How to Download Videos

Every post on this site gives you information on where to view and download online television advertisements. Here’s a few tips on how to go about that.

Load the appropriate software

Videos are stored online in the following formats:

Quicktime for playing files with a .mov, .mpg, .mpeg or mp4 extension – requires Quicktime Player (free) or Quicktime Pro (low cost)

Windows Media Player (free) for playing files with a .wmv or .mpg extension

Flash Player (free from Adobe) – for playing files with an .swf extension

FLV Player (free) for playing files with an .flv extension (Used by Google Video, Reuters & YouTube).

Real Video Player – for .rm

Download Videos

In many cases I provide direct links to the videos. This is a compromise to the integrity of this site, as it could be regarded as ‘leeching’, allowing people to download material from other sites without actually visiting them. The links to these videos can be found by looking at the underlined words.

To download, using one of my links, depends on whether you’re using a PC or Apple, and on what browser you’re using.

On a PC right click on the link, and choose ‘Save Target As’ (Internet Explorer and Opera), or ‘Save Link As’ (Firefox Mozilla). You’ll be able to choose where on your computer you want to download the video to.

On an Apple hold one finger on ‘control’ and click on the hyperlink – you’ll be given the same option of saving linked file as…

How to download without a direct link

If you’re watching a movie with quicktime, the easiest option is to buy Quicktime Pro. If the web site allows, you will be able to download the video from within Quicktime Pro. This applies to both PC and Apple environments.

If you’re viewing with Internet Explorer on a Windows system, you have the option of finding your temporary internet folder where the video may be cached. You can transfer the video from there. For Windows XP, look in Drive C, Documents and Settings, Local Settings, Temporary Internet Files.

If you’re viewing with Mozilla Firefox, you can right click anywhere in the window, choose ‘View Page Info’, click on the ‘Media’ tab, scroll down to see the list of images and videos. When you find the video, you ‘Save As’.

Mozilla Firefox has a plugin that offers the capacity to download embedded videos from sites such as YouTube and Google Video.