How-To: Downloading Yahoo! Music Videos with Firefox & VLC
This post was published 4 years 5 months 8 days ago which may make its actuality or expire date not be valid anymore. This site is not responsible for any misunderstanding.Update 12/29: For a streamlined method of retrieving the required MMS:// URi, check our latest tutorial: How-To: Download music videos from Yahoo with LyFOX & VLC.
Update 10/17: Do something with your new WMV video collection. Convert the videos and import them into iTunes: How-To: Convert WMV to MOV for playback in iTunes [Windows].
Hat tip to Adam for helping throw this updated tutorial together for downloading Yahoo! Music Videos. I know a few readers were waiting patiently for updates to our How-To: Download Music Videos from Yahoo Launch with VLC, How-To: Download Music Videos from Yahoo Launch with Flashget, and How-To: Download 700K music video streams from Yahoo. As a forewarning, the first run through will be a bit tedious.
If you don’t have Firefox and the very useful GreaseMonkey Firefox extension installed on your system, you will not be able to complete this tutorial.
Step 1: Install the PKLaunch userscript. There are two versions. On for both OSX and Windows users. Windows users right-click here and select “Install user script”. OSX users do the same here.
Step 2: Sign in with your Yahoo account on Yahoo! Launch. Select the music video of your choice. PKLaunch will force the music video to open a new window for video playback. Make note of the drop down menu which offers different video bandwidth options. If you recall our previous tutorials, the 700K streams are higher quality videos usually reserved for SBC Yahoo! customers.
Step 3: The next step requires that you open an “info” window on the currently playing video. OSX users press ‘CMD + I’ and Windows users select ‘Tools > Page Info’ from the toolbar menu.
In the ‘Information’ window select the ‘Media’ tab. With the stream address highlighted, select the ‘Save As..’ button at the bottom of the window. When prompted with the ‘Save As..’ window, change the “medialog.ASP” filename to “medialog.TXT”.
Step 4: Open the “medialog.TXT” file in the plain text editor of your choice. Highlight the entire .ASX address and save it to your clipboard (Windows: CTRL + C; OSX: CMD + C).
Step 5: Open VLC. Go to ‘File > Open Network Stream’. Paste the previously copied .ASX address into the ‘HTTP / FTP / MMS / RTSP’ field. Make sure that the ‘Advanced / Stream output’ box at the bottom of the window is unchecked.
Step 6: This next step will differ depending on your OS. With the stream playing in VLC:
Windows users: Select ‘View > Playlist’. In the ‘Playlist’ window expand the entries until you locate a time block. It will look something like -(0:04:01). Right-click on the item and select ‘Info’. The URi field will contain the coveted MMS:// URi.
OSX users: While the stream is playing, hit CMD + I. The MMS:// address is in the URi field. Copy the address and close the window.
Step 7: Return to the main VLC window. Go to ‘File > Open Network Stream’. Paste the MMS:// URi into the ‘HTTP / FTP / MMS / RTSP’ field. Make sure that ‘Advanced / Stream Output’ is checked and select the ‘Settings’ button. In the ‘Settings’ box select the ‘File’ radio button. Specify the save path and title the video filename.WMV. Lastly, check the ‘Dump Raw Output’ box and click ‘OK’ through the settings windows. VLC will download the video to your specified directory.
If you find step by step text tutorials challenging to follow, check out the Flash video here (Windows users).
thank you paul for explaining it so well! i followed your instructions using lyfox and vlc and it worked perfectly.. i captured a rare exclusive video that i’ve been wanting for 3 years!! this is the only thing i’ve tried that has worked, i’m so happy :D thank you thank you thank you!!
Just wanna thank whoever made this guide. But i had a question if the trick would work on any other sites, like youtube or ifilm. thanks a lot
When I go into Yahoo Launch and open up the video I want (I use Windows) there is no “tools” button- I have firefox, greasemonkey, and the script downloaded so what am i doing wrong?
When I go to the view page info and then media, it shows multiple media files, but no medialog one … any help?
I have followed all the steps successfully until the media tab under view page info. When I get there, there are multiple files, but not medialog – I tried all of them, but none worked – any help?
Also, there is no find all media files under my right click button (someone suggested that).
what version of VLC is this tutorial using?
and i can’t get the videos to save as anything other than that *file thing
If you are using a pc this is the easiest way to do this
First download and install SDP Multimedia found here http://sdp.ppona.com/
1. Run PkLaunch like the tutorial says
2. Right Click on the video when it starts playing and hit properties
3. Select and Copy the link on the LOCATION section of it
4. Run SDP Multimedia and hit the Open button and paste the link
5. When it pops up would u like to save the location file hit no.
6. Hit the Go button at the top and when the prompt comes up name the file whatever u want and hit ok. It will then download.
This technique is much easier and quicker than the one in the tutorials
I have greasemonkey and pklaunch, but how do you get the music video to open in the pklaunch window? thanks.
I’ve been able to do everything, but the videos are very jumpy. Are there any solutions to this problem?
Dane cook, good one by the way, I tried your method of using the SDP multimedia downloader and I get this error. Connecting…
> Resolving DNS IP address, please wait…
> CONNECTED at: 12:54:20 PM Date: 3/14/2007
> Server Address: 209.73.189.xxx
> Server Port: 1755
> Local Address: 10.228.8.xxx
> Local TCP Port 1569
> Initialising streaming protocol, waiting for reply…
> TCP network timing packets received
> Server Error Message : You do not have access to the location or file
> Disconnected
Do you have any idea why that would occur? Thanks
Not sure what im doing wrong but when i right click the link above to install the pklaunch .js user script with grease monkey, it doesn’t have a install option, just to ‘view user script source’. How do i install the script?
ok, got the pklaunch to work by going to there website, but is there anyway to convert the .wmv files to .flv? the programs im using now just freeze up or dont convert the file.
It s cooooooooooooooool , It really works!!!!!!!!!! I cant beleive it yet ….anyway you are a computer genius ……..one of the greatest
[...] Update 10/16: The updated tutorial for download music videos from Yahoo! Launch is here: How-To: Downloading Yahoo! Music Videos with Firefox & VLC. [...]
i am trying to download a video from yahoo.com and i have no idea how to find the stream address. the music video is skillet’s rebirthing. if anybody can tell me how to find the stream address that would be great.
You can download yahoo videos with http://www.vidoho.com/download.php
Also other video sharing sites you can download videos. For example: Myspace, Youku.com, Video.qq.com, Vsocial, Clipfish, Rutube.ru, Videa.hu etc…
I don’t know if any of these methods work anymore since yahoo switch from using windows media video files to flash video files. I can’t get pklaunch to work anymore.
If you still want them someone needs to find a way to download the flv files
when ever i have vlc installed and i try to download torrent files, firefox immediately tries to open it with vlc instead of uTorrent, i cant figure out how to change the settings so it automatically opens with uTorrent rather than vlc, does anybody know how to correct this?????
Ok, so this method no longer works for Yahoo videos. I tried using Firefox plug-in “downloadhelper” but it seems that the yahoo video is a streaming flv file…….
Downloadhelper works for me on Yahoo! videos.
I’m having trouble gettin’ the “mms” address.
I used to do this be4, now it dsn’t wrk!
For me it also does not work :-(
Use Orbit and open Grab++ from the tools menu. Works to get all kinds of vids, although I have only tried to on Yahoo and YouTube. Works perfect.
Shawn is exactly correct i use it to download anything and everything, its the #1 thing for me to use to download yahoo videos, or any video
For downloading videos and music from any other site than Yahoo try out: http://netvideohunter.com