Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

zen · Apr 14, 2004, 11:43 PM

Hi,

I've just spent a couple of hours downloading a Quicktime mov in Safari, only to discover it won't let me save it. I've got Quicktime Pro, and in System Preferences I've got the option for "Save movies in disk cache" checked. Running 10.3.3, Quicktime 6.5, Safari 1.2.1.

Is there a way of extracting the movie from the disk cache?

Cheers

Zen

electropura · Apr 15, 2004, 12:07 AM

you will need to be able to access invisible folders. to do this you can download Tinkertool.

Your Quicktime movie will be in private/tmp/501/TemporaryItems until you quit safari, then it gets deleted.

I keep an alias to this folder on my desktop just for this purpose

crooner · Dec 1, 2005, 08:54 AM

Is this info up to date for Tiger?

Uisce · 10:08 AM

You only need Tinkertool if you want to go through Finder. If you use Terminal, you should be able to get to the file and copy it wherever you want. But if you have Quicktime Pro, you should be able to simply ctrl-click on the movie once its fully loaded and save it.

In Terminal, private is four levels up from your user directory (../../../../)

Go down the path elec' gave you - private/tmp/501/TemporaryItems

type "cp [filename] -- you can also just type the first few letters and a * if there are no other similarly named files in the directory

Click on the finder icon, and go to the folder you want to copy the file in. Once you are there, grab the icon of the folder at the very top of the window, and drag it into Terminal at the command line. Then, hit return on the keyboard and Terminal will copy the movie you want into the folder you want.

Feel free to rename the gibberish at any time, and add a .mov extension. This works for any filetype btw - wmv, rm, etc.

Now, if you want to get really fancy....

Lets say you want to go to this folder often. Once you are where you want to be (Safari's temp directory), go to the menu and choose save. Give the term file a name you'll recognize, and thenselect the last option - execute command. in the address window, put in something like this to get to Safari's Temp folder: "cd ../../../../tmp/501/TemporaryItems"

Save that, and next time you open Terminal, all you have to do is go to file->open and open your saved .term file. You can also put it someplace that works for you and just click the actual file.

crooner · 02:13 PM

Thanks for the fast help.
I'm still having problems.

Here’s the situation...
I found these great clips of Paul McCartney on AOL Sessions but they are streamed. None of the tricks I've found on the web (here, macosxhints.com, etc.) seem to work.

Here's an example: I extracted the movie URL from the source code of the Safari page frame that AOL is using to serve the movie. I then pasted that URL into QuickTime Player and it loaded the movie fine. Problem is, once the movie is fully loaded, all save, export, share and copy options are greyed out. (Yes, I do have QuickTime Pro, latest version).

Here is one of the movie URLs:
http://pdl.stream.aol.com/aol/us/aol...essions_dl.mov

This will bring up a live studio clip of him and his band playing 'Long and Winding Road.'
Trying to get to the clip via Terminal results in Terminal app hiccupping on the "http%3..." stuff. Is there any way around this or has AOL built the perfect mouse trap? If you can help me out on this, please be as explicit as you can in describing the necessary steps - I'm no novice but I've been up all night and my mind is now mush (fueled by the frustration over not being able to get these damn clips onto my iPod!).

Extremely grateful for your help!

Person Man · Dec 1, 2005, 11:15 AM

Originally Posted by crooner

Thanks for the fast help.
I'm still having problems.

Here’s the situation...
I found these great clips of Paul McCartney on AOL Sessions but they are streamed. None of the tricks I've found on the web (here, macosxhints.com, etc.) seem to work.

If they are streamed, then the movie file itself is only going to have instructions to play the stream off the server. None of it is downloaded to your computer permanently.

AFAIK, if it is a stream, then you may have to use something like Snapz Pro X to make a video of the stream as it plays on your computer and then use QuickTime Player to compress the resulting file as an iPod video.

I did this myself, and used very little compression on the resulting movie file from Snapz. The file was 1 GB in size. Then I loaded it into QuickTime and chose convert for iPod and it resized and compressed it down to 34 MB and it looks and sounds great on the iPod.

Uisce · 11:30 AM

below

Uisce · Dec 1, 2005, 11:27 AM

Okay, I don't think you are doing this correctly. Do this -

Close Safari. Open Safari. Go to the URL you posted. Let the movie stream in and finish.
Open Terminal. Go the path for its cache. Type "ls" to list what's in there.
You will see a file similar to QTPluginTemp####. That is your movie.

Basic Unix command you use, fyi: cd is change directory. ../ is parent directory. ls is list directory contents. cp is copy file.

%3A is Http code for ":" and is basically gibberish everywhere else. Does this help?

Now, I got the file, but like you, I can't save it through QT pro, nor can I get it to play through Quicktime, VLC or MPlayer. You may have to record it from the monitor and save it as a video file...

