40 Comments
- mozzer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15It's simple hacks like such as this I appreciate the most. Great info.
- JoshHendo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9I use Ubuntu, and when I press Download with "Windows/Mac" selected, it will download a AVI file. So in other words, yes.
- festivalman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I think the bigger question is, what's up with the cat in the sample video on that page? I've never seen a cat act so dead before without actually being... it was starting to look like one of those evil videos until it finally woke up.
- goblindegook, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Are you using Windows? I know that if you try to download a Google Video file with Linux, you'll get a regular AVI instead of a GVI. You should be able to do the same from Windows by altering the user agent information passed to the site . . . has anyone tried that?
- 3lancR, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6http://keepvid.com . ANYONE?
- noamsml, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Uh, when I download google vids I just get a plain ol' avi file.
On an unrelated subject: Why is there an ad for Opera *8* on the linked website when Opera 9 is already out? - Banshie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Did google offer direct .AVI download for linux users?
- markp93, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The author makes mention of "Media Player Classic" -- this looks like a really incredible piece of software, with lots of plugins/extensions available:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli - babbling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Yes.
I don't like it when people are excluded from services (in this case, Windows/Mac users) just because of the software they use, but I have noticed that some people on Digg (Windows users, presumably) don't think it is a big deal when people running Linux get excluded. Hopefully this will change their minds about whether or not it is okay to treat people differently based on their software. - WorldGroove, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4(I have no idea if this helps anyone, but I've seen a couple of posts about downloading GoogleVids and nobody has mentioned this.)
After downloading the gvp file, open it in notepad then copy the URL up to the point *before* the ampersand and the word "sigh". For example:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2099497025296508677&q=DIgg&hl=en
Click on "Download the vid for Windows/Mac", then alittle below that button click on "Manually download the vid" and you'll get the gvp file.
Now, in there you'll see a long link, but if you copy the text after "url:" and before the ampersand and the word "sigh", you get this:
http://vp.video.google.com/videodownload?version=0&secureurl=sgAAAIUcsw4S2Jsrhrl8rImy7UiycO8IhpuSvucTYxc3J7rsUgCillu7Uv8s8OWSRed11MhY7ebR9GANlgVV2dydr4_3jYdn19pSuuG1z-0fPolygESbJn8zPYR8Cb6MwjaB_FWVPbK8zkFCk8Qt7b7_DQZBuODovZlph474qA-juustBU-oONgt0fnFpxkK7XXo0eKEMxBY5szuZtZifwiIB3-oq4IRxJDx_uw72zfHg2pA5b3HfEQalKUbu_sXq5JwKw
Put this in your address-bar, and your browser will download an *A*vi file. - cbiz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4ditto!
- chaos386, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I get just the straight .avi file as well. Maybe Google just skips the whole .gvp and .gvi ordeal if you use Linux?
- jefferson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4for the love of god why would you use windows media player why oh god help these lost souls
- vuke69, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4AVI is a container, not a video format.
- batguano, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4they always played great in VLC for me.
- Snakedal337, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4It linked me right to a avi that was playable in WMP11 :-)
- tropican8, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4This isn't really accurate. Its Microsoft's AVI parser that doesn't work. My article mentions that but something clearly got lost in translation between it, blognewschannel, and digg.
Should I submit a more accurate and informative story? - 16777216, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah I was trying to figure what the hell this was all about.
I just thought Google changed to plain AVI after a short run with AVIs with a GVI extension.
I never tryed to watch Google vids with anything but Google vid player when I was using Windows, then I switched to a dandy GNU/Linux distro that most around here hate to hear about well, the GVIs played perfectly and now I get AVIs.
Never thought Google was screwing Microsoft. XD - dacheetah, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I just tried it on the "unaired xbox360 ad", and the gvp's url, dumped into firefox, gave me the avi file with the correct extension (.avi, not .gvi)
(Said url:
http://vp.video.google.com/videodownload?version=0&secureurl=tQAAALsxw2MYeVuxdT1t0-CPJR9LPMOT61tpL99XlhdePfVdPk1O3r3WMYAV4ev0sd4DnUy0g7Qc-Eeclvus_pB6ogCvq4BId_XQo8KaicXLNcl6cAL4LBMN_9AHfvImKA18ntMD9nW4r4WeZYB2mGP_J86gyTCp-xhnX0OLHg8b6gBTN0crh-rqcmY0aDr-6yWV6Xbf1iI_FEg-3HzvmQYo3saJ87XyjeSNY6wMw7zjxfjZfLp1GY75d1CeTfLG6i370A&sigh=9hA9UNy6TtjCv4mKnIDSTpe7tU0&begin=0&len=91166&docid=-9195817501254722407
The rest of the info (url removed) in the gvp:
# download the free Google Video Player from http://video.google.com/
gvp_version:1.1
url:http://...
duration:91166
title:Unaired Xbox 360 Ad
description:Unaired "Jump In" Xbox 360 ad
) - wildman082, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2you can also use this bookmarklet to save google videos as avi
javascript:if(document.getElementById('macdownloadlink')!=null){window.location.href=document.getElementById('macdownloadlink')}else{alert('Go%20to%20Google%20Video%20to%20download%20videos%20as%20AVI.')}; - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3The headline of this article is quite inaccurate. It can't play on windows media player, but you can play it on practically anything else.
