How to download any flash-based videoclip (Linux Only)

[JaneyE]

Hello *,

just put on my long purple satin gloves to share with you all a bit of news.

The good news: I found out how to “download” ANY flash-based video from the net (e.g. from http://www.porn.com).
The bad news: This works only with Linux (Lucky us who use Linux anyway!) It definitely doesn't work on Windows computers. It may work in a similar way on Macs, but I don't know for sure as I have no access to one.

So here it is:

1) Let the browser play the whole video so that it can download the whole file in the background.

2) Open an xterm/konsole/gnome-terminal window.

3) Type the following:

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\ps x | grep -i flash | grep -v grep

You will get an output that looks like this:

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3926 ?      Sl  2:48  /opt/google/chrome/chrome --type=plugin --plugin-path=/opt/google/chrome/libgcflashplayer.so --lang=en-GB

Every displayed line describes a process run by the flashplayer plugin. Usually, there will be exactly one line per currently running browser. Now identify the number at the beginning of the line, in this exaple “3926”.

4) Type the following in your terminal window (replace “3926” by whatever number you identify):

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cd /proc/3926/fd ; ls -al | grep /tmp/

This will list all so-called file descriptors used by the process. The output looks like this:

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lr-x------ 1 janey janey 64 Aug  3 10:34 23 -> /tmp/FlashXXex1MJ9 (deleted)

One of the listed pseudo-files points to the video data you want to get (file descriptors are not files but pointers to the memory address where the data used by the process are stored). In this example, there is only one pseudo-file called “23”. Copy its contents to an arbitrary target file, e.g.

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cat 23 > /home/janey/newvideo.flv

Don't use “cp” to copy, that will copy only the descriptor link, not the memory contents. Use “cat” as above.

5) Finished!

Kisses,
Janey

[wmowrg]

Nice one Janey,

Does this mean we can look forward to loads of video posts of stuff that us Windows users can't rip ???