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{rw_text}Giveaway of the day for October 16, 2009 is:
Version reviewed:
v2.3.3 Pro
System Requirements:
Windows 2007, Windows 2008, Windows XP and Vista 64Bit
Software description as per GOTD:
Video Download Capture is the easiest online Flash video downloader for everyone. More than any YouTube downloader or Dailymotion Downloader, it helps you download all online videos from the Internet to your PC, iPod, iPhone, PSP and DVD effortlessly. Without launching the browser, you can easily start downloading and converting online videos in the full-featured video download manager.Key Features:
- Easily download and manage online Flash videos at a click without the browser;
- Fully support all major social video sites, such as YouTube, Dailymotion, Megavideo, etc;
- Includes video converter to transfer videos for any digital video player like iPod, iPhone;
- Batch download, built-in FLV Flash video player, and multiple languages support;
- And many other handy features…
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{rw_good}
- Can download videos from multiple different video hosting websites, including the most popular ones.
- Allows you to download videos of “high quality”/”high definition” (when applicable).
- Has a built in YouTube, MetaCafe, and Break search engine.
- Browser independent.
- Can convert videos to various other formats.
- Can do basic video edits.
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{rw_bad}
- Not very, uh, “kid friendly”.
- No automatic detection; you must manually type/paste in URL of video you want to download.
- Can search YouTube, MetaCafe, and Break but can only preview YouTube videos.
- Fairly RAM intensive.
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{rw_score}
{for=”Ease of Use” value=”8″}An automatic streaming video detector would have been nice, but still fairly easy to use.
{/for}
{for=”Performance” value=”7″}While it downloads videos just fine, it uses up quite a bit of RAM.
{/for}
{for=”Usefulness” value=”8″}I can see this program being useful; however you are only limited to using it with websites the developer specifically designed it to work with so can’t be as useful as other programs.
{/for}
{for=”Arbitrary Equalizer” value=”6″}This category reflects an arbitrary number that does not specifically stand for anything. Rather this number is used to reflect my overall rating/verdict of the program in which I considered all the features and free alternatives.
{/for}
{/rw_score} –>
{rw_verdict}[tdown]
{/rw_verdict} –>
Video Download Capture is yet another streaming video downloading program. However, Video Download Capture is a little bit different than the other ones given out on GOTD before. You see, the last few video downloading programs given out on GOTD did network sniffing to download videos; therefore they were browser and website independent – they worked with any browser and (almost) any website. Video Download Capture (VDC), on the other hand, is more traditional: to download videos with VDC you have to manually type/paste in the URL of the video you want to download inorder to let Video Download Capture. Now this traditional approach has its pros and cons. The pros are:
- You properly get the name of the video you are downloading.
- You avoid downloading “crap” extra videos like ads.
- You don’t have to actually watch the video to download it.
The cons are:
- You can only use the program with websites the developer specifically designs the program to work with.
- There is no automatic downloading of videos.
Additionally what makes Video Download Capture more unique than a simple video downloader is the fact that VDC has a built in video converter and editor so you can make basic edits to your downloaded video and convert it to different formats if you wish.
That being said, all the websites supported by VDC are:
There actually are quite a few more video websites supported by VDC, but the rest are adult websites (hence why I said “not very ‘kid friendly'”) and I refuse to promote that (call me a bigot I don’t care).
This is what VDC looks like:
Using VDC is easy. Just type in or paste in the URL of the video you want to download in the “URL” box, hit “Add to Download”. You will then be asked:
Select whichever one you want. Take note that most video hosting websites will not support “high quality” or “high definition”. As per the developer, you can “download high quality FLV and MP4 video from YouTube, FLV and MP4 video from Dailymotion , WMV video from Break, MP4 from Google Video”.
Once you select the type of video quality and hit “OK”, the video will start downloading (the video is saved in the default folder location you can set via “Settings”). Once the video has finished, you can watch it…
…or convert it to another format:
You have the ability to chose from many different output “profiles” which consist of all the popular formats. As per the developer, they are AVI, MPEG4, DivX, XviD, iPod Video, iPhone format, MPEG, WMV, RM, MOV, Sony PSP, Zune Video, 3GP, 3G2, SWF, M4A, MP3, MP4, WAV, OGG, AAC and AC3. As per my count, there are other “profiles” and formats supported including but not limited to DVDs and .VOBs.
If you wish, you can customize the output video settings…
…and trim or crop your video before you convert it:
After all is set and down, just hit “start” and allow the video conversion to occur. VDC converts videos pretty quickly so you shouldn’t be waiting long. Conversion quality is good too.