Though it certainly does not deserve to be buried. - tropican8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks whoever resubmitted a link to my blog post. I did here a while back: http://digg.com/tech_news/Google_Video_Causes_Incompatibilities_and_Violates_Patents but Blogger changed something with the URL when I added more info to the story. Note that it covers more than "Playing Google Videos In Windows Media Player".
For all of you that are saying you are using keepvid or Firefox extensions, the majority of these services, if not all, merely let you download the .gvi file with a .avi extension, they do not change the "goog" fourcc. Therefore they will die in Windows media player. This also chokes hardware DivX players based on the ESS Vibratto-II chipset (older Philips players). - MariusTh, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Right when I was trying to figure this out it appears on Digg, amazingly handy =D
- lemcoe9, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Thanks!!!!! This is awesome
- Doomhammer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You can already just download the tiny file opened with Google's media player - seeing as how it's plain text and all, you can just look through it and find the URL to the real, unaltered *.avi file. This story is pointless...
- alurker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The reason no one has mentioned this is because there are plenty of greasemonkey scripts that allow you to do what you have just stated, except that it's automated. http://userscripts.org/tag/video
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4024 - Apart from allowing avi download, this allows you to stream the avi in your browser as well. It works for both Firefox and Opera. - kr338r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i've downloaded plenty of files through firefox (using video downloader extension) and have not had one yet that DIDN'T play in WMP11?!
- donquixote235, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I did some experimentation with this, and here's what I found:
I spent $1.99 and bought a tv show off Google Videos and downloaded the raw avi file using the methods listed above. It didn't play in any of the video players I chose; it wouldn't play in WMP (which we already knew), nor would it play in MPC, nor could VirtualDub make heads or tails of it.
I renamed the raw AVI file to GVI, and it played fine in Google Video Player.
I also downloaded the GVI file and watched the whole thing; it appeared to work fine. I tried renaming it to an AVI and playing with it. Apparently Google video only reported three key frames, because that's what VirtualDub reported; when I renamed it to an AVI and played it with MPC it would show the same three frames over and over again.
So in a nutshell this is a great way to grab free videos, but if you want to download some paid content and convert it to a burnable format, it's not quite so easy. - CarzorStelatis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is only the zillionth time this has been posted.
- grotsasha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Sorry if somebody mentionned this already, but I found out on my own, that downloaded google ".gvi" videos, turn out to be .avi files containing DivX 4.1.2 video and mp3 audio track. They can be viewed by many players, if you have DivX installed. I watch them in quicktime for example (once downloaded I change the .gvi extension to .avi).
- DnasTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think the fourcc code is Microsoft's fault, not Google's. I've had problems with mpeg files that I've created playing in WMP that end up working when I add some non-standard options.
- 16777216, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Amen!
- tropican8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I made a new digg story that's a direct link to the article and is more accurate, though less sensational: http://digg.com/software/Everything_About_Google_Video
- artofwar420, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Firefox extension, video downloader. Works.
- BuddhaChu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Bookmarklet was chopped. Here's a link ot the original site:
http://1024k.de/bookmarklets/video-bookmarklets.html
Took me a few minutes to figure out how to get a bookmarklet to appear on Firefox's Bookmark Toolbar. This is definately the way to go and better than keepvid.com IMHO. - Tejaaa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0can't remember where i got it from... but here's a handy bookmarklet to let u directly download the .avi.. they say its hidden from the windows users... its used for the linux users...
javascript:if(document.getElementById('macdownloadlink')!=null){window.location.href=document.getElementById('macdownloadlink')}else{alert('Go to Google Video to download videos as AVI.')}; - vdg01, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Dont spend your time. If you want to download Google Videos, visit
http://gvid.uni.cc - cplusplus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I am surprised that Google is using AVI files. I assumed the developed their own (more amazing and ultra compressed) video format. Oh well.
- bjammin, on 10/12/2007, -5/+0This site makes it really easy to download videos in various formats from most hosted video sites (including youtube and google)
http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php
The firefox plugin is great too! - LucasVB, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4I've been doing this for ages now, didn't knew it was such a deal... I guess the fact I never use WMP helped! :P
Regardless, good info. Dugg.


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