[WEB4LIB] Downloading video clips from the web

[Elizabeth L. Brown]

Hello,

I do "downloading tips" quite regularly for the Library of Congress 
"American Memory" collections web site.  Those videos linked right off 
Kerry's home page are "streaming media" files, which designed to be played 
quickly, even with modem connections, but not saved off-line (i.e. 
downloaded) easily.  If you really want, you could convert your computer 
output to analog and send it through a VCR and tape it, but that's rather 
cumbersome.  (It's a little like setting up a DVD player and VCR on an 
older TV.)

I poked around the site a bit and found that many of the Kerry videos can 
be easily downloaded and saved in Quicktime format for later 
playback.  Look for them here:
http://www.johnkerry.com/video/download.html

Download the television commercials in Quicktime format here:
http://www.johnkerry.com/tv/

It's easy to download the audio files here, if that helps.
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/audio/
The MP3's are ok to save and playback is easy with a wide variety of 
software tools.

Good luck.  Feel free to write to me off-list if you need further 
guidance.  BTW, LC teaches this stuff to groups educational and library 
groups via LC's in-person and video-conference workshops, listed here: 
<http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/videoconf/> and here 
<http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/educators>.  Details about signing up are on 
the websites, above.

Elizabeth L. Brown
Digital Reference Specialist
Library of Congress, Washington, DC  20540-4604

At 11:35 AM 10/21/2004, you wrote:
>Does anyone have any tips on downloading video clips from the Web?
>
>We have a student who needs to capture clips from John Kerry's Web site at 
>http://www.johnkerry.com .  She needs to use a couple of his commercials 
>in her thesis (which is being done in video format).  She wrote to them 
>and received permission to use the commercials--in fact, they said that 
>she and anyone else was free to download and use anything that was there.
>
>However, we are having no luck in saving it to disk for her to use.  We 
>are at the point now where we are going to have to try a digital camera to 
>film it while it plays on the site, but it just seems that there should be 
>a better way.
>
>Any advice would be very much appreciated!
>
>Thanks!
>
>Ann M. Tenglund
>Coordinator of Library Computer Services and Library Instruction
>Friedsam Memorial Library
>St. Bonaventure University
>St. Bonaventure, NY  14778
>ateng at sbu.edu