The VideoLAN Forums

I tried playing flash videos off of other sites besides Youtube in VLC. Not tried dozens of sites, but most seem to start the caching process, then quit - & nothing.

Is there a reason VLC or other players w/ similar capability ONLY work on Youtube & not most other sites w/ flash content? Obviously, the other sites would play in Flash Player if installed / active (meaning, using their bandwidth).

Maybe sites won't allow using OTHER players , because there's some data to be gained if using FP?

Rather not use Flash Player - like many people, but I don't always want to d/l entire vids (when possible from some sites), before seeing if it's something I'm interested in, its quality, etc. (to save bandwidth & time).

Thanks.

VLC should be able to open (unencrypted) FLV files. But random web pages are never going to work; you need a script to parse them.

Thanks for reply.
By that, I assume you mean VLC will open unencrypted FLV files one has DOWNLOADED? If so, gets back to issue of d/l entire file, only to see it's junk. Even on Youtube music videos, most of what I check out, I stop after < 1 min cause bad quality, not interested, etc.

But random web pages are never going to work; you need a script to parse them.

Why are random web pages never going to work (when vids from youtube will stream in VLC)?

Can you point me in the right direction for "script to parse them?"

Even though the direct link for a vid on NON Youtube pages can be found in the page source, I gather that most pages won't ALLOW streaming the video, w/ another player (not Flash Player) that IS capable of playing / streaming FLV vids.)

Many pages also won't allow DOWNLOADING the videos, though I think there are apps to do just that. But that DOESN'T solve issue of wasting bandwidth / time, downloading an entire vid - before playing, that may not interest you.

Lua Playlist Scripts (web page parsers to retrieve direct links to multimedia sources on the Internet): viewtopic.php?f=29&t=98644#p330318
There is also written a Lua playlist script for YouTube. You can find "youtube.luac" file in VLC in your computer (\lua\playlist\youtube.luac).

Thank you. Though it may not be completely over my head, for someone that doesn't work w/ scripts all the time, it may be beyond my learning time limit.

What I did find (all depends on the actual web page), sometimes hovering the play button for specific vid on the site (IF... you don't have Flash enabled & IF... the page still shows a play button, after clicking the vid title / image to start playing - just like on Youtube). If so, then you can copy the URL by hovering / R clicking the URL shown. Doesn't work on every page, of course.

I'm just learning - but read a bit about URL "finder" tools, that will do it automatically. Not tried any yet, so can't comment. There are several free ones, but haven't researched them for "safety" in using them.

Also saw some blurbs about looking at the "embed" box / script for a vid / file (if shown) - that the URL is contained in that. That is true - but, I haven't hit on exactly what to copy out of the entire script to enter into a player (VLC, SMPlayer, etc). That method isn't consistent for me. Probably don't know enough about exactly what to copy.