Capture Adobe Flash Videos on Ubuntu Linux

This tutorial will serve as an introduction to capturing an Adobe Flash Video on Ubuntu Linux. Have you ever wanted to capture an Adobe flash video directly to your Ubuntu Linux system but never knew exactly how to do it ? Well now you can by following these simple instructions. Most embedded videos are stored as FLV videos on sites such as CNN Videos, MSNBC Videos or Bing Videos. This article will show you how to capture those videos for later playback using the VLC multimedia player. These instructions will also work on Debian and Linux Mint.

Steps

Preparing your Ubuntu Linux system:

  1. Issue the following commands below in order to prepare your Ubuntu Linux system to capture embedded Adobe flash videos from websites.
    • Type/Copy/Paste: sudo -s apt-get update
      • this will update your repository sources
    • Type/Copy/Paste: sudo -s apt-get install perl
      • this will install the Perl, programming language, you will need Perl in order to run your FlashVideoCapture.pl script
    • Type/Copy/Paste: sudo -s apt-get install lsof
      • this will install lsof if it is not already installed
    • Type/Copy/Paste: sudo -s apt-get install firefox
      • this will install the Mozilla Firefox web browser
    • Type/Copy/Paste: sudo -s apt-get install vlc
    • Important Note: You must use the Mozilla FireFox Web Browser to view your FLV videos because this does not work in Google Chrome
  2. Open up a text editor such as gedit or nano
    • Type/Copy/Paste: gedit FlashVideoCapture.pl
      • or
    • Type/Copy/Paste: nano FlashVideoCapture.pl
    • Type/CopyPaste: the following perl script located in the box below and save it as FlashVideoCapture.pl

Configuring a Capture Directory and enabling the FlashVideoCapture.pl script

  1. Once this script has been successfully copied and saved as FlashVideoCapture.pl You will need to copy the FlashVideoCapture.pl script to your /home/"your_user_name"/Videos directory.
  2. You will either need to change into your Videos directory or create a dedicated directory where you store your multimedia videos.
  3. If you don't have a Videos directory on your system the command below will allow you to create one.
    • Type/Copy/Paste: mkdir -p /home/"your_user_name"/ Videos
      • this command will create your Videos directory
    • Type/Copy/Paste: cd /home/"your_user_name"/
      • change into your home directory
    • Type/Copy/Paste: cp -r FlashVideoCapture.pl /home/”your_user_directory”/Videos
      • Copy the FlashCaptureVideo.pl script to your Videos directory using the
    • Type/Copy/Paste: cd /home/”your_user_name”/Videos
      • Once the FlashVideoCapture.pl script is in your Videos directory you will open up terminal and change into your Videos directory.
    • Type/Copy/Paste: chmod +x FlashVideoCapture.pl
      • this command will make the FlashvideoCapture.pl perl script executable

Capturing your Flash video:

  1. Next you are going to startup your FireFox web browser and go to a site which has embedded flash videos in it, such as CNN Videos. Remember the FlashVideoCapture.pl script is not limited to video captures of videos in CNN Videos, MSNBC Videos or Bing Videos. I would encourage you to experiment with the script and try to capture embedded *.flv videos on other web sites.
  2. Please allow the flash video to play/load in the web browser until it is completely finished playing/loading or completely loaded into the browsers cache. You can tell the video has completely loaded by the grey bar at the bottom of the flash video, which will usually indicate the load and completion of the video. Once the grey bar load cycle is complete and 100% of the video has been loaded it's now time to capture the video stored in your web browsers cache.
  3. Keep your FireFox web browser open with the flash video completely loaded and simply return to your open terminal and run the FlashVideoCapture.pl script by issuing the following command below.
    • Type/Copy/Paste: cd /home/"your_user_name"/Videos
      • this will change you into your Videos directory, make sure you are in the Videos directory and you have the FlashVideoCapture.pl script in this directory.
    • Type/Copy/Paste: ./FlashVideoCapture.pl
      • this command will execute the FlashVideoCapture.pl script and capture the *.flv video files to your /home/"your_user_name"/Videos directory.
  4. If this was done correctly, you will see a statement such as this:
    • /proc/13509/fd/28 -> foundflash.1.flv
      1. This means the flash video was captured as foundflash1.flv. In order to view the video you can use the VLC mediaplayer to view the captured *.flv file.
  5. Now it is time to playback your captured *.flv video files. Make sure you are in the /home/"your_user_name"/Videos directory before running the following commands.
    • Type/Copy/Paste: cd /home/"your_user_name"/Videos
    • Type/Copy/Paste: vlc foundflash1.flv.
    • or
    • Type/Copy/Paste: vlc *.flv
      • this will playback all *.flv video files stored in your /home/"your_user_home"/Videos directory.
  6. Congratulations, at this point you can rename the foundflash1.flv to anything you like. So that you can view the captured *.flv video over and over again using the VLC media player without loading it from your FireFox web browser.

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