How To: Download, Save and Convert Flash Video to Play on your iPod or DVD Player
Downloading a File with Moyea FLV Downloader
Once you’ve found some streaming video that you want to save, it’s time to fire up Moyea. When you first open the program you’ll see a screen that looks like this:
In this window you’ll notice the prominent button that says “Start Recording.” This controls Moyea’s coolest feature: the ability to have it run in the background and automatically download any videos you stream to your computer. But before we click it, let’s configure how Moyea will save the videos. To do this, click on the “Settings” button.
In the options window, if you navigate to the “Auto Recording” tab, you can change where Moyea saves downloaded movies, and what it calls them. If you check the “Use default name prior” box, the program will attempt to save the videos using their original names. There’s a very tempting “Auto convert” checkbox in this window, but don’t be fooled; that feature is only available in the non-free version. Instead, we’ll use another free program to convert our files shortly. The “general” tab has some additional options for fine-tuning Moyea’s behavior, but that can wait until later. For now, let’s try downloading a video.
First, put Moyea into recording mode by clicking the big “Start Downloading” button in the middle-left of the client, then use your browser to play a streaming video. You don’t need to watch the whole thing; once you open the stream Moyea will automatically snag the entire video, even if you close the browser or start viewing another video. The little box floating on the top right-hand corner of your screen (which you can make go away by right-clicking on it and choosing “hide”) will display your download’s progress.
You can now view the downloaded video with the .flv player that comes with Moyea (if you don’t already have your own).
Note that Moyea doesn’t work for every source of streaming video. For instance, if your plan is to snag episodes of TV shows from Hulu, you’ll need to think again. It’s not impossible, though it is of dubious legality, so we’ll let you Google for programs that can accomplish that particular task on your own.
So, that’ all well and good, but what can we actually do with that .flv? A couple things, actually. Keep reading and we'll show you how to convert your .FLVs so you can play them on your mobile devices and your TV.