Saving Streaming Video

While prepping for class earlier in the week, I stumbled across a YouTube clip of a stage production of Coriolanus that I wanted to show to my class. I wanted us to watch it together and then discuss it as a group, but because I am in the not-so-smart 181 room (no projection equipment), I asked the kind folks at ECIT to help me figure out how to capture the stream and save it on my iPod. They clued me in on the following websites, which let me do all of this on the fly (no new software downloads required) and with minimal hassle: KeepVid lets you copy-and-paste the URL from any of a host of video-sharing sites (YouTube, Google Video, iFilm, etc.) and record the video stream as a Flash (.flv) file. Once that is accomplished, you can use Media Convert to change the Flash file to an iPod-compatible mp4 format, which can be saved to your hard drive or thumb drive. Drag this new file into iTunes, sync up your iPod, and you're done. It took me about ten minutes to do all of this with a two-minute, 5MB clip, and about half that time was taken up just loading it onto my iPod from iTunes.

One other interesting note: Media Convert also allows you to convert sound, image, and text files from one format to another. Sadly, about the only thing it will not do is convert freshman writing into MLA format or Standard Written English.