Saving video files from web sites
 

One thing I miss in Safari is the ability to save media files embedded in web sites. I could do this in Firefox, maybe with a plug-in, I'm not sure. Is there an add-on or simple way to do this in Safari? I can look at the page source and find the file that way, but something quicker would be nice.

Control or right clicking isn't working?

There have been a few articles on the main macosxhints site about doing this.
And Rob Griffith's personal web log has a section about this too.

(cwtnospam: He's talking about pages where the site developers have tried to disallow saving of the movies etc.)

Right, these are sites where right-click is disabled either on purpose or simply because of the way they embed WMV files. And they are not copyrighted or legally protected files, it's just that the host wants to force you to always go back to their site to view them.

I'll go search the site for the articles, thanks.

Well, OS X used to store temporary items for Safari among other apps in:

However, since 2.0 (maybe 1.3 too), this doesn't seem to be the case.

If you have Quicktime Pro, there is a workaround as long as you also have the Flip4Mac WMV plugin (if the said stream is a .wmv file, if it isn't, disregard this) also purchased ($10) which allows you to play wmv files through quicktime (includes the streaming plugin to play wmv file streams in your web browser via quicktime, too). And with it playing with that plugin, you could use the Quicktime 7 Pro option to "Save Movie As..." to put it anywhere you want.

It's a pretty elegant solution, save the cost for QT Pro and the Plugin itself, but i find the plugin priceless -- WMP for Mac is just awful at streaming or buffering video files.

I'm sorry, it appears that you mispelled:

"WMP for Mac is just awful." :D

I'll have to check out the pricing on QT Pro. If it would let me stop using WMP altogether, it might be worth it.

haha ;)

btw - the Flip4Mac plugin decodes wmv3 files (the ones that VLC cannot)

Looks like Tiger/QT7 isn't supported by that plug-in yet.

Guess I'll go see if VLC can help me.

VLC has no plugin to handle streaming content.

Not sure why the Flip4Mac people say the plugin is incompatible, it has been working fine for me since 10.4.0

Really, with QT7 that was built-in? Odd that they say support is "coming soon."

YES! Not only does it now allow me to right-click save (with the help of Machete in PithHelmet), I can save it as a .mov file instead of WMV format!

Now to play around with your metal version of Adium...

Argh. Maybe not. Sure, it lets me save them, but then they won't play. When I double-click the file in Finder, it gives me the "you need a plugin" message. Of course, when I hit the button to check for plugins I get a page listing all of them, with no hint of what I actually need (I have a bunch of QT files like that).

Ideas?

Wait, you saved the wmv file as a mov file to your hard drive, but now that file doesn't play? (using flip4mac & QT7 Pro?)

Don't know why they bother. Unless the authour has gone to a LOT of effort I've found that a 2-minute examination of the page source gives me the URL to bring in with curl. Occasionally the referrer page has to be set, but that's rare.
I get a big laugh when site authours give their photos structured filenames using sequential numbers.

Yup. Got the Flip4Mac plug in, and now the WMV files play in QT as a plug-in to Safari, embedded just like they used to with WMP. Using Machete in PithHelmet, I disabled the Javascript which disables the right-click. So I right-click on the movie and select the option to save it as a QT Movie. I name it and save, and it's on the drive, with approximately the expected file size. Double-click in Finder, it launches, and tells me I need additional software to play it.

Weird, eh?

that is weird...can you post a link to the movie in question?

I tried it with a variety of movies at big-boys.com. Haven't tried other sites yet. I'd love to hear whether you have the same issue.

Haha, cool site.

I don't have QT Pro (i just can't justify purchasing it solely for Fullscreen mode and handful of other features i probably won't use) but i can tell you that all those movies stream fine in Safar 2.0 and if i view the source and manually download the .wmv file to my desktop, it is playable in QT via the Flip4Mac plug-in.

from piefight.html
Chose this one because:
a) General principle of a Ginger and Mary-Ann piefight
b) Once worked with Dawn Wells (Mary-Ann, the real one) in 1991 and she's an absolute sweetheart. Has also aged VERY gracefully and still looks fantastic.

I find it easier just copying the link, opening the Safari download window, and hitting Paste -- automatically downloads the file -- i love that feature of Safari.

For me it just plays the file, doesn't download it. Probably in a temp directory somewhere, sure, but nowhere convenient.

But say you view the page's source to find the URL, and then you take that and download the file manually... does it play?

Why not just open the Activity window, find the file you want to save, and double-click it while holding Option? :)

(I don't know if that still works in Safari 2, but it probably should.)

Carlos: Having spent the past 2.5 hours watching video clips I just wanted to say thanks for wasting my morning :rolleyes:

Heh, some funny stuff there, huh?

I've never looked at or used the activity window. It looks promising, and very useful. I'll have to try that when I have some time later.

I was able to save a file from another site and that plays in QT, but not in Finder's preview. Weird.

I registered the Flip4Mac plugin on X.3.9 and QT 6.5 and it worked great. about 3 weeks later i went to tiger and QT 7 and it still worked, but not as well. There was more files that it had troubles playing and some of the ones that it did play it had a harder time syncing the sound with the video.

Little secret to downloading content in Safari & Explorer
 

I was having the problem whereby I could not download a file - it kept on being picked up by the relevant helper app i.e. WMP, with no save functionality.

The thing to do is:

1. look at the html source and find the absolute reference to the wmv file
2. copy and paste the absolute url in the address bar
3. hold down option and press enter

In essence this will force the files to be downloaded to your download directory - I have tested this works in both Safari & MS Internet Explorer.

BTW, the killer clip is http://media2.big-boys.com/bbfilez/mwal.wmv

Respec'