How-To: Downloading Yahoo! Music Videos with Firefox & VLC
This post was published 4 years 24 days ago and its content may not be valid anymore.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).
[...] How-To: Downloading Yahoo! Music Videos with Firefox & VLC (tags: Yahoo music video howto hacks) [...]
Dude! It dosen’t work !!!!! Could you help me? I am having problems with the “script”, because everytime I right-click on the “here”, there is no option on “install user script”, then everytime I click on the video I want to download, it tells me that I must use Netscape v 7.1,but I am using firefox.HEEEEEELLLLP
MEEEEEEE
SK8 use lyfox its much easier.
I’m consistantly getting only about 2 minutes of each video i downloaded. The rest of the videos do not show. This has happened on my PC and on my Mac. Has anyone else had this problem? Is this new?
what if there’s a popup windows with displaying error …lol…
Polar,Where can I download LyFOX??
That is the entry for LyFOX & VLC
http://www.uneasysilence.com/archive/2005/12/4891/
and get lyfox at this website
http://fernyb.2ya.com/
Polar,Thanx for the help.
Just to update my previous question- I can only download about 2 min of a video at home on my WOW connection, but can get entire videos at work on SBC. file were downloaded on the same machine (pb).
yo ppl, i got a small problem, when i get to this :
Select the music video of your choice. PKLaunch will force the music video to open a new window for video playback.
Ther’s the new window that opens, but in the box, it tells me this :
ERROR
To use this application with Netscape, you must use version 7.1 or above. Download now.
Please use the following error code when writing to Yahoo! Help. (Error Code: 12)
I am getting the same problem
ERROR
To use this application with Netscape, you must use version 7.1 or above. Download now.
Please use the following error code when writing to Yahoo! Help. (Error Code: 12)
getting same error also. has there been a fix for this.. Thanks!!
Im using what it says in the directions and it works just fine, but will it mess up the video download if I get another video while it is downloading? Like If im downloading a video and I try to open another stream to get the video code will it mess up the download?
Wow! I finally got mine to work.
Try going here if you’re still having problems:
>
I’m using WinXP SP2 with WMP 10.
http://www.pooyak.com/p/pklaunch/
As mention in a few posts, I have also reached a point where I can only down 2 minutes of a video. Can someone mention why this is now happening….
Try different Programs to download the stream.
http://sdp.ppona.com/
yeah, um i get to the last step thinking YESSS i did it
and then instead of “dump raw output” i get this option of “Dump raw INput”
and then either way i ignore the difference and do everything i’m supposed to and click OK…
and nothing is saved. whats up with that? -_-
where do i get a VLC player for windows?
You guys rock! I have now like 50 videos
I can get up to step 5 but when i do the thing won’t play in VLC. this is frustrating! whats wrong? Plz help
Also to add to above, the time block does not appear.
the time block won’t appear unless the video is actually playing on vlc, but i’m pretty sure the mms url that shows up regardless of the timeblock is exactly the same as the one in the time block’s info
so just take the mms that shows up and continue on to the next step, see what happens
actually i am now usin lyfox but after i save the video, it only plays like 7 seconds, starts over, then play a half second more and starts over. etc……
Is this still working for anyone?
I figured out a way to download many at once using LyFox and VLC. When you search for your artist in LyFox, double click on the video and copy the code. With the VLC playlist window open go to manage-add MRL, In the new window go to network, click the HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/MMS bullet, paste your MMS URL into that box, Click the stream output box then click on the settings box beside it, click the file box, then click browse and select a place you would like to save the video, then put the name of the video and .WMV on the end, make sure you click the “dump raw input” box, after that click ok and ok, then go back select another video,change the URL and the .wmv name to match the new video, then just keep adding, after you are through adding, or if you want to get a head start, double clicking the top URL activates the downloads then it goes from there down the list, the current download will be in BOLD, So it is basically the same thing listed here except it skips a steo and its easier/faster.
I seriously love you guys. Especially whoever made the Flash animation. Much more explainatory for me than the actual tutorial. *Dances with Joy* My problem of not being able to watch vids on my laptop due to no internet is no longer a problem. :)
Okay. I’ve been trying for SO long to get this to work, but the videos just don’t play when I go to the Yahoo! site.
