TIP: Grabbing video content from webpage

Two words: browser cache

You don't need any utility software to grab webpage video content and what software is on offer is probably infected! Avoid sites offering 'Free Youtube Downloader' or whatever.

There are Firefox add-ons to grab video content but I haven't tried any of these yet. Hmm, the add-ons would be useful for M$ users though!

When you view video on your linux system with Firefox ([K]ubuntu at least) the video clip is cached into a temporary directory. Wait until the video clip has fully loaded and you will find the file in your user's ~/tmp/ ( or /tmp/) directory. Simply copy it to somewhere else before you close the webpage. Because, as soon as you close or navigate away from that webpage, the cached file is deleted. So far I have seen filenames starting with 'Flash' but, just look for a recently created file.

On my Kubuntu 9.10, I play back the content quite happily using Xine.

Now, most YouTube stuff plays OK but some have garbled / distorted audio. Mainly U.S. content. I seem to have a codec missing. I'll post here if I fix this. 


* UPDATE *


 Hmm,

I seem to have forgotten that I had previously installed a firefox add-on called '1-Click YouTube Video Downloader'. Quite easy to use, it adds some extra links in the page, just under the Video window.

It allows you to download YouTube Videos in FLV and MP4 (both High Definition and iPod High-Quality) in a single click.


Categories: Linux, OS
Tags: Kubuntu, Linux, video, grab, grabbing

TIP: Taskbar crashed? What to do!?

Until I find a more elegant solution...

I had clicked upon the clock on my taskbar, to bring up the calendar. I wanted to look up what day a particular date fell. I had forgot about this bug, the task bar crashed and then shortly disappeared.

Not knowing how to get it back other than, ALT-F2 to bring up the "Run" command bar. I then type "logout", saving any unsaved documents.

Log back in and the task bar is restored and any previously opened application come back up to.

I hope this helps someone. Yes, an annoying bug but at least it is not like M$ (MS Windows) where you would have to do a hard reset!

* UPDATE *

I have been experimenting! I am not sure if this gives a stable solution yet but, instead of logging out, when I pressed ALT-F2, I then typed "plasma". After about ten seconds, the task bar came back. This is on Jaunty (Kubuntu 9.04)

Just an observation.

Intrepid/Jaunty: K3B fails to rip to MP3

My K3B worked fine until I upgraded to Jaunty (Ubuntu 9.04) and then I got: "Command failed: lame -h *snip*", "Error while encoding track 1".

Trawling the web I ended up at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdemultimedia/+bug/267399 and thanks to Ilja Pavkovic and Julos I got it going again.

To help clarify:
1. create dir ~/bin
Code:   

mkdir ~/bin

2. create a script ~/bin/lame.sh with
Code:   

#!/bin/sh
usr/bin/lame --big-endian -x "$@"

chmod +x ~/bin/lame

3. Then in K3B, Settings->Configure K3b...->Plugins, under AudioEncoder, Configure the "K3b External Audio Encode" entry. Click on Mp3 (Lame) and click on the Edit button. Tick the two bottom options for "Swap Byte Order" and "Write Wave Header".

Then enjoy using K3B again!