe bet to assume most of the video-hosting sites don't keep the original video after their systems re-encode it and post. Most of the time, the videos would just take up large amounts of space on the service's servers that could be used for something else, and a number of their users probably don't want the videos downloaded, anyway.

It'd be nice, though - aside from those who might have issues with watching streaming video, there's always the possibility you could tell YouTube's systems, "Hey, I didn't like the way you encoded my video. Re-encode it again, and this time, do it right." :P

I am pretty sure youtube keeps the original file. Especially when they were always upgrading from LQ to HQ to HD etc... Videos I watched years ago that were in in LQ that was originally uploaded with HD specs, you could now watch in HD once they implemented it.