how to download flash video for this site?

[rabbit51]

I'm trying to read posts related to flash video capturing, there are too many and I'd like some experts to point me to the right direction.

I've tried unsuccessfully to download flash video on this site. I've tried several tools (FVD Suite, StreamTransport, Free Download Manager, Downloadthemall, etc.) and none of them can download this stream, I read recently that probably using ffmpeg, rtmpdump ... is the way, as I said I'm new to this and trying to learn these new tools. Can some one advise me if the above site's stream can be downloaded using these tools?

Is it true that Flash player after version 10 became harder to download? When I tried with FDM, it showed a bunch of small files but it failed to download them, a friend of mine tried to download using Linux, and he had several problems (stream broke quite often and when re-started, it started in the middle instead of beginning, but the file size showed normal).

ps: the above site showed http, does it mean that rtmpdump won't work, how can I tell if a stream is using rtmp or not?

[mgh]

Use Tubedigger -it's stiil free -it works with your site
Go to
http://www.tubedigger.com/
click on temporarily free button
click on order button to get free activation code

Use 'TubeDiggerTempFree' as registration key and have fun.

Direct download
http://www.tubedigger.com/TubeDigger_Install.exe

usethe free activation code above

[rabbit51]

Use Tubedigger -it's stiil free -it works with your site
Go to
http://www.tubedigger.com/
click on temporarily free button
click on order button to get free activation code

Use 'TubeDiggerTempFree' as registration key and have fun.

Direct download
http://www.tubedigger.com/TubeDigger_Install.exe

usethe free activation code above

Thanks mgh for your prompt reply, it worked perfectly, I'm downloading it right now. Just few more questions about this apps:
- can I shorten the download time by dragging the progress bar to the right?
- does the convertion works well? I'd like to save it in mp4 if possible. Is it possible to save it in mp4 instead of in flv then convert it later?

[mgh]

Have used it only for downloading. For converting to mp4, all you need to do normally is to extract the video and audio with flv extract, and then mux them to mp4 with a gui for mp4box like YAMB. The latest Flv extract allows you to extract and mux to either mp4 or mkv.

there is nothing you can do to shorten download time afaik, it depends on your internet connection.

[rabbit51]

Have used it only for downloading. For converting to mp4, all you need to do normally is to extract the video and audio with flv extract, and then mux them to mp4 with a gui for mp4box like YAMB. The latest Flv extract allows you to extract and mux to either mp4 or mkv.

there is nothing you can do to shorten download time afaik, it depends on your internet connection.

Thanks mgh for your prompt reply, I'll try the tools you suggested.

[Budman1]

There is a way to download easily but it needs to have the video completely downloaded and browser open to video, even if you pause it after download completes. Download videocacheview and go to your site. Run videocacheview and look for a large file or the latest file. If you wait a few seconds and hit F5 to refresh videocacheview, you will see the file size increasing as the file downloads and plays in the browser window.


Tmp files increasing:


When it completes downloading, DO NOT CLOSE browser. Just right click file and save copy to desktop and its saved to play in your favorite media player.



This works because as file is downloading, it is stored in temporary cache and usually remains there until you close the browser.
Worked fine for me as above.

[rabbit51]

There is a way to download easily but it needs to have the video completely downloaded and browser open to video, even if you pause it after download completes. Download videocacheview and go to your site. Run videocacheview and look for a large file or the latest file. If you wait a few seconds and hit F5 to refresh videocacheview, you will see the file size increasing as the file downloads and plays in the browser window.

[Attachment 14685 - Click to enlarge]

Tmp files increasing:

[Attachment 14686 - Click to enlarge]

When it completes downloading, DO NOT CLOSE browser. Just right click file and save copy to desktop and its saved to play in your favorite media player.

This works because as file is downloading, it is stored in temporary cache and usually remains there until you close the browser.
Worked fine for me as above.

Thanks Budman1 for your suggestion, I'll give it a try and see how it works. One question though, when I tried to download some streams with Free Download Manager, it came back with a bunch of files with 2M in size, so it seems to me that some flash stream server is breaking up the stream in chunks of smaller size, if this is the case, can videocacheview overcome this hurdle?

[Budman1]

Unfortunately, those type of streams that are broken up or only store temporary files of like 8K at a time are generally DRM protected files and capturing them would do no good anyway since MediaInfo or Hex Data examination software usually says the codec is encv and enca for ENCoded Video and ENCoded Audio. The only way to to capture them is by using such as Applian Replay Video Capture that captures a window of your choosing such as the Flash video window and that means you have to have a screen open the whole time. It works well for shorter videos but for like 2 hours... not so much.

I recently tried Replay Media Catcher to catch one of these streams and it showed available in many sizes, each of which disconnected from the Catcher because it did not have the 'Key' that is sent to the browser player and ultimately popped a window that said it was protected and there is no legal way to capture.

The links you provided do not use this DRM protection so I suggested this method of Videocacheview. I should point out that this method works well if the download completes faster than the viewer so you only need to wait until the video is done downloading. Some videos come in almost as slow as your viewer so, again, a long video= a long wait.

[rabbit51]

Unfortunately, those type of streams that are broken up or only store temporary files of like 8K at a time are generally DRM protected files and capturing them would do no good anyway since MediaInfo or Hex Data examination software usually says the codec is encv and enca for ENCoded Video and ENCoded Audio. The only way to to capture them is by using such as Applian Replay Video Capture that captures a window of your choosing such as the Flash video window and that means you have to have a screen open the whole time. It works well for shorter videos but for like 2 hours... not so much.

