HOWTO: Save Embedded Video from NBC Site

NBC has some good video clips on their video site, but they are embedded to prevent visitors from downloading them.

“Now, instead of searching the web for ‘borrowed’ NBC highlights, you can go to the source! We've taken your viral favorites and gathered them into one convenient location. Watch. React. Tell a friend.”

Whatever you say, NBC.

I am a believer of “if you don’t want people to have your files, don’t put them on the internet.”

Actually, all the videos are in Windows Media Video (wmv) format and they are quite easy to download as long as you know where to look.


video

Using “Laser Cats” as an example, here is how you can download NBC’s videos and share them with your friends (instead of only watching them on NBC’s site with that stupid Flash video player).

Open the page source, search for or scroll down to “MAIN CONTENT BEGIN”.


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The video’s location is in the CONFIGURATION section:

var pathToASX='/nbc/Video/asx/';
var isIE = (navigator.appName.indexOf('Microsoft')+1);
var content='Saturday_Night_Live/snl_1445_lasercats';

and few lines down, it shows the URL format which directs to an Advanced Stream Redirector, or asx file:

document.contentObj.URL=pathToASX+clip+'.asx';

Since the embedded video page’s URL is:

http://www.nbc.com/Video/videos/snl_1445_lasercats.shtml

Using the URL format shown above, the asx file is this:

http://www.nbc.com/nbc/Video/asx/Saturday_Night_Live/snl_1445_lasercats.asx


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Copy and paste the URL from asx file shown above into URLSnooper to get the wmv file.


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Use SDP Downloader to save the file.