Mostly Internet traffic consists of streaming video. Only YouTube represents a big chunk of this percentage. Over 400 hours of content uploaded every minute, an average of 40 minutes watched per session and more coverage in the 18-49 demographic range than cable TV. And then you have to consider other streaming video sites like Vimeo, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Vine, Twitch, etc. There are a lot of video data provided by the network, and having the possibility to know the method to capture video streaming from any website could be useful for your work or recreational activity.
Reviewing video streaming from the web more than once may be difficult, especially when you can not watch the video because your internet connection is interrupted continuously (or the video site does not work) or may be you want to download video from YouTube for editing, to use a clip or part of video, you can find best video editing in the guide “The Best Video Editing Software 2019“, you can use for video editing. In the face of such difficulties, the best solution is to download videos that you frequently watch on your computer. This way you can review them as often as you want without searching whenever you need them. This is particularly useful for educational and entertainment videos, as both tend to be highly reused, but it is also good for movies and TV series.
Capture video streaming
Being able to save video streaming from the web is a great convenience, because it allows you to watch an offline video under any circumstances, even when you do not have an internet connection. In proposing this guide, I looked online for some free solutions that are both effective and simple in the process to record video from the screen. Read on to find out our list of tools to capture video streaming from the internet.
1. VideoGrabby (Web)
Supported sites: Facebook, Soundcloud, Vimeo, Vine, YouTube.
VideoGrabby is the simplest and most direct tool in its sector. We recommend it if you want a problem-free option that requires almost zero effort on your part. Compromise is the least flexible in quality and download options, but it will do its job with dignity.
After searching for the video of your interest on the web, just copy the URL of the video online and paste it into the VideoGrabby search box. As soon as you enter it, the Download button appear. Clicking on this button will download the video file in MP4 format.
The quality is not exceptional but it is certainly passable to watch a video without great pretensions. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you can click HQ to go to high quality downloads, but the difference is not significant.
LINK | VideoGrabby
2. Video DownloadHelper (Firefox, Chrome)
Supported sites: Dailymotion, Facebook, Instagram, Lynda, Twitter, Udemy, Vimeo, YouTube and hundreds of other sites.
Video DownloadHelper is simply one of the most useful browser extensions you’ve ever installed. It’s even simpler to use than the aforementioned VideoGrabby, but the downside (if you can call it that) is that you have to install it on your browser, which could slow down browser performance.
However, if you have to download a lot of videos in a day, it is worth installing Video DownloadHelper, any kind of performance reduction you can detect, but in my experience, the performance reduction is really negligible.
The extension adds a button next to the browser’s address bar. Whenever you meet an online video, you can simply click on the button to download the video file of the current page.
DOWNLOAD | Video DownloadHelper
3. Freemake Video Downloader (Windows)
Supported sites: Dailymotion, Facebook, Liveleak, Veoh, Vimeo, YouTube and dozens of other sites.
Freemake Video Downloader is one of the most popular video download tools. It is completely free, easy to use and relatively flexible with regard to quality and format options. The only major disadvantage is that it is only available on Windows systems.
Videos can only be downloaded in some formats, including AVI, FLV, MKV, MP4 and WMV. Videos can also be downloaded in MP3 format if only the audio part is desired. The download process only requires the URL of the video you want to download, just copy and paste it.
DOWNLOAD | Freemake Video Downloader
4. JDownloader 2 (Windows, Mac, Linux)
Supported sites: almost all sites with streaming video.
JDownloader 2 is similar to the Freemake Video Downloader software but with a difference. In this case you have to pick up the URL of the page where the streaming video is to be downloaded, paste it into the app and it will scan the whole page and all the videos it can detect on that page. Then you choose which of the detected videos you want to download.
The nice thing about JDownloader 2 is that you do not need the direct URL of a specific video. Get a MakeUseOf article with ten videos, for example, and all will be detected. This makes it very easy to capture several videos at the same time.
Bundleware Notice! When you run the installer, you’ll eventually come across a page that offers you the installation of Bing Search or something else. On this page, the buttons will change to Reject and Accept. Be sure to click Reject! This will prevent the installation of bundleware on your system.
DOWNLOAD | JDownloader 2
Last resort for capturing online videos
If you meet a video that is not supported by any of the tools we’ve presented above, the last resort is to play videos in full-screen mode and record the screen as you scroll through the video. It’s not a perfect solution, but it works the same. These are some resources to record videos from the computer screen:
- Open Broadcaster Software
- CamStudio
- Screencast-O-Matic
You can also use VLC to play and record online videos simultaneously until you are able to get the direct URL of the video for playback.
If you need help, have doubts or concerns, do not hesitate to leave a comment in the comment box below and we will try to help you as soon as possible!