Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Video "Capture" on the Web

Since we've had high interest in the process of capturing video from websites like YouTube and Google Videos, I thought that the next blog entry might usefully outline this process. I'm labeling this "capture" rather than download, since the websites in question aren't really offering you a simple button to click on for downloading, so we're capturing the video to our local computers by using some nifty technology. Yes, I know that Google has a download button, but there are other limitations in place which we're bypassing.
One small warning: although YouTube generally exercises care in eliminating offensive material, Google is generally more open, and even on YouTube stuff gets by. Also, exercise caution regarding violation of copyright law - availability is not the same as permission to use.

UPDATE: I've just acquired a MacBook Pro (may write more about this in an entry later) and have tested and can confirm that Firefox and Downloadhelper work perfectly well in the Mac environment. Also, VLC has a Mac OSX option which works superly. Quite a bit of the NCH software is available in a Mac variant, but sadly, not Prism.

Software for Capturing Videos
The key to my system (not to say that there are not other methods) is to use Firefox as your web browser. This is a free download, and I've gotten to prefer this browser quite a bit over Internet Explorer, not least for the add-ons. The add-on you need to capture video is called Downloadhelper, also free and a very simple tool to install (it'll even update itself as needed, with the help of Firefox). By the way, another tool I really like, mentioned in the sessions, is Flashblock, which gives you control over whether or not you want to play Flash content on web pages.
Once this software is installed, you'll see a little graphic which looks like a molecule between the address bar and the Google search bar at the top of the screen. If there's downloadable content, it'll change from grey to multi-color and start spinning. Click on the downarrow just to its right, and select which file you'd like to save (generally only one is listed, but sometimes there are several). You may need to change the download directory, but on my system the default download directory is My Documents\My Videos - go there to examine your new guests. You'll know the download is done when the (1) is gone from beside the spinning graphic.

Software for Viewing Videos
There are many possible formats for videos - .flv (YouTube and Google), .wmv (Windows Media), .mpg/.mp4 (these ones are generally fairly "portable" and easy to play), and .avi (MANY variations on this one). There are two ways I'll mention here for playing these varied formats: installing a codec pack like KLite Mega Codec Pack (free), which gives your regular software the capabilities of playing almost everything (it should add this capability to PowerPoint also, but I haven't tested this yet - let me know if you've tried it and I'll update the blog with a yes/no on that); and a second option is using a universal player like VideoLan (or VLC), which is also free. I've personally chosen to go the VLC route, as it's an excellent and compact solution, and I like the elegance of this.

Software for Converting Videos
While the viewing solutions mentioned above take care of your computer, what about if you need to insert a video into PowerPoint and play it on another machine? The safest thing to do is to convert the file from, for instance, a captured .flv from YouTube and convert it to an .mpg which will play in PowerPoint without any coaxing. For this I use a free program called Prism which is made by NCH software (I'll be using a number of their offerings - excellent stuff: you might want to upgrade some items to their pro versions just to support them, as we'll use a LOT of their free stuff).
To use this, download Prism and install it (click on the .exe file). Once it's installed, click on the icon (or select the program from your start menu), click on the "+ Add File" at the top to add a file (for instance the downloaded .flv in your My Videos folder), select the output format you want (lower left of the window) - I'd suggest .mpg (Prism's default settings for .mpgs will work well), and then click on "convert" (lower right of window) to let the program run. Could hardly be simpler. (I just noticed that there's an "Add DVD" option - I'll have to play with that and try it.) It'll save the file into your My Videos folder by default - move it wherever you want to use it.

Have fun!

12 comments:

Amanda said...

It was really fun to hear about what you're doing with your classes...using music to get them thinking about theological ideas. I'd love to hear about the songs you use to launch discussions, if you're willing to share them. I'm always looking for good ideas and resources!

Waldemar Kowalski said...

Thanks - I'm having a blast with this, and the suggestions I get from my students are excellent. I'll post the list of topics and the corresponding music soon, and hope that you and others will add to the list. (Actually, someone in the Moses Lake session suggested a song which I used yesterday - very cool!)

Brian Jenkins said...

Hey, Wally,

Great job at the LEAD seminar.

I wonder if you have a resource for many of these same codecs and plug-ins for MAC users?

We shouldn't all have to suffer because of Bill Gates. :)

Brian Jenkins

Waldemar Kowalski said...

Thanks, Brian.
Actually, the video player I use and recommend has a Mac version - check it out at http://www.videolan.org/. In terms of codecs, there's a codec pack available at http://digg.com/apple/Mac_OS_X_Intel_Codec_Pack for Intel Macs - not able to confirm how well it works, but let us know...

Anonymous said...

I attended the Tech Road Show in Tacoma. It was great. I'm making a PPT presentation for a marriage retreat and trying to import a video clip of "All You Need is Love" from the Yellow Submarine from You Tube. I used Prism and converted the .flv file to an mpg. file. I insert it onto a slide and it looks like it's there but when I click on the slide it doesn't play automatically like it says it's supposed to. Any suggestions?

Waldemar Kowalski said...

Debbie,
I've seen this happen as well, and it seems that some versions of PPT are fussy in terms of varieties of mpg files. Easiest solution: convert to .wmv (which is an option in Prism). PPT is very accepting of these.

You can verify what will play by selecting the slide, clicking on slide show, custom animation, selecting the clip, then clicking the play button. If you see/hear nothing, then PPT is having digestion issues. I'll try to get some more info on other "safe" formats when I have a chance.

nday said...

Thank you for this site and your wealth of information. You do a great job of breaking this stuff down so that non-techy people can understand. I was wondering the name of the program you talked about, where you could edit clips from a dvd and insert them in power point. Thanks -Nate

Waldemar Kowalski said...

Thanks for the comments! I'll do a post on the process involved in taking a dvd and extracting a clip for use in PowerPoint, but to give you the necessary clues right now, DVD Decrypter will remove copy protection so that you can work with the DVD itself, and then I extract the chapter I need in ULead Video Studio, edit it for length, and convert it to the needed format (either .wmv or .mpg, depending on where I'll use it). Stay tuned - will try to get back to the process of adding info here.

Anonymous said...

Thanks. I got the dvd decrypter from your jumpdrive, ULead Video Studio was the missing peice. I would love a post to refresh the steps of the process. One other question; I have prism and VLC and I was having the same problem as Debbie so I converted into wmv format but the degridation of the video was so great that it wasn't worth playing, is there another fix? -Nate

Anonymous said...

My password is not working so I had to post anonymous. -Nate

Waldemar Kowalski said...

The fix is to select a high enough quality of file - there are settings for that (in fact, wmv can be set to be very high quality) - experimentation is the trick here. I'll make sure I include some info on that when I do the post...

Anonymous said...

Prompt, where I can find it?