How to use Video DownloadHelper 5
How to install Video DownloadHelper
Go to the official Video DownloadHelper page on addons.mozilla.org and click the Add to Firefox
button.
Note that VDH5 requires Firefox 36 and above. It will not work on Firefox 35 and earlier releases.
If you are of an adventurous temper, you may want to use some features before before they are
made available for everyone. You can install early releases from the Video DownloadHelper
development forum.
How to verify Video DownloadHelper is working
Go to this page. You should see in the Firefox browser toolbar an animated 3-balls icon and a
number next to it.
The fact the icon is animated indicates there are videos to be downloaded. The number in the small
green box shows how many variants of the video are available to choose from.
Click on the icon to open the main panel.
As everywhere else in Firefox, clicking outside the panel will close it.
Click on the first Jocly presentation item in the list. A File Save dialog opens to give you an
opportunity to change the name of the file and/or the target folder. Confirm and your file will be
soon be on your disk.
How to use the companion button
The companion button sits at the right of the main VDH toolbar icon. It provides a way to perform
an operation from a single click, and most actions are available from a standard Firefox menu, very
similar to what was in Video DownloadHelper 4. If you don't want this button in your toolbar, go to
the add-on settings > Appearance and uncheck Enabled companion button.
Clicking the companion button runs the default action associated to the first hit from the page. By
default, it is Download, (but this can be changed from the actions panel). If there is no hit in the
page, it displays a global operation, by default opens the Supported sites panel, but it can be set
from the settings (Appearance > Companion default operation) to About, Settings, Convert local
file, Capture gallery or Clear hits.
Click on the little triangle next to the companion button to open a menu:
The first series of items in the menu are the hits from the current page. Clicking one of those entries
runs the default action for this hit, for instance Download or Play if the video has finished
downloading. The menu item All actions gives access to the same list of hits, but this time with a
submenu that allows to choose which action is to be run. The last item, Options, is always present
and gives access to global Video DownloadHelper operations.
You may legitimally consider that having two DownloadHelper buttons for similar controls is a
waste of space. From the settings, section Appearance, you can tune parameter Toolbar button
mode to select what you want to see in your toolbar:
Default mode
Main button only
Companion button only
How to download a video quickly
If you want to skip the file saving dialog and save with the default name to the default directory,
click on the big plus sign at the right of an item, this opens the list of actions.
Check the parameter Use this action as default then click Quick Download. The file will start
downloading immediately. Next time you open the VDH panel, simply clicking the item in the list
(not the plus sign), it will use the new default action: Quick Download.
But you even quick download faster: when clicking on the VDH icon, maintain the SHIFT key
pressed. It will initiate a Quick Download action on the first item in the list.
How to read the number next to the VDH icon
This depends on the value for parameter Icon badge in the VDH settings, section Appearance. By
default, it is set to Mixed, which means:
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if there are errors, they appear in red
otherwise if there are pinned entries, they appear in black
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otherwise if there are running tasks, they appear in blue
otherwise if there are media