Please do not begin new topics concerning video.
Post all of your questions, comments, and advice here.
Updated 3-11-09
Thanks to the many contributors throughout the surfing tips forum for contributing many links and so much great advice. And thanks to jch1 for bringing up the fact that it doesn’t make any sense to have all this video related information scattered throughout various threads. So… Here’s everything I can think of all in one place.
I’ll list an index of this post below and put topics in bold so it should be easier to search this thread and find the exact information you need. If there’s anything I missed please share and I’ll add it to this knowledge base.
Index:
Subject: Search Key:
1. Video Capture (Screen caps) V C 0 1
2. Ripping FLV / SWF ect. R F S 1
3. Media Players FLV+ V P 0 1
4. Converting Video Formats C V F 1
5. Playing Partial/Damaged videos V P 0 1 - #4
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VIDEO CAPTURE (Screen caps): VC01
A. THE PRINT SCREEN KEY:
Here’s a useful method for capturing your entire screen. Press the print screen key… Open up an image editor such as paint ect, and paste it in. This method always works for capturing the contents of your screen, however, some setting may need to be changed in order to capture video.
Go to your <Control Panel> <Display> (or right click on your desktop) <Settings> <Advanced> and turn down your “Hardware Acceleration”. Take note that you shouldn’t turn it down all the way, otherwise you will end up with a shit quality video and a crumby capture. I would suggest turning it down only a couple of notches. Not enough and it won’t work, to much and it will be low quality. Find a medium your happy with and use it.
B. CAPTURE PROGRAMS:
*Note that some of these programs may still not work with “hardware acceleration” at full (See Above).
Gadwin PrintScreen: http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/
Freez Screen Video Capture: http://www.download3000.com/download_20457.html
A good share of freeware capture tools also available at http://www.download.com/
And my personal favorite - image grabber II:
http://z18.zupload.com/download.php?file=getfile&filepath=33380
Is perfect for capping an entire video in time frames.
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RIPPING FLV / SWF ect.: RFS1
Here’s some methods for getting those YOUTUBE or GOOGLE FLV files downloaded on to your hard drive.
A. FOR EVERYONE:
Realplayer 11 works within your browser. Once installed, simply mouse over the video while it’s playing and a small box will appear at the top of the video allowing you to download it. You can get Realplayer 11 here: http://www.realplayer.com/
B. FOR NON-FIREFOX USERS:
Plain and simple, check out this site: http://keepvid.com/
C. FOR FIREFOX USERS:
Get the DownloadHelper Extension here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006
The DownloadHelper extension will enable you to download ALL forms of media from pretty much ANY website. Take note that in most cases DownloadHelper will attempt to save the file as type “all files”, so you need to manually add the proper file extension in the filename when saving. This is a good thing when it comes to downloading things like DIVX files from sites like STAGE6. Simply select the media and rename with extension AVI to be able to view them in your usual video player..
C. THE MANUAL METHOD:
This won’t work for a lot of the mainstream sites, but if all else fails, click View or File (depending on your browser) and have a look at the page source (source code). Search the code text for the extension your looking for such as FLV MP3 ect. Once you find it copy the entire URL and open up notepad.
Type the following into notepad:
<HTML><TITLE>Download</TITLE>
<A href=“ PASTE THE URL BETWEEN THESE QUOTES “>Right Click and Save Here</A>
</HTML>
Save the text file as DOWNLOAD.HTML or whatever.HTML and close notepad, then open the saved file in your browser and do what it says…
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MEDIA PLAYERS FLV+: VP01
Back in the day Windows Media Player blew goats. But if your OS is windows Vista than WMP is your one stop media player. All you need is the Vista codec package and WMP will treat Quicktime, RealMedia, FLV, MP4, MKV, and pretty much any format you can imagine as a native format.
You can get the Vista Codec Package here:
(Note) I haven’t personally tested it, but it seems it’s XP compatible:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Codec-Packs-Video-Codecs/Advanced-Vista-Codec-Package.shtml
As of recent and from some sites I won’t mention, I’m able to download FLV using the listed methods but unable to play them even with the codec package installed. For rare cases such as this I recommend trying out VLC for both Windows and Mac OSX. VLC can stream video that most players cant, and even has it’s own export conversion function.
You can get VLC player from VideoLan:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Other players recommended by members are:
Winamp: Not a bad player at all, in fact I prefer it sometimes to play those low volume vids.
Get it here: http://www.winamp.com/
I haven’t personally tested this one yet but it sounds like something worth looking into. Especially if your trying to play partial or damaged files. Here’s a description from the site, and thanks to TGB_72 for the recommendation.
“Gom Player is a multimedia player that can play most of the differently encoded video formats that include AVI, DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, and plus more with its own built-in codec system.
GOM can also play video files that are being downloded from the Internet or that are broken during the downloading process.” ‘softpedia
http://www.gomplayer.com/main.html
I also recommend trying Realplayer 11 for anyone not using Windows or Firefox. Not only does it allow you to download the FLV files it’s also an excellent player. Unlike VLC player Realplayer indexes the files so that you can skip ahead or back, and also supports full screen playback. You can get it here: http://www.realplayer.com/
SWF VIEWERS:
As long as you have Flash installed, you should be able to view all content right inside your web browser:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
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CONVERTING VIDEO FORMATS: CVF1
A. SITE CONVERSION & DOWNLOAD:
This is by far the best means of converting your FLV files into real video. It’s pretty self explanatory, so just have a look:
http://media-convert.com/convert/
I use the site mainly to convert FLV files into WMV at 30fps 730kbps. This maintains an acceptable file size and produces an output video that sometimes seems even better quality than the original.
B. PROGRAM CONVERSION (FLV):
I’m certain that there are more programs out there that are made for just such a thing. But the best freeware program for this is Riva Encoder (Not Vista Compatible), as mentioned above, here’s the converter.
http://www.download.com/Riva-FLV-Encoder/3000-2140_4-10381392.html?tag=lst-0-1
Intended to be used to convert formats into FLV, for whatever reason it can be used to do just the opposite. Run Riva and open the .FLV file (input file) by either browse or drag and drop. The export video name will appear under "Destination Video File" with the .FLV extension. Remove (backspace) the .FLV and replace it with .MPEG
For best quality set the "Preset" to Offline.xml and click "Encode". Riva will seem to have frozen, but just be patient. When it's done, all will return to normal and you can do what you'd like with your new .MPEG file.
NEW: Super has outstanding conversion capabilities for converting all sorts of video formats. Though it can seem quite technical, once you have figured everything out you can easily convert FLV files to other formats and maintain exact quality of the original file. You can get Super at http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
C. PROGRAM CONVERSION (NON FLV)
I recommend using a video editing program for non FLV format conversions.