I've occasionally watched Youtube type Videos from YouTube and other similar sites. We all have. We sometimes come across a video we would like to save on our computer rather than having to go online again and again to view it.
I wrote about this before: May2007 but things change Opera is being constantly updated and the simple cache view has become a navigation jungle.
I went searching for a better method. As usual, I didn't want to burden down my system with widgets/gadgets or any third party program. But I did eventually decide to use a download manager called Orbit Downloader - www.orbitdownloader.com/Use-as-FLV-Downloader.htm after reading this article. There is a download link on the page.
It did not surprise me that this procedure did not work with Opera. Would it really kill these people to add a few more lines of code to their products to make them compatible with more systems? I decided if I could find the actual source of the video I was downloading I could paste the link in Orbit and download it that way.
This meant opening up the site to the video, and right clicking on the web page and clicking on Source. This will show me the HTML markup of the web page in question. This would open in Metapad - http://liquidninja.com/metapad/ like notepad with a few extra features.
I would then click on Edit and then Find and type in flv in the search box. I would keep clicking Find next until I found what seemed to be the actual video file link (doesn't work with Youtube).
Sorry, it's hard to tell you what to look for specifically, but the video file may end in .flv. Unfortunatally not all sites that show flash video are set up the same. If I could isolate the link I would then highlight it and click on copy.
This is a example of a link I found on one site. For Privacy reasons I'm masking the actual URL: media3.xxxxxxx.com/bRlG8eoiPy2XLMAuSraGcQ/SC40310.flv
Then I switched to the Orbit program and clicked on New, since it's monitoring the clipboard when active the link I just copied automatically appears in the URL window. It's just a matter of clicking the download button.
I could remember doing something like this before, only I used just the browser so I decided to experiment and just copied the link to my browser URL bar. It just went to a blank tab. Nothing More. I figured I had to change the download options in Opera so I went to the Menu bar and clicked on Tools and then Preferences or click on Ctrl and F12.
In the preferences window click on the Advanced tab and down the left hand side click on Downloads. In the Quick find box type in flv. Two entries where displayed:
video/flv
video/x-flv
I clicked on the first one and then the Edit... button to the side and then I just clicked inside the dot to Save to disk then OK - and done the same for the other... now the links pasted in automatically start the download process.
Just a note: if you can find the flv link in the source and download it directly, it's a lot faster than having to play it first.
Seems like a lot of work, but sometimes the only way to get the video is to dig them out of the cache files but that usually means waiting for the video to play through first. I like to pause it and let it finish downloading - notice in most cases a red line keeps moving even when its paused, that's the video downloading on your computer.
If the video you are downloading is buffering to much, that means it downloads so much then plays so much but the playback is outpacing the download, so it has to stop and download some more of the video. You can pause the video, wait till it fully downloads and then start up the playback again. This will eliminate most buffering issues.
Check out this article from:
http://ask-leo.com/how_can_i_view_online_video_without_the_starts_and_stops.html
In the following case I am experimenting trying to save a video called:
Iceland volcano eruption March 2010 - actual web address:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwdOH9GayVw&feature=popular
Anyway, I discovered Opera at least with version 10.50 as built in a utility to do a serach through it's cache files.
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=454681
In the URL or web address bar type about:cache
This now takes you to a Cached Items page that allows to to search through your Opera cached files. In my case I would check video/flv and video/x-flv since I'm looking for such files.
Then I would go to the site listed for the movie I just watched. I found Youtube.com on the list and clicked on the word List directly to the right hand side of it. Then I'm taken to another page with the term /videoplayback, it also shows the size at 1915 KB
When I click on /videoplayback it automatically opens the download "Save As" box. The video is automatically named video.flv. You might want to rename it here. And save it. Most modern media players I think can play back these videos otherwise search the internet for a flv player...already found one for you...
http://www.wimpyplayer.com/products/wimpy_standalone_flv_player.html
I just use Media Player classic by installing the K-lite codec pack.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_lite_codec_pack.htm