WoPC Logo 

Downloading Media Files from Websites

468x60

Index

Sitemap

Advanced Search

 

Site search by freefind

 

Contents:

  1. What are Media Files?

  2. Are there multiple formats for Audio and Video files?

  3. What is Embedding? What is Streaming Media?

  4. Why is it so slow and jerky, playing Streaming Media files?

  5. What are Codecs?

  6. Is it possible to copy Embedded Media files onto my Computer?


What are Media Files?

Media files are files that contain audio (such as music) or video (such as movies). Media files may be on your Computer's Hard Disk (like when you copy the movie you shot of your pet dog from your Handycam to your Computer) or on a CD/ DVD (like when you have a movie CD or DVD) or on a website that you have visited (like YouTube, etc.).

Are there multiple formats for Audio and Video Files?

There are already over 300 Audio file formats, although just a handful of them have gained universal popularity. Click here for a listing of Audio file formats

Audio file formats may be grouped into the following broad categories:

  1. Uncompressed audio formats (for example, .WAV, .AIFF, .AU, etc.). Uncompressed audio file sizes are large and closely follow the original sound, as may be imagined.

  2. Audio file formats adopting Lossless Compression techniques, such as .FLAC, .APE, .WV, Lossless .ATRAC and the Lossless .WMA format

  3. Audio file formats adopting Lossy Compression techniques such as .MP3, Lossy .ATRAC, Lossy .WMA, etc. As the name suggests, these files occupy much less disk space but compromise in terms of quality of sound.

Audio file formats may also be classified as Free and Proprietary file formats. Free audio file formats include .WAV, .MID, .GSM, .DCT, etc., which may be used free of royalty by any vendor dealing with audio files. On the other hand, Proprietary audio file formats are developed by vendors for their products/ services alone. Some of them may be used by other vendors on payment of royalty, while the rest are not for sale! Examples of proprietary audio file formats are .WMA, .MP4, .ATRAC, .RA, .MSV, etc.

As more and more vendors/ software developers devise their proprietary file formats, the number of audio file formats is set to grow. Needless to say, this creates confusion, for proprietary file formats of any kind require specialized software for the file to work! However, there are programs that play many of the popular file formats. For example, WinAmp the freeware Music Player recognizes and plays almost all popular audio file formats. This is done using 'Codecs' for multiple audio or video formats. More about Codecs later...

Again, there are over 150 Video file formats as well, currently. Video file formats too may be compressed or uncompressed, free or proprietary. Popular Video formats are .AVI, .MP4, .WMV, .MOV, .MP4, .FLV, etc. The multiplicity of video file formats too causes problems, since not all of them are free file formats. Click here for a listing of Video file formats.

What is Embedding? What is Streaming Media?

When the Internet was 'young', websites contained text and still pictures/ photographs alone. However today, thousands of websites contain rich media content, i.e., Audio and Video content. It is certain that you would have come across media (audio and/ or video) during your visits to sites such as YouTube, which 'Embed' media files into their web pages. Click on the link for the media file and you are 'Streaming' the embedded video file to your Computer! Streaming is thus different from playing a media file that is resident on your Computer's Hard Disk or DVD drive. For those of you who want definitions, Streaming multimedia is multimedia that is constantly received by, and normally presented to, an end-user, while it is being delivered by a streaming provider. The term "presented" includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself. The distinction is usually applied to media that are distributed over telecommunications networks, as most other delivery systems are either inherently streaming (e.g., radio, television) or inherently non-streaming (e.g., books, video cassettes, audio CDs, Movie DVDs, etc.). The verb 'to stream' is also derived from this term, meaning to deliver media in this manner.

You cannot download an embedded file the way you would download software. Embedded files require special tools for downloading onto your Hard Disk. Note that it is illegal to download certain types of embedded Media files from certain sites.

WellOiledPC does not, in any manner, promote downloading of illegal embedded files!

Sites embed media files when it meshes well with the rest of their content. For example, a website that teaches you how to use Microsoft's Excel Spreadsheet program may have a Learning Video to illustrate their tutorials. Similarly, a Website dedicated to a famous singer or musician would embed the person's music. Again, a travel site could include not just pictures, but even videos of the tourist spots under discussion. And if you are stuck at a particular level in your favorite Computer game, you may want to download its Video Walkthrough onto your Hard Disk, rather that watch it jerkily over your Internet connection! You could also view it multiple times and anytime you want to view it too!

Our Focus 

PCs: Hardware, Software and Computer Services. And, People who use PCs

People seeking reliable advice for PC Purchases

People seeking advice for extracting maximum utility from their PCs 

People looking for reviews of and purchase links for top-notch Security Products (AntiViruses, AntiSpyware, etc.)

Small/ Home Offices with Networked PCs, seeking maximum RoI from their IT Investments/ advice on expanding IT Infrastructure

People and Corporations planning to set up professional, contemporary, optimized, aesthetic websites

Worldwide IT Vendors looking for authentic, professional and inexpensive Market Research on global IT Markets

Software Developers wanting to Document/ create quality User Manuals for their Products/ Services
Why is it so slow and jerky, playing Streaming Media files?

Playing media files over the Internet - e specially video files, is usually very slow to start. This is because your Computer needs to 'buffer' the file, before it can begin playing it. Thus, you may need to wait several minutes sometimes, before the chosen media file begins to play. 'Buffering' refers to the process where your Computer reads as much of the file as possible into its memory from the Website, before it begins to play: until this happens, it is as if you have pressed the 'Pause' button on your Home DVD player! The difference is that you do not need to 'Unpause' - your Computer does this and plays the newly-buffered part of the file automatically.

