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I want to record a Flash video stream from the web. This is the website in question: http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/plus7

The problem is that the video starts with a task bar over it and I have to move the mouse pointer over and out of the video to fade it out, all of which is recorded in my screen capture.

How do I avoid recording the task bar?

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2 Answers 2

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As long as the video isn't copy protected, you will want to use a stream ripper instead of trying to do a screen capture of your monitor. Any number of software products are able to directly transfer a video that is in the Flash streaming video format as long as it isn't copy protected. A quick search for "flash video ripper" and your operating system should return numerous results to choose from. The advantage of this is that the stream can be recorded with the original encoding preserved, which avoids loss of quality due to repeat encoding and compression.

As a side bonus, since the stream rippers will record the stream directly, you also don't have to worry about the bar or your mouse being over the screen.

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  • @what - it may be the least hassle, but it will always be the lowest quality. In the case of the link you provided, some basic checking of their website shows that they are using a bit of JSON code to provide the information to the player and since they are using JW Player, an HTML5 version is also provided. There is infact an MP4 that you can simply download directly for content from their site. The JSON is here
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Commented Sep 6, 2013 at 22:15
  • More explicitly, the link for that video is this. You can pull it out by looking for the HTTP address in the JSON result. It also has several RTMP streams defined in there if you want higher quality than the HTTP based mp4 download provides.
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Commented Sep 7, 2013 at 5:44
  • The HD RTMP stream (which any flash ripper should be able to pull) is rtmp://artestras.fcod.llnwd.net/a3903/o35/geo/videothek/ALL/tvguide/048474-179-A_SQ_1_VA_00673307_MP4-2200_AMM-Tvguide.mp4?e=1378534327&h=9fa6e70cfa4bdc1988dba5ccd5cd1236 which is also extracted from that same JSON file.
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Commented Sep 7, 2013 at 5:48
  • Okay, I managed to download the MP4 file directly. I'd like to accept your answer, but while it answers my intention, it does not answer my question. I'll accept my own answer, as it gives a solution to the problem in the question. But +1 for putting me on the right track.
    – user4661
    Commented Sep 7, 2013 at 20:21
  • @what - the stream rippers work with the RTMP path I listed, it does answer the question, just the particular HTTP link doesn't even require stream ripping.
    – AJ Henderson ♦
    Commented Sep 7, 2013 at 21:53
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I simply looked at the source code of the web page and opened the player in a new window, scaled to the width of the video iframe, but higher, so that the task bar came to lie below the video. Now I can click and mouseover the task bar as much as I want, without recording it.

enter image description here

Screenshot of the original website to the left, and the player in a scaled separate window to the right.

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