Can anyone PLEASE help me out with this?
http://www.uneasysilence.com/archive/2005/12/4891/
A Video how to do it.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8891760543316881678&q=lyfox
Um, i installed the script, and installed correctly, but it is not working. my window still opens regularly without the menu bar.
I think that the mms links from Yahoo launch can’t be downloaded like this anymore. I just tried both with Flashget and Net Transport with no success
Everything works perfect, use VLC or SDP for windows, on VLC you might get some error just ignore them and everything works fine. On Macintosh you only have one choise and that is to use VLC, you might get some error saying TCP could not open connection or something like that it is usually 2 errors just ignore the dialogs and it downloads the videos fine. and this is using LyFOX to retrive the MMS URL.
can som1 plz tell me how to save the music file on vlc-0.8.4a
Um, I get a black screen and no video. I cannot right click. It has the highlight-over-text mouse. Can some one help me out?
Use LyFOX, if anyone else post after me they got to be really stupid.
I installed greasemonkey and the pklauncher but the music videos don’t open in the pklauncher. im using a PC and if anyone could help i would gladly appreciate it.
Hey Noob use LyFOX instead of PKlaunch its easier.
Maybe I missed the reply, but I’m having the problem that ‘Jump’ logged (6 Months – 2 weeks ago)….
Hey guys i got the new script installed however, it eliminates the top bar on the brower, so there is no way for me to perform step #3 on this tutorial… i cannot get to tools->page info
What should I do about this?
…… I’m using Windows Media Player 9. Does that prevent the top bar on the top of the bar from appearing? (preventing me of performing step #3)…..
Thanks All…..
Hi,
I am using PKlaunch. I am not trying to download the video, all I am doing is to try to get the same thing that works in Windows to work under linux. PKLaunch makes mplayer plugin play the video and this works. But my problem is that it stops working if I _navigate_ to a different page (in music.yahoo.com) and try to play a different video. Is this because PKLaunch strips some session cookies? PKLaunch seems to create its own headers, can it use the browser http headers?
I’m also a noob. I just use Firefox and I can’t get the download to work. I open up the Yahoo video in a new window, right click on Page Info, go to the media tab and all I can see is a bunch of .jpeg and .gif files. I’ve tried this with a few videos. I’ve already downloaded the PKLaunch and did everything the tutorial said. Please help.
Yes cozza the same thing is happening to me the vid opens in a window called somethink like http://mv.us.music.yaho... but when i look for it in the page info i cant find the page or how it is above in the picture posted in the tutorial can any1 help
Does any1 no how to convert the files to the psp i have used many programs to convert them to mp4 but they never work thx
Paul if your on the Mac use Flip4mac and PSPware FFMPEGX will also work
Can anybody teach me how to download videos but in plain engish!:) I cant seem to catch up on the conversations. Im lost,
O ferny thx for posting and trying to help but i finally got it to work last night with nero recoder im not sure why but out of alot of programs this was the only one to work but thx anyway
Lee i can try to help but ive only known how to do it within the last 3 days but wat isit u need help on neway isit
Hi Paul! To tell you the truth I don’t know much about coms but I catch up up somehow.
I want to learn how to download music videos from yahoo. I already dowloaded the Firefox, the pklaunch, greasemonkey (although somthing is wrong. I think) and the VLC. One problem damn thing is in Chinese. I can’t read it.
Now I found this site called http://www.zfeez.com im able to dowload videos but when I try to upload in Youtube it wont work. How how d carabaw? Do you know paul?
Hmm well try to copy this adress into ur browser http://www.videolan.org/mirror.php?mirror=http://mirrors.optralan.com/videolan/&file=vlc/0.8.5/win32/vlc-0.8.5-win32.exe
then once uve got that go to http://www.fernyb.net/ and download lyfox once uve done all this jus open lyfox and type the artist or video which is on yahoo which i want to get and it should come up double clik the video that u want and then near the bottom of lyfox u shud c a arrow which u need to clik which will drop down with more info when u clik that it sould show u a mms link then u must copy that whole link now u can exit lyfox
now open up vlc and goto file open network stream and u will c about 4 boxes u have to mark the box called HTTP/HTTPS/FTP/MMS and then paste the link that u copied from lyfox in the url box, once uve done that mark the box called Stream/Save and clik setting, on setting mark the box called File then clik browse and name ur file to watever u want to call it ok that and then clik the box called dump raw data then scroll to the bottom of the page and clik ok then ok the other box and the lan player will go back to its main page after a few seconds u will c the player bar at the bottom move which is the player saving ur file once the player bar has stopped ur file should be saved all u now have to do is put .wmv at the end of ur file
(I NO THAT MY ENGLISH IS VERY BAD DONT FLAME ME ANY1)
lee if u cannot understand or get stuck on a point post back il leave this page open on my browser becus i have jus read wat i posted and its not even proper english
Ok Paul Ill try It now. I just saw you reply awhile ago. Don’t worry your English is quite well.
