Mini Web Dev Training – Nefarious Video Tactics
So Branden was asking me this morning for help on acquiring a news video clip from msnbc.com. There are several and many ways one could tackle this issue. He had already aquired the video, but the audio wasn't coming with it. Now I'm not 100% sure on how he grabbed the video (I didn't really ask), but I'm thinking he used a screen recorder. That usually works, but sometimes it doesn't capture the audio, and that can be for a myriad of reasons. So what did I do to aquire the video for him?
1- Go and grab TubeMaster Plus. This is a handy little tool that has a built in browser that lets you surf to a page and then grab any streaming video (complete with audio) from it. While the interface is a bit clunky, it is somewhat intuitive. It also does have a built-in "tutorial" site built into it to help you get started. The biggest help for me was if I had been told it was a stand-alone client, meaning no IE of FF needed, just throw the link on the main page and it will use the internal browser to render the page and aquire the video. Note that the video should come down as an FLV, you can either convert it inside TMPlus, or use your favorite software to do the encoding.
2- Go and get MediaInfo. This is a handy little app that will tell you the bitrate, video resolution, fps, etc of any media file. Open the FLV in MediaInfo and checkout the video bit-rate, the frame-size, and the audio encoding. Generally I leave this window up.
3- Use SUPER to re-encode/transcode the file into a format more suitable for your use. SUPER is a rough program to download, I'm not sure if the authors actually enjoy torture, or just can't build a web-page to save their own life, so instead of grabbing it at the offical source, grab SUPER from somewhere trustworthy, like AfterDawn.com (yes the site name sounds like it could be naughty, but it's not, they've been on the scene with video encoding since just about the birth of AngelPotion, and if you got that reference, you just gained a little of my respect 
).
4- When SUPER is done encoding, enjoy your video. A simple solution to your video ripping problems.
Other sites/tools you can use to aquire your favorite online videos.
- YouTube Ripper (webservice) - Just paste the YouTube link in the box and then right-click and save the flv.
- LiveHTTPHeaders - (Firefox plugin, manual, and painful)
- Fiddler2/httpspy - (IE plugins, manual, and painful - note that httpspy has become difficult to find... extremely difficult to find, and there is another program out in the wild that is NOT the same. Consult the Ninja on the offical version)
If you need pictures I can create an actual Developer Training (with a minisite), but for now, I'm hoping the text will do. If you have questions or need more examples etc. Leave a comment and I'll get on it.
Print This Post