Where are streaming video files placed?

Ara macao

Apparently, not in the Temp folder.

So then, where could I find their locations? Certainly,somewhere on the hard drive because you can instantly switch to an "already-loaded" segment of the video.

cosmicstring1

Instead of searching the file in your hard drive, try to capture its internet link and download with a downloader (flashget, etc.). To do this, use right click on the button which you pressed to watch the video, or view the source code (html code) of the page and if you recognize your file's name, you probably get the link. These should work in many cases but not for every page.

BoredNL

Hmm.. I don't think that streaming video is saved anywhere but in the buffer, which is in RAM, not a temporary folder, but depending on where you're streaming it from, it will be either easy or difficult to download.

Comicstring1 has the right idea. It depends on where you're streaming from though. Is it a video inside of a webpage (like youtube)? Is it a direct link that opens your video player? Are you opening the file directly from the web, so it has to download first somewhere, then play? Is it a true video stream? (that you're using real player to listen to?)

If you are streaming from a place like youtube, then first look around for a "download video" link on the page. If there isn't one, then as comicstring1 said try using a downloader like "DownloadThemAll!" or look through the source code for .wmv, .mov, .avi, or other type of movie file. The URL might be relative, so it might look something like "/movies/sexy_kitty.avi". If it is, then you'll have to figure out what the whole link is. Experiment to figure this out. If you are reading the source code for the webpage "www.pet-pron.com/movies/supercat.html," then logically, it's probably "www.pet-pron.com/movies/sexy_kitty.avi," rather than "www.pet-pron.com/movies/movies/sexy_kitty.avi," but it is possible that it is. To download the file, I suggest using a download manager (such as "Free Download Manager") or wget (which is a command line downloader that I love for stuff like this because it's a lot easier to use when experimenting with different URL's).

Ara macao

The problem with such links, though, is that they often link to very small files.

For example, MIT OCW files.

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-...ures/index.htm

Links to say...

http://mfile.akamai.com/7870/rm/mits...2-lec1-220k.rm

You download those files, and yet they still have to stream while you're loading them up.

BoredNL

Yea, this is an actual streamed file. (.rm = Real Media)

I've had a lot of problems with these files recently. Before I could simply edit the small .rm file in notepad, then extract the link to where the real file was, then download it directly, but I think some kind of security has been implemented to prevent this. There are some programs out there which can capture streams. Try googling 'Real Media stream capture freeware program,' or something similar (without the quotes).

Thrice

I've had great success capturing streams with VLC.

abdo375

If you want to download MIT OCW files there is a way to do that without capturing the stream.

abdo375

Here go to 31.

Evo

youtube doesn't stream video, it's Flash.

-Job-

The flash plugin can play .flv video streams from a media server (like the flash media server).

Evo

Yes, which also allows live video and with which I'm not too familiar.

BoredNL is correct about it being stored in the buffer, an old paper describes it. A bit outdated, but interesting.

http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue4/scenes/

BoredNL

A lot of the time, the flash player is used as a security measure, which can be a pain in the butt to get around. Sometimes the URL to the video is actually in the source code of the page in plain text and sent to the flash player applet though. It just streams from a file somewhere. Sometimes they'll use some tricky schemes to make it incredibly difficult to track down the URL though. I've actually had to disassemble a flash applet before to figure out how it decoded the URL, then apply that decoding scheme to the gibberish looking letters passed to the applet.

Sometimes I just give up though.. I'm not willing to spend too much time just to download some random video usually. It's easier finding it somewhere else on a less secure site or one that simply allows for easy downloading of their videos.

Simfish

So I know that streaming media allows you to view the contents of a video without downloading it to a computer. So the question is - when the contents of a video are buffered - they're stored on an external server, right? But then what allows the end-user instantaneous access to any part of the video that has already been buffered? (after a video segment has been buffered, then you can go back to that segment instantaneously). Can you do that for a video on an external server? And if so, why can't the original video be available for instantaneous access to the end-user all of the time?

And I'd like to ask this question - absolutely nothing goes on the computer's temp folder, right?

I just read http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue4/scenes/ - it is interesting. Though I have questions myself that this didn't answer.