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Saving onto hard drive.

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styley | 21:04 Fri 07th Sep 2007 | Internet
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I have been downloading a tv show from a website to watch. What I've noticed is that once it's fully loaded I can watch it but is there any way to save it onto the computer so that I don't have to download it each time?
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Most websites which allow you to download videos use the flash video (FLV) format. The video file is placed into your browser's cache but it will have an obscure name (such as 494FFDADd01) and it won't have the 'flv' file extension.

What you need to do is to locate the file, rename it and give it the correct extension. There's various software that can do this. (Just search www.download.com for 'save flv'). There's also a web-based sevice (www.keepvid.com) which does the first part of the job for you. (You still have to rename the file from the default name of get_vid. You also have to add the flv extension).

Personally, I prefer to use a manual method for locating and saving FLV files. It might seem 'fiddly' the first time you try it but, with experience, it's dead easy. Here's how I do it:

Immediately after downloading a video, I run a search for *.* (That will find every file on a PC). Then I click the 'Modified' column heading, until the most recent files are at the top of the list. I then look through them to identify the relevant file. That's usually dead easy, because I'm looking for a large file in the browser's cache. (Even a short movie, running only a minute or two, will be several MB. If you're downloading entire TV programmes, you're looking for something really big).

The next stage is to right-click on the file name and select 'Copy'. Then go to wherever the video file is to be stored. Right-click and select 'Paste'.

Next, right-click on the file icon and select 'Rename'. Choose a suitable file name and add the 'flv' extension. (e.g. change 484FFDADd01 to Episode1.flv).

That's it. The video is permanently saved to the PC's hard drive. The only problem is that Windows Media Player doesn't recognise the FLV format. A different media player is required. VLC is the most popular free media player which plays FLV movies:
23:08 Fri 07th Sep 2007
Oops! The link has been cut off:
http://www.videolan.org/

Chris
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I'll try that thanks. But the size of the show in the properties is always 2971 bytes no matter how long each show is and the address is shown as a url of the site.

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