Capture Flash video from a website

internet explorervideo capturewebsite

I am looking for a software which I can copy Flash video from a particular website.

I tried several capture apps but none can retrieve the .swf file from this particular website:

http://www.obtampons.ca/apology

Software I tried:

  • Replay Media Catcher
  • CoCoSoft Streamdwn

but none works, any idea?

Best Answer

If you look at the HTML source of the page, the embedded JS shows a URI for an XML file:

    // FLASH VARS       
    var flashvars = {};     
    flashvars.language = 'en';
    flashvars.xmlPath = '/sites/default/files/xml/';
    flashvars.appXMLPath = 'app.xml';
    flashvars.name = name;
    flashvars.ga = 'UA-6548511-7'; // DO NOTCHANGE
    // FLASH PARAMETERS
    var params = {};
    // FLASH ATTRIBUTES
    params.wmode = 'opaque';
    var attributes = {};
    attributes.id = 'app';
    attributes.name = 'app';            
    attributes.align = 'middle';
    // SWF OBJECT EMBED
   swfobject.embedSWF("/sites/default/files/app.swf", "flashContent", ...

If you put all the parts together, you get the URL:

http://www.obtampons.ca/sites/default/files/xml/app.xml

XML files like these are usually used by Flash embeds to store configuration files. For embedded video players, they usually contain the actual video file that the player streams. Usuaully, these are straight MP4 or FLV files, but in this case, the video is designed to inject the user's name into parts of the video (the song title on the sheet music and other places). This can't be done in regular videos, so a .swf animation is shown instead, which has an embedded video + some Flash text overlaid on the video to look like it's part of the original video.

If you don't care about the custom name insertion, you can grab the .SWF animation at:

http://obmedia.cachefly.net/video/video-withsound.swf

This won't actually play in any video players, but if you have Flash player installed you can play it with that, or use your browser's Flash plugin. Once you've opened it with Flash player, you have to right click on the video and hit "Play" to actually start the embedded video.

If you want the whole shebang (the intro Flash animation, the input box asking for your name, your name overlaid over the sheet music in the music video, etc.), then you'll need to grab the actual web page plus all of these files:

http://obmedia.cachefly.net/video/video-withsound.swf
http://www.obtampons.ca/sites/default/files/assets/fonts/rose/rosepedals.swf
http://www.obtampons.ca/sites/default/files/assets/fonts/skywriting/skywriting.swf
http://www.obtampons.ca/sites/default/files/assets/fonts/tattoo/tattoo.swf
http://www.obtampons.ca/sites/default/files/xml/app.xml

And you'll also need to edit the XML file and the web page to point to the right locations.

If you want an actual video file you can play in a regular video player, you'll need some way to extract it from video-withsound.swf or you'll need to use a screen capture tool to record a video of your screen while the music video is playing in Flash player. However, the output will have very low quality relative to file size.

If you just want the music video, a far better solution is to simply use a regular video capture tool to capture this Vimeo version of the video which has been customized for the name "Jenna".

And, yes, I do feel ridiculous for investing so much time investigating an apology video made by Johnson & Johnson over the recall of their heavy flow tampons.

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