Jacke · Dec 1, 2005, 11:43 AM

Is there something I'm missing or aren't y'all making this a little complicated?

Copy url, paste into the Safari download manager and it will save it to your desktop...

Fonzie · Dec 1, 2005, 11:52 AM

^true, you could also copy the URL to Safari's URI bar and hold the Option key while you press Return.

JKT · Dec 1, 2005, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by Uisce

You only need Tinkertool if you want to go through Finder. If you use Terminal, you should be able to get to the file and copy it wherever you want. But if you have Quicktime Pro, you should be able to simply ctrl-click on the movie once its fully loaded and save it.<snip>

You don't need TinkerTool at all. Simply press command-shift-G and type /private in the sheet that appears, then press enter:

You can then navigate the /private folder and its contents at will.

crooner · Dec 1, 2005, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by Jacke

Is there something I'm missing or aren't y'all making this a little complicated?

Copy url, paste into the Safari download manager and it will save it to your desktop...

Okay, that worked. Thank you! I had previously tried that, but was pasting the URL with the gibberish, thereby choking the download.

Now here's the problem: I have the file on my Mac, but when I open it QuickTime will still not let me export it or save it as another format.

What now?

Jacke · Dec 1, 2005, 12:32 PM

Originally Posted by crooner

Now here's the problem: I have the file on my Mac, but when I open it QuickTime will still not let me export it or save it as another format.

What now?

That's because the file has been edit-protected. It's not such a well known feature, nor do I know how it's done. But I do know how to fix it

First you create an image with the same size as the video, then import that file into QT Pro. Then you just drag the edit-protected file onto the Quicktime window.

crooner · Dec 1, 2005, 12:58 PM

Originally Posted by Jacke

That's because the file has been edit-protected. It's not such a well known feature, nor do I know how it's done. But I do know how to fix it

First you create an image with the same size as the video, then import that file into QT Pro. Then you just drag the edit-protected file onto the Quicktime window.

Okay. Stupid question: What do you mean by "creating an image"? Is this done in QuickTime? If so, I can’t seem to find the command. How do I do this?

Thanks a million.

Jacke · Dec 1, 2005, 01:20 PM

Just a regular picture. GIF, JPEG, PCT, BMP... GraphicConverter works well.

crooner · 01:55 PM

oops

crooner · Dec 1, 2005, 01:55 PM

This is getting weirder and weirder... I did as you suggested but whenever I drag the edit-protected file onto the image the only thing that gets imported is the current contents of the clipboard. WTF?

What am I doing wrong?

Jacke · 02:06 PM

Did you drag-and-drop the file from the Finder or just the frame from the file open in Quicktime?

Edit: If you can't get it to work (I'm on QT 6 myself, it could have gotteb changed in 7) there is an alternative method in the form of an old Classic app called MegaMovies avalable from Apple's FTP. Open the app and cancel the first dialog box. Select 'Flatten movies' from the File-menu, set the number of movies you want to flatten (usually 1), choose the movie and a location for the new file and wait.

crooner · Dec 1, 2005, 02:02 PM

Dragged from the Finder. Dragging from the protected file doesn’t work, nor does trying to copy it to the clipboard.

Jacke · Dec 1, 2005, 02:09 PM

Try what I edited into my previous post.

dark3lf · 02:53 PM

Originally Posted by crooner

Thanks for the fast help.
I'm still having problems.

Here’s the situation...
I found these great clips of Paul McCartney on AOL Sessions but they are streamed. None of the tricks I've found on the web (here, macosxhints.com, etc.) seem to work.

Copy and paste the url into Terminal and use either curl or wget (I like wget) to recieve the file. Remember to put the filename in quotes to preserve the url ie. "http://path.com/to/filename.mov".

crooner · Dec 1, 2005, 03:42 PM

Here's what I have stumbled on:
Once I get the URL for the given clip, I open VLC (this little application just became much more crucial to my life) and use the Streaming/Exporting Wizard. This allows you to download and capture a streamed file and choose what format it will be from a modest list of options.
Naturally, it would be far too smooth if the downloaded file opened in QuickTime. It doesn't! Why, I don't know. Thankfully, it does open in iSquint, a great little freeware application that encodes clips for the iPod.
This has been working for me so far (hope it continues).

Man, what a lot of bull**** to go through. Alas, it is worth it. I just saw McCartney live at the MGM here in Vegas over Thanksgiving and he was simply amazing. The guy is 64 (I think) and still can hit all the high notes he did when he was in his twenties. Unbelievable.

For those interested, here's the link to the page that serves up all the various Paul movies AOL offers:

http://music.aol.com/artist/main.adp...&albumid=0

Thanks SO much to everyone for your diligent help. All of your suggestions worked to some degree but the protected file issue in concert with QuickTime 7 became a major stumbling block. Nevertheless, your help is just the kind of example that shows the special nature of us Mac faithful. If anyone wants these videos formatted for the iPod, just PM me.