Paul do I still need the firefox? and the one that you ask me to get first is the VLC before getting the lyFox at Ferny’s site right?
Hey Paul Your a great teacher! I could just kiss you! joke only, hehehe! But there is one problem how come it only plays about 17 seconds? Paul help! ; )
Paul!!!!! You know what! I’m dancing with joy now! Damn your a good teacher! Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!! Im so happeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! Hey check out the first video I downloaded at http://www.youtube.com/user/leerami Okay you probably think its corny but at least I did it thanks to you! Hmwaaaaaa! Thanks again!!!
LoooooooooooooooooL it feels good huh when u finally no how to do it
Tbh i thought that when u read wat i wrote, u was gona reply with “WTF R U TALKING ABOUT” but u did it neway nice 1
You said it! ; )
It took me til 2:30 in the morning to get it all. At first it didn’t work out on my first try slightly frustrated but at least it was working. Then I tried it again and “voila” it worked! You can’t imagine how happy I was!
Thanks again! Good thing you explained it a little better than the one posted at the top. But you know if my computer is in English I might understand a little better. But anyways its ok now.
By the way do I still need the firefox or I can just delete it? Or if I delete, Lyfox can’t work?
Emm Lee Tbh i dont no if it will work without firefox, but from wat ive herd firefox is a safer browser to use then I.E neway so u should jus keep it.
Ok if you say so. Thanks Paul! : )
LoL np:)
Yo Ferny B is there a way of getting the yahoo videos without them being censored becus its very fucking irritating when they black out the explict words
O yeh 1 other thing ferny do u no why lyfox doesnt find some videos
e.g u search “the streets” and only “fit but u no it comes up” do u no why this is or how to find the other videos
thx man :]
I can’t find the source for the videos. I can get the video to play fine in firefox but when I do the page info the source for the video isn’t there.
Help please :-D
Hey Kelly, ask Ferny! go to his site at http://www.fernyb.net/ then go to contact ask him from there. You’ll get answers faster. He is a whiz at this!
Paul, I read your guide and everything looked cool.
But I had one problem. I couldn’t find the dump raw data.
I can’t scroll down either.
I’m not sure what I’m doing honest lol.
Help me if you can.
Thanks
Andy,
The dump raw is a check box next to the browse button and what he meant by scroll down was just move the mouse to the ok button.
Oh now I get it.
Thanks a lot Secret. =)
Hmm i only jus checked back on this page have u done it now andy
Ya I got everything now.
I didn’t get where the dump raw data was.
Thanks for checking in Paul.
np Andy :)
Btw does any1 know how to save macromedia flash videos straight from a site
e.g http://www.faithsfx.co.uk
Thx
I’m not postive about this method but I think you can capture the flash on SnagIt or camstudio. I heard this works with most flashes from my friends as they record everything with Snagit.
I think you should give it a try.
I cannot get it to work! I have greasemonkey enabled, the pklaunch installed but everytime I open a video i get this message:
ERROR
We are experiencing technical difficulties right now, please try again later.
Please use the following error code when writing to Yahoo! Help. (Error Code: 24)
I can’t seem to get VLC to download properly. Typically, the stream works fine until maybe around 3/4 of the way, at which point it appears yahoo closes the stream. I’m on XP if that makes a difference (from what I’ve been reading of the comments it might). It’s possible that my internet connection is just poor, but this is unlikely.
Any reason using a download manager with the mms doesn’t work? Any way to fix that?