I recently tried Replay Media Catcher to catch one of these streams and it showed available in many sizes, each of which disconnected from the Catcher because it did not have the 'Key' that is sent to the browser player and ultimately popped a window that said it was protected and there is no legal way to capture.

The links you provided do not use this DRM protection so I suggested this method of Videocacheview. I should point out that this method works well if the download completes faster than the viewer so you only need to wait until the video is done downloading. Some videos come in almost as slow as your viewer so, again, a long video= a long wait.

Thanks Budman1 for your prompt reply, I tried to use Videocacheview on youtube, but it showed no cached stream file, I need to point out my environment:
- WinXP SP3
- location Taiwan
- I can view the video on the browser, but tried several tools and none of them will download the stream (some said that the stream was redirected, TubeDigger did not work either).
- Firefox 14.01 (I moved my profile to D:\, but couldn't find any cache folder under my profile, neither is in C:\, under a different profile)
am I doing something wrong?

[mgh]

Cache from firefox can be accessed using
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mozilla_cache_viewer.html
the download link is almost at the bottom of the page.

There are many sites from which the videos cannot be downloaded, just as there are many sites from which you can.

The following threads may be of interest to you. They are on downloading from sites breaking up files into small fragments
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/342430-F4F-capturing-converting
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/348507-How-to-download-London-2012-videos-on-Offici...u-Tube-Channel

[jimdagys]

I recently tried Replay Media Catcher to catch one of these streams and it showed available in many sizes, each of which disconnected from the Catcher because it did not have the 'Key' that is sent to the browser player and ultimately popped a window that said it was protected and there is no legal way to capture.

I thought Replay Media Catcher could get a screen capture of any video, at least their advertising says so.

[Budman1]

You may need to turn on the "video" selection sinec it doesn't normally select it.


In your particular case, this is MP2T format as seen (0-672863[1]) below.

I could see the whole file come in but it is encoded and, since it's adobe Flash player playing it, looks like their "Secure format" especially since real player downloaded says not available for download. I examined at it with a HxD editor and it has no structure. It appears like that site has some streams they don't care about and some they do. God only knows why a site will let you watch for free but make sure noone else can see it unless they go to their site. I Guess they have their reasons.

Again, the only way to capture this data is the long way via an Analog Hole by capturing the player data as it hits your screen and the digital information is converted to a human-perceptible (analog) form with the likes of Replay Video Capture. In this case, for BACKUP PURPOSES ONLY since it is encoded .

jimdagys:
Replay Media capture does capture any LEGAL stream but not DRM or Secure RTMP and says in their web page:

Replay Media Catcher can download media from all Flash Video, Windows
Media and Wowza servers, including the HTTP, MMS, RTSP, and
RTMP protocols. Replay Media Catcher does not support Adobe Secure RTMP Measures. Replay Media
Catcher is constantly being tested and retested with hundreds of popular sites,
and the software updates automatically when a new protocol is introduced. (Go here for a
complete list of tested sites.)

[Budman1]

Update:

[Budman1]

Sorry about that last post.
Update:
I deciphered the url of the Volleyball video and went to the site. The result says it all:

[Chug a Bug]

In your particular case, this is MP2T format as seen (0-672863[1]) below.

M2PT is the Apple HLS format which may or may not be encrypted (YouTube's Olympic video streams are not currently)

Replay Media Catcher does not support Adobe Secure RTMP Measures.

They can be downloaded however with RTMPdump and TubeDigger (handshake 10 combined with SWF 2.0 currently only with TubeDigger)

[jimdagys]

Replay Media capture does capture any LEGAL stream but not DRM or Secure RTMP and says in their web page

If there are "exceptions" to be able to screen capture, then I guess it's time to bring out a cheap video camera and point it at the computer monitor.

[Budman1]

I may have gotten some people off track here. The Olympic videos are available on youtube and some are NOT encoded as my previous shot of one of the games in Media Player, and some ARE as evidenced by my last capture showing it IS an Olympic committtee video and they do NOT want you to access it. The last stream download was encoded (checking the binary stream with Hex Editor and with Wireshark raw data). If there is a program that will capture the STREAM and allow it to be copied and played, I'd say that is great, go for it.

Almost ALL video can be captured by making use of the 'hole' I mentioned earlier that captures the video in its 'analog' form as it displays in the viewer and has had it's digital encoding removed. Yes it's similar to pointing a camera at the screen which is what Replay, Hypercam, Easy Screen Capture and a ton of other Freeware programs mentioned earlier by Chug A Bug.

Basically, you CAN capture these encoded 'Digital' streams' but without the necessary software, including the key to decode, it won't do you much good. This is why I suggested VideoCacheView since it is simple to catch even a portion of the video and if it plays in like VLC then the entire stream is good. If it doesn't play, it is PROBABLY because someone doesn't want it to.

[rabbit51]

Cache from firefox can be accessed using
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mozilla_cache_viewer.html
the download link is almost at the bottom of the page.

There are many sites from which the videos cannot be downloaded, just as there are many sites from which you can.

The following threads may be of interest to you. They are on downloading from sites breaking up files into small fragments
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/342430-F4F-capturing-converting
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/348507-How-to-download-London-2012-videos-on-Offici...u-Tube-Channel

Thanks mgh, I'll take a look at those posting you suggested.