Good news re: capturing streams, questions about editing
Posted: 30 Jan 2006 00:06
Last May I asked how you could capture/download/save a streaming video to your hard drive. I was reminded that the very definiton of a "streaming" video means non-savable, and referred to possible screen-capture programs like SnapzPro, which I used for awhile with mixed results (it did capture the movie playing on my screen, but it caused hiccups and other video quality issues.
But today the most amazing thing...instead of opening the clip thru VLC/File/Network/http:/OK...then capturing it with Snapz as VLC played it, I selected the clip thru my Firefox browser. This opened a window that said "you have chose to open 24XXXX.wmv, which is a Windows Media from http://xxxxxxx...What should Firefox do with this file?", under which is offered a choice called Open With and a Choose button. Clicking this Choose button opened a window showing all my Apps. I selected the VLC app, hit OK, and my Mac's Download Manager opened up and started downloading/saving, not just playing, the movie. After 5 minutes or so, the movie clip appeared as a wmv.file on my hard disk, fully saved and openable anytime by VLC (or Windows Media Player-poorer quality) without streaming, without my Internet connection even on! I didn't know if anyone else was aware of this, since older forum replies said "not possible, use a screen capture program", so I wanted to share the good news. I'm not even sure how it's working. All I know is it's saving streaming video off an internet entertainment site, and the quality is better than if I captured it onscreen using Snapz (and much less hassle, too!)
Also, now that I have these clips saved, what's a good program for cutting, pasting, splicing together, and otherwise editing them. I'm not wanting to use a big fancy program like FinalCut or Adobe Premiere, 'cause I just want to cut and paste (and maybe spruce up the quality a bit), so I was thinking of more of a downloadable/shareware simple editing program, or I wonder can I even perform basic cut/paste in existing Mac programs like iMovie?? Remeber that even though I'm on a Mac, the files were downladed in wmv. format (which VLC seems to have no trouble reading without any conversion to AVI/QuickTime)
RE
But today the most amazing thing...instead of opening the clip thru VLC/File/Network/http:/OK...then capturing it with Snapz as VLC played it, I selected the clip thru my Firefox browser. This opened a window that said "you have chose to open 24XXXX.wmv, which is a Windows Media from http://xxxxxxx...What should Firefox do with this file?", under which is offered a choice called Open With and a Choose button. Clicking this Choose button opened a window showing all my Apps. I selected the VLC app, hit OK, and my Mac's Download Manager opened up and started downloading/saving, not just playing, the movie. After 5 minutes or so, the movie clip appeared as a wmv.file on my hard disk, fully saved and openable anytime by VLC (or Windows Media Player-poorer quality) without streaming, without my Internet connection even on! I didn't know if anyone else was aware of this, since older forum replies said "not possible, use a screen capture program", so I wanted to share the good news. I'm not even sure how it's working. All I know is it's saving streaming video off an internet entertainment site, and the quality is better than if I captured it onscreen using Snapz (and much less hassle, too!)
Also, now that I have these clips saved, what's a good program for cutting, pasting, splicing together, and otherwise editing them. I'm not wanting to use a big fancy program like FinalCut or Adobe Premiere, 'cause I just want to cut and paste (and maybe spruce up the quality a bit), so I was thinking of more of a downloadable/shareware simple editing program, or I wonder can I even perform basic cut/paste in existing Mac programs like iMovie?? Remeber that even though I'm on a Mac, the files were downladed in wmv. format (which VLC seems to have no trouble reading without any conversion to AVI/QuickTime)
RE