Help am like lost…. am trying 2 d/l a vblog in youtube…but as far as i noe u cant so far and not sure if u can now… i got dat greasemonky…. am like al lost in dis area if some could please help me out ^^
ok a ndy thx man il try it :)
Hey victor, read paul’s instructions. they are somewhat easier to understand! Coz I did! hehehe
By the way Victor get lyfox instead of the pklaunch and greasemonkey they are much easier to use.
ok i dunno if i need to download the vlc player to get this to work can anyone tell me if i do? i get to step 3, when i click on the video i want to play the window just pops up and i can’t get the url..
Hey Paul I’m just checking in to see if the SnagIt thing worked.
Tell me if it worked or not.
Thanks
Hey has anyone got this working recently? Wen I open the yahoo music video it just stays in the yahoo player and doesnt open in a new window at all, I am 100% sure the pklaunch installed successfully, pleeasse help!!!
I LOVEN BLINK-182 AND ANGELS AND AIRWAVES. I LOVE YOU ALL THE PEOPLE.
OOOOOOOHHHH!TOM DELONGE
Help plz!
I have installed Grease Monkey and the PKLaunch, I enter the yahoo music video, and select the one I want to download, the new window opens, I enter the “Media” tab, but i cant find which one is the video, i just get images and flash objects :S
I leave ScreenShot,
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/4782/2mr2.jpg
Thanks a lot!!!
Why i kept getting this error?
main error: Connection to a2swmod028.bcst.a2s.yahoo.com port 1755 failed: Connection timed out
access_mms error: failed to open a connection (tcp)
main error: Connection to a2swmod028.bcst.a2s.yahoo.com port 1755 failed: Connection timed out
access_mms error: failed to open a connection (tcp)
access_mms error: cannot connect to server
access_mms error: error: HTTP/1.0 401 Unauthorized
main error: no suitable access module for `mms://a2swmod028.bcst.a2s.yahoo.com/p09r19/146/__S__/LAUvpwm9/13/23561090.wmv?StreamID=23561090&xdata=Eyn8J0.fyfuV36ip45Kw3A-39645402-1453478966&b=9e0q77l1c33ef&s=396500550′
so I downloaded everything I was supposed to, even the new PKlaunch and I get this blank black screen. Is there anything Ican do to actually get the music video to play?
i followed all the instructions on this site and i think i got it all to work,, but hey,, im in japan now,, and i cant get to watch or view the music videos from other countries.. what the f*ck is wrong with japan????? eniwei gud work guyz..
I was wondering if anyone could tell me how to rip AOL videos. I really want this one video and I don’t know how?
I am new to this, have installed everything right it seems, yet when I open up the video, it just loads in the standard yahoo player. I can get to the page info by right clicking on the area above the video in the blue background and selecting info, but when I go to the media tab all the objects are images or something, all the embed files are shockwaves. I uninstalled all other firefox extensions, not sure why I can’t get these to work… is it still a valid method to get yahoo vids?
nevermind that last post i restarted my comp and got into the normal pklaunch screen but its blank grey…
i got this to work but the video can’t be fast forward or rewind. it just plays straight through. can anyone help me convert this into a format so it can actually be fast forward or rewind or go to certain spot in the video?.thnx alot.
Does this even still work?
I can get the mms link a number of ways, but when i put it into VLC or FlashGet, I always get an error. Any help?
thx 4 this tut! still works!
Not sure if this still works, please update this! I would love to use it!
this sucks it doesnt work it plays normally it doesnt launch the player
The internet is OURS
this method is a crap. i have downloaded and installed everything but nothing happens. everytime it opens the yahoo standard media player. i dont wat really is the problem. i have wasted my 3 hours on this f**king method.
this worked for me:
install mediaplayer connectivity and greasemonkey extensions;
install the pkLaunch userscript;
when you have the new window with the video open right click and ‘find all media links on page’; when the list (will just be one) comes up, click the + until you get the mms:// url and copy that and use mplayer or vlc to download it.
(this works without any quicktime/wmp/realplayer plugins)
hey, i just downloaded my 1st video & its awesome!
but how can i get it into itunes???
got it.(Videora iPod Converter- for anyone else who needs it)
i can’t see it has a different, it work nomal not luanch the player in a new window
please help me. i dont know why i cannot install the PKlaunch. I have downloaded it already but everytime i try to open it ERROR: expected identifier, string or number appears. Code 800A0404. Microsoft Jscript compilation error. please tell me what to do. Thanks.
Im having trouble locating the correct stream address. I already have grease monkey and PKLaunch installed. Please help. Thanks