Download and playback google videos

[Steve S.]

Got the videodownloader thing working, thanks to adamkane and the google search.

Now I just need to be able to play or convert the flv files. Tips? Hints?

[Stroganoff]

The windows build of VLC plays *.flv for sure. Nevermind, I just opened the file with Totem Movie Player - it works!

(Breezy + "Automatix")

[Steve S.]

You got totem to play with sound? I can get it to play the flv files but I get no sound. How did you get sound on those files?

[paracetamolo]

I have no sound too

[bowsercake]

I can get .flv to play in Totem but it skips (i think it's streaming?) and there is no sound. I got the from youtube btw. (I tried VLC media player but that didn't work at all).

[Steve S.]

Hey, all,

Check out the results I posted on this one:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=139166

I used the downloader, then ran ffmpeg in comand line (pretty easy once you get the hang of it) and changed it to an mpeg. Then you can play it on pretty much whatever...

Hope that helps. If you come up with an easier/better way, please post.

[simms]

if anyone's interested, once you get your FLV support working, you can get fresh Reuters news footage via http://today.reuters.com/rss/newsrss.aspx.
just click on one of the feed buttons, grok the FLV file addresses in the output, and enjoy

[dartakaum]

i find the easiest way is to click where it says download. since this howto was written google video has changed abit.

that was what i was going to say.

the funny stuff is thank god google don't have linux version of video.google, because u can only download videos (*.avi) in linux.

[Lunar_Lamp]

I wrote the following script to enable the conversion of flv files to mpg files. It's commented fairly heavily, so you should be able to see what's going on where. At the moment it can only deal with 1 file at a time, but if people are interested I can try and make it deal with more than one. Just save this file as /usr/bin/flvconvert and chmod +x it. To use, just type flvconvert FILENAME. It requires ffmpeg which is available in the repositories (I'm afraid I don't know where from as it was already installed on my laptop when I wanted to use it).

#!/bin/bash
#
# script written by Ed Hargin to convert flvs from places like youtube and googlevideos to mpg files.
#
# note to self: $1 = 'flv filename'
#
#   todo:
# - make the script able to deal with multiple files
# - enable input variable to be the url, and make the script find the correct url to download and then convert?

flv_file=$1

####################
# Convert Function #
####################
#this coverts the flv file specified ($1) to mpg

function convert {
	ffmpeg -i $flv_file -ab 56 -ar 22050 -b 500 -s 320x240 $name.mpg
}  

# Variables declared in above line (brackets are defaults used if option is omitted) 
#
# -ab = averate bitrate of music in kbit/s (default = 64)
# -ar = audio sampling frequency (default = 44100 Hz)
# -b  = video bitrate in kbit/s (default = 200 kb/s)
# -s  = set frame size (wxh) (default = 160x128)

###################
# Rename Function #
###################
#this function asks what you want to call the new file created, and acts accordingly.

rename ()
{
echo "By default the file will be named $flv_file.mpg - do you want to change this? (Y/N)"
read rename_answer
	if [ "$rename_answer" = "y" ];
		then echo "What do you want to call it? (.mpg will automatically be appended to the filename)"
		read name
		echo "Converting flv file to $name.mpg"

	else [ "$rename_answer" = "n" ];
		name=$flv_file.mpg
		echo "Converting file to $name"

	fi
}


#####################
# Deletion Function #
#####################
#this function asks if you want to delete the original file and acts accordingly.

function flvdelete {

	echo "Do you want to delete the original flv file? (Y/N)"

	read reply

	if [ "$reply" = "y" ];
 		then rm $flv_file
		echo "File deleted: $flv_file"  #should I build in some kind of detection of 'need to be root to delete'?

	elif [ "$reply" = "n" ];
 		then echo "Leaving file alone: $flv_file"

	fi
}

###############
# Main Script #
###############

rename ;
convert ;
flvdelete 

exit

[Steve S.]

Cool! Thanks, Lunar_lamp. But would you explain more in detail how to do this part:

chmod +x it.

Thanks for the script! It should make things much easier...