On May 22, 1:43 pm, alexus <ale...@gmail.comwrote:
what's the best way to "extract" videos from youtube?
I don't know what this has to do with php, but I will answer you
anyway. I sometimes use php script in code for playing videos, so I
guess there can be a bit of connection if you stretch things a
bit :-) .
Many large sites such as YouTube, MySpace, large news organizations
etc now are using flv/swf for most of their videos. This has several
advantages that I won't go into here. There are things you can do to
videos in this format that makes them difficult to copy, but this is
not usual for sites such as YouTube and MySpace (which often uses
videos stored on YouTube). One encodes two files from an input such as
a high resolution mpeg video. One file you get is a flv (flash video)
that contains only the video. The other is a SWF file that contains
only the player, logos, perhaps some text or ads etc. One has to place
both the flv video file and the swf container file on the server. When
you put the video up on the web for others to play, you only use the
url of the swf container file. This special swf container file is
encoded to automatically start downloading the swf video file to the
browser temporary cache. The swf also is downloaded to the temporary
cache. The swf actually contains nothing most want to keep unless you
are a logo or ad freak. Thus what you need to capture is the swf file
from the temporary cache. There are now several players, many free,
that will play the raw swf without the associated swf container file.
You can capture the swf file directly from the temporary cache in some
browsers using a few tricks, but there now are much faster methods.
Some will sell you a program to capture and play swf files. However if
you want a method that is both free and nearly effortless, download
the free Real 11 player, if your OS will support it. It will capture a
swf and some other video formats. For example, to check I went to
YouTube and started playing the first video I came to. When I move the
cursor over the playing video, a click box comes up offering to
download the video with Real. With one click, you then have to do
nothing else. Real stores the flv in a special directory it has for
downloads. You can right click on the icon for your downloaded flv and
select any player that will play raw flv, including Real 11 or the
free FLV Player. In the case of some Microsoft video formats, Real
converts the download to a special format that can be played only on
the Real 11 player. Perhaps by now someone has hacked how to convert
this back to a Microsoft format. Real and Microsoft have not been
exactly the best of friends for many years.