Wednesday, October 8, 2014

Ubuntu: Download flash videos using the latest version of get-flash-videos

Somehow the version of get_flash_videos (1.24) in Ubuntu Trusty and git repositories don't work with YouTube. The latest version (1.25) works and I followed the following steps to successfully download, install and use it for YouTube videos. I am documenting it here for my future reference as well as it may help someone looking for the solution. I know I used the Debian Sid version but it works with Ubuntu.

(1) Step 1: Get the latest version of Get-flash-videos from Debian Sid repositories (https://packages.debian.org/sid/all/get-flash-videos/download). You can download from any mirror as it is a pretty small file (in KBs).

(2) Step 2: Use Ubuntu Software Center or gdebi to install it satisfying all dependencies. You may have to install perl packages beforehand by running the following command in the terminal:
sudo apt-get install libwww-mechanize-perl libxml-simple-perl

(3) Step 3: Check get-flash-videos version from the terminal by running the command:
get_flash_videos --version

Ensure that it is 1.25.

(4) Now start downloading flash videos from websites like YouTube, DailyMotion, etc. It supports majority of the sites I know of and use. You can download videos from the terminal by running the command:
get_flash_videos http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<video id>

or by giving the URL of the video site.

Hope it helps.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing!

    Never used this program before, but I decided to give it a try after reading this post. Works really well with my unstable/intermittent internet connection.

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  2. Great! I tried it and it works very well, better than any other video downloader, I dare say.

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    Replies
    1. I agree, it works better and faster than other video downloader I've tried.

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