One interesting feature VDC has is the ability to search YouTube, MetaCafe, and Break for videos:
Any video you find the search result you can easily download by clicking on the little box in the bottom right of the thumbnail window. If you find YouTube videos you can preview them also; for some reason, though, you can’t preview MetaCafe or Break videos.
Lastly, here are the “settings” you can mess around with for VDC:
Overall, at face value, Video Download Capture is a good program for downloading and converting videos. There are, though, two problems I have with it:
- VDC uses quite a bit of RAM. It uses ~40 MB of RAM just sitting idle. Now of course taking into consideration it is a video download and video converter, that is OK. However it is not OK when I think about how WebVideoCache uses about 2 MB (WebVideoCache doesn’t convert videos though; I would run FormatFactory for that which uses about 20 MB idle).
- The developer is actively using support for adult websites to promote his or her product. Now it is the developer’s product, so who am I to judge what functionality he or she adds in, but I am sorry, I just cannot give a program a thumbs up that is actively promoting that kind of behavior (if you go to the developer’s website, you will see references to adult websites are all over the place – I bet it is done to get more search engine hits). You can hate me for it if you want, but I just don’t feel comfortable giving a thumbs up to Video Download Capture.
This review was conducted on a laptop running Windows 7 Professional 32-bit. The specs of the laptop are as follows: 3GB of RAM, a Radeon HD 2600 512MB graphics card, and an Intel T8300 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor.
{rw_freea}
VideoCacheView does just about the exact thing as TubeHoarder: it looks into your browser cache and allows you to “grab” the (FLV) videos stored there. The major differences between VideoCacheView and TubeHoarder, besides the fact one is freeware and other is shareware, are the following:
- VideoCacheView supports Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Opera while TubeHoarder only supports Internet Explorer.
- VideoCacheView supports more than just FLV videos: it works with images, audio files, and SWF videos also.
- TubeHoarder can automatically “grab” videos while you must manually grab them with VideoCacheView.
WebVideoCap takes a different approach to download streaming videos than TubeHoarder. WebVideoCap monitors and sniffs your network traffic looking for Flash (FLV, MP4, and SWF) and WMV video traffic and RTSP/MMS streams. When it finds such traffic/stream it automatically saves the video onto your computer.
The major differences between this network traffic monitoring and browser cache approach are the following:
- The network traffic monitoring approach allows WebVideoCap to be browser independent.
- With the network traffic monitoring approach, you need to download the video again as opposed to just grabbing it from a browser cache where you need not download it twice.
- With the network traffic monitoring approach, you can grab RM and WMV videos also.
Tubemaster++ is an open source, freeware, easy-to-use, streaming media downloader (FLV, MP4, MOV, and MP3). Similar to URL Snooper and WebVideoCap, TubeMaster++ works by monitoring network traffic via different types of protocols (and therefore is browser and website independent also). The difference, however, is TubeMaster++ has a (more) user friendly interface and has a built in video/audio converter so you can convert the FLV, MP4, or MP3 or any other desirable format.
Very similar program to WebVideoCap with minor differences.
RealPlayer has a plugin that allows you to download streaming video. Very easy to use and handy; however you must install RealPlayer to use it.
Ashampoo Clipfinder HD takes the similar traditional approach to download videos like VDC. Clipfinder HD works with:
- YouTube.com
- iFilm.com (aka Spike.com)
- Veoh.com
- Dailymotion.com
- Video.Google.com
- Livevideo.com
- Blip.tv
- Video.Yahoo.com
- Metacafe.com
- Vids.MySpace.com
- Sevenload.de
- MyVideo.de
- VideU.de
- ClipFish.de
- Vimeo.com
{/rw_freea} –>
{rw_verdict2}At face value, Video Download Capture is definitely a good program. However as I stated, I am really turned off by the developer’s choice of websites to associate with and to promote; because of that I just can’t give this program a thumbs up (or recommend it)… no matter how good it is in terms of downloading and converting videos. It is not necessarily that I am shooting down VDC because it works with adult websites (by definition many video downloaders will work with adult websites); rather it is because the developer is actively promoting and associating himself/herself with them (check out the website if you don’t believe me). Hate me if you want, and I admit it is completely bias and subjective on my part, but I stand firmly by my decision. My recommendation for today is take a look at TubeMaster++, WebVideoCap, or VideoCacheView and pick the one that suits your style the best. Additionally, use FormatFactory for your video converting needs.
{/rw_verdict2} –>
