Sniptools » video

KeepVid: saving videos from Youtube or Vimeo, from anywhere

Shanx — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 04:54:06 +0000

If you use Firefox (and if not, what are you waiting for?) you are familiar with useful extensions such as Video Downloader, which allow you to save local copies of the videos you watch on websites such as Youtube or Vimeo. You can then watch these videos whenever you please.

But this doesn't account for those rare but possible times when you are not on your machine, or don't have access to a browser set up to your tastes. No extensions available.

That's where "KeepVid" comes in. Just enter your URL and it automatically extracts any video(s) found on that website and allows you to download in both FLV and MP4 formats. The MP4 would play on your Nokia, iPhone, or Blackberry too. The FLV file is a flash viewer file, and easily played using common video players–if you don't have VLC, get it pronto.

Here's a straightforward screenshot:

Convert subtitles from ssa to srt with Subtitle Workshop

Shanx — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:04:06 +0000

I use the excellent Submerge to flatten subtitles into my AVI files and other movies. But sometimes, subtitles are available from sources such as SubScene or AllSubs as not the usual *.srt files (SubRip format) but as *.ssa or *.sub.

While searching for a converter between the captioned formats, Google did not turn up too much. After some searching I found a nifty little utility that allows you to convert between many formats of subtitles. It's Windows only, so if you are not on Windows you may have to use this within a virtual machine:

Download Subtitle Workshop

Usage is as simple as loading a subtitle file from the File menu, and then Save As and Bob's your uncle.

Convert MKV to AVI for free (on Windows and OSX)

Shanx — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:13:50 +0000

The MKV format, although never originally intended to share stuff online because it's large and really high quality, has now become standard. Especially now with Blu-Ray becoming a standard. But some of us are happy storing AVI for our own use especially if we can have it in decent-enough quality (MKV files are usually 1GB or more for, say, a film).

Google is full of tools and utilities that allow MKV to AVI conversion. Many of them are shareware. You download them free but then you have to cough up $29.99.

I have found the FREE tool, All2AVI ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/alltoavi/ ) does the job and does it superbly. It's fast, free, and the conversion from MKV and other formats to AVI happens pretty efficiently and reliably.

If you're on OSX, you can use VisualHub or Submerge, but both of them are a bit unreliable. VisualHub in particular is a fantastic way to do any conversion on Mac OSX, but if it collapses with a cryptic "Sorry, could not convert for some reason", then you may wish to use AlltoAVI inside an XP virtual machine.