Once the media (audio or video file) starts playing, it is usually a stop-start operation thereafter too. You would hear a few seconds of the media file, after which it pauses again, so as to buffer more of the file. It may similarly stop abruptly and restart automatically many times, before the file is completely heard/ viewed. This is because each time, it becomes necessary to buffer yet another piece of the file, before it can be played.

The process of buffering is slow and jerky since it is dependent on your bandwidth and main memory (RAM). You will need HUGE bandwidth and Gigabytes of RAM, to be able to play large video files without recourse to buffering!

What are Codecs?

In general terms, a codec is a device or program capable of encoding and/ or decoding a digital data stream or signal - be it audio or video or a mixture of both audio and video. This is how it gets its name: COder-DECoder. An Audio Codec is a hardware device or a Computer program that compresses and decompresses digital audio data, according to the specified audio file format or streaming audio format. The Codec 'Algorithm' represents the high-fidelity audio signal with minimum number of bits while retaining the quality. This can effectively reduce the storage space and the bandwidth required for transmission of the stored audio file. Most Codecs are implemented as libraries which interface to one or more Multimedia players - such as the popular Apple Quicktime, WinAmp and Windows Media Player. Note that if you DO NOT have the Codec for, say, the .MP3 Audio file format, then you CANNOT play ANY .MP3 files on your Computer!

Click here for a listing of common Audio Codecs

Similarly, a Video Codec is a hardware device or software program that enables Video Compression and/ or decompression for digital video, according to the specified video file format or streaming video format. Video compression usually employs lossy data compression techniques, since high-quality video occupies huge amounts of file space. It was around the time the CD appeared, that the digital video format replaced the till-then populat analog video file format: analog video files, stored on magnetic tapes, cannot be stored on CDs or DVDs! It was then that a variety of digital signal processing technologies began to emerge.

Digital Audio and Video call for customized methods of compression. There is a complex balance between the video quality, the quantity of the data needed to represent it (also known as the bit rate), the complexity of the encoding and decoding algorithms, robustness to data losses and errors, ease of editing, random access, the state of the art of compression algorithm design, end-to-end delay, and a number of other factors. Thus, if you have downloaded, say a .FLV file format video to your Computer and it does not play, it is clear that you have not installed the Video Codec that plays the .FLV file format!

Click here for a listing of common Video Codecs

Is it possible to copy Embedded Media files onto my Computer?

Clearly, streaming a media file from a website is not as pleasant as playing it from your Computer's hard Disk or CD/ DVD Drive! Again, when a media file is part of a website, you need to browse to the site, to view it. We are sure you would have wished you could copy the file to your machine, so that you could view it without having to visit the site - and, without the annoying stop-start buffering as well!

Most websites "embed" media files to their content. By doing so, they want you to return to their website, every time you want to listen/ view the media file. Each visit you make to their website increases their tally of visitors by one and thus, enhances their visitor count. This will enhance their "Page Rank" and "Alexa Ranking", enabling them to charge higher for advertisements on their site and enhancing their website's value.

So back to the original question: is it possible to copy embedded media files onto my Computer? The answer is Yes. However, it isn't as simple as downloading, say a software program, from a website - software programs are not embedded into a website's content!

Downloading a media file from a website onto your Computer depends on the following two factors:

  1. Your Browser

  2. The type of media file you plan to download

Note that this pertains to downloading media files alone - to be able to play media files from your Computer or off a website, you need to have a suitable program (such as Windows Media Player/ Apple QuickTime, etc.) as well as the corresponding codecs installed on your Computer. For example, you will not be able to view, say, .FLV files - even though you have Apple QuickTime, Windows Media Player and half a dozen other programs that play media files installed on your Computer - if you do not have the codec for playing .FLV files!

You have the freeware program Orbit (http://www.orbitdownloader.com/download.htm) that may be used with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Maxthon2, CometBird, Opera and Netscape Navigator Browsers. GetGo (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1993) is yet another freeware Embedded Media Downloader that integrates with both Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. In addition to these freeware, some popular Browsers also have add-ons for downloading Embedded Media files from Websites, if you use the Browser concerned. We discuss the best option for some of the popular Browsers:

Mozilla Firefox:

For Firefox users, you have the extremely popular add-on DownloadThemAll (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/201) as well as relatively less-known add-ons like Download Embedded (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1993) and Fast Video Download (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3590)

Microsoft Internet Explorer:

The best option for downloading embedded Media Files under Internet Explorer Version is easily Orbit. The more difficult way to do that is as follows:

  1. Play the entire embedded file (video or audio), from start to finish

  2. Open the temporary internet file folder in Internet Explorer. Now, select "Tools" from the main menu and "Internet Options" from the Tools menu. Under the general tab that is now visible, click on "Settings" in the browsing history section of the General tab. Click on "View Files." This folder is the temporary Internet folder

  3. Click on the folder heading entitled size and arrange the files from largest to smallest. Typically the embedded video file that was just viewed will be one of the largest files in the folder

  4. Open the destination folder and paste the embedded video file. With the destination folder open choose "Edit" from the main menu. From the main menu select "Paste," now the file is available to view anytime

Mozilla CometBird:

Most of the Firefox Add-ons work with CometBird as well.

Maxthon2 Browser:

Once again, Orbit is the easiest Embedded Media file downloader, if you use Maxthon2 Browser.

728x90