Save The Last Flash Movie You Watched

Does anyone know if this works for Hulu streams?

Caveat: You need to keep the tab that the video is in open or it gets deleted.

syko21

@mumbojumbodaily:
Correct me if I"m wrong, but I think Hulu has encrypted streams.

[www.google.com] enough said, and you dont need to go through a process

Joe Amato

@Joe Amato: Because, y'know, Youtube is 100% the *only* site on the web with web videos. Absolutely. I've never seen another site online that allows me to watch flash videos. True story.

@mumbojumbodaily: any streamed flash file works, including hulu

yusuo

@yusuo: the video your watching must be 100% loaded in your browser to be able to save it and will usually be called something like FlashXVzKnp, you can rename it when you've moved it out of the /tmp/ folder

yusuo

@mumbo it never worked for hulu. My understanding is that hulu on caches 5 minutes to you machine. There are programs to will record the video from hulu while you watch it.

ububbatu

I noticed last month that when I tried to do this( I use the manual method), it did not work. I get a stream error in totem and a comparable error in mplayer and vlc. If Youtube plans to charge for downloads then they can't very well have you downloading for free. Can I get a witness? is this what you're experiencing or are you downloading like crazy?

ububbatu

or you could press Alt+F2, and type in /tmp/ while the flash video your watching is still open in your internet browser, it automatically gets saved here, then all you have to do is move it to another folder before closing the page then open it with vlc or totem.
saves you messing around with silly scripts

yusuo

@malnourish:
It does indeed use RTMP encryption. That's why I was curious is anyone had tried it...

@ububbatu: That's true. I'm not sure, but I think Youtube somehow is messing with the video descriptor and resolution headers in some (almost all) of their videos, so copying the files off of /tmp doesn't work anymore. I can only get a YT video if I use a mp4 bookmarklet trick or some other method to get the flv directly.

This seems to be a Youtube thing only, because getting flash files from /tmp still works for all the of other sites I've tested.

Used to be that Hulu programs could be "grabbed" using `get_hulu` script included with rtmpdump. [sourceforge.net] I haven't used them since the big change that broke Boxee a month+ ago, so these tools could be broken.

TheFu

@ububbatu: Hulu used to have .flv streams that you could download with grabbers/sniffers but not anymore. You still could if you get an advanced rtmp stream recorded.

TheMadMidget

Hah, this is very neat. I know the last flash video is in tmp, but I've not really ever cared to save it permanently elsewhere.

BrianB

You can do that with Opera. Just open a tab for each streaming video you want then open a tab with the url: opera:about to see where the cache is stored. Then open that folder. Should look something like: C:\Users\your name\AppData\Local\Opera\Opera\profile\cache4. Resort the columns by size. The videos will be the largest files. They are usually in flv format, but Opera won't reveal that. KMPlayer will open almost any file you throw at it. (I don't think that other popular one - the traffic cone one - will open these). I have found a few sites recently that KMPlayer doesn't know how to open because they are in h.264 format, but you can use a video converter program to convert them. Be sure to move the files from the cache folder before you close Opera or Opera will delete them.

@mumbojumbodaily:

Freaking pirates

@mumbojumbodaily:

Freaking pirates

@GrantBourque:

Not necessarily. Hulu is great, and I commend the networks for the service. But with that said, it is farrrr from perfect. I'm willing to put up with a few ads and support the shows - but I don't always have internet access at my disposal - for instance, I often commute 2 hours by rail. It would be great to be able to kill some time with current TV shows - and honestly, I don't want them cluttering up my Hard drive after I'm done watching it anyways.

So it's kind of just a technicality - am I supposed to believe it's logical that I can watch *only* when I have a direct connection at my disposal? At least the BBC has the iplayer program which lets you download the shows on your comp for a certain amount of time. They are also now experimenting with bittorrent releases under CC licensing.

But hey, if you want to argue that having a 24/7 internet connection is a prerequisite for passive entertainment, be my guest.

I didn't really need to know about saving flash videos, but I never knew about zenity (or dialog/cdialog/Xdialog either, thanks Google) -- that's going to be a huge time saver in the future when I need to put a nice interface on a command line script for friends/family whom I don't trust to use the command line :)

pieoncar

Anyone know how to make the display dialog open in the foreground (on top of the current window)? Not a big deal, but it would be nice to add it.

StandishSilenus

For windows and macs a program called Jaksta will capture just about everything. I use it to download Heroes episodes off Hulu as they rotate in. :) [www.jaksta.com]

Same as this:

[linuxowns.wordpress.com]

@[www.jaksta.com]

@mumbojumbodaily:

I certainly respect you for not being "OMG Whatever I want is mine to keep" at least you are reasonable.

I just think if they are not making money (with ads) then it is stealing

Save the last dance for me?? First thing that came to mine when I saw the title.

paintbox

@StandishSilenus: Ha! I've been trying to figure that out myself. I'm the one who wrote this script and sent it to lifehacker. I've checked and apparently Zenity is gonna make an 'always-on-top' sometime in the near future (or at least its been requested). I've tried other methods like right clicking on the box itself and telling it to be "Always on Top" and also messing with Compiz options but neither have worked.

Riistetyt

@yusuo: Why would I want to do all the extra steps when I could just click the script icon and type the name of it? ;)

Riistetyt

@FunkyMonkey: thanks, i'll try that. Have you tried saving one of those flv and watching it later on vlc?

ububbatu

@ollie:
@ollie... Thank you so so much. Nice to get some confirmation. I had submitted this to digg and to slashdot and really didn't get anywhere. I can tell by reading the comments most people are not even trying these scripts. It's been my experience that the newer videos are the first to break. Older videos have been ok but I've noticed a few have changed. thanks, again.

ububbatu

@ububbatu: I haven't used vlc, I use GOM. But it should play fine.

Where would I save the script file?

Greg Gardner

@FunkyMonkey: I haven't used GOM. Since that is windows-based, why don't you try viewing one those cached youtube videos and see if the result is the same.

ububbatu

@Greg Gardner: Save it in your ~/.gnome2/nautilus-scripts/ folder.

Riistetyt

wow, looks promising! i am a linux-newb, but will try this @home! just got crunchbang-linux with kuki-kernel to work on my acer aspire one! now its time for some scripts and conky setups!.... nahhhhhhhhhhhhh, i like linux so much...

I really liked that script so I've customized it a bit for myself to add some useful stuffs. (like a function to check if the download is finished, etc.) If you want to have a look, I've upload the file here: http://wavemaker.free.fr/share/Last-Flash-Video-Saver.sh :-)

ShawnAndromache