Save Videos from Hulu, Comedy Central, and Others
![\](http://thirderror.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/playing_in_miro.png "\")
We’re going to be saving TV episodes from sites such as Hulu, Comedy Central, CBS, and others using Orbit, a free download manager capable of saving streaming media (on the RTMP protocol, so Live HTTP Headers doesn’t quite work out here). Orbit is also an easier way of grabbing things such as YouTube and Google videos. However, there are limitations, and it’s currently not possible to download video from sites which use the Move Media Player (here’s a list of clients, so you’ll be unable to download with this method).
In our example, we’ll be saving a short segment of The Colbert Report featured on Comedy Central’s website. We’re going to assume you’ve already downloaded and installed Orbit (and have installed the appropriate browser plugin during the installation.)
Open Grab++
When Orbit launches, you’ll notice an icon featuring a blue circle with a down arrow in it appearing in the taskbar. Right-click it, and click Grab++.
The Grab++ Window
Above is the Grab++ window, which will start filling in with media it finds on webpages you load. Just leave it alone for now.
Open the Video Website, Play the Video
![\](http://thirderror.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/colbert_plays.png "\")
We’re going to download “The Word - If At First You Don’t Secede.”
Check Grab++
Some entries will file into the Grab++ window. In general, you probably want the entry with the following qualities:
- File type is flv.
- Size is usually unknown.
- It’s streaming media (RTMP) except for sites such as YouTube.
- It’ll come from a server that’s not the website you’re on (in the example, cp9950.edgefcs.net:1935)
Find it? Click it and make sure it’s checked, then click Download.
A download prompt will show up. I accepted the defaults, so an FLV file will be dumped in H:\Downloads\. That’s all!
Sometimes, however, the download may have some frames skipped, or the sound may not be in sync with the video. You can attempt to download again if this is the case. Now, convert it to a format of your choice or play it in the FLV player of your choice.
I'm Jason, the main author of Third Error, and many of the topics I'll focus on concern Windows (and applicable software), web applications, web design, and a bit of *nix (Ubuntu mainly). My computer runs Windows XP, with virtualized Ubuntu and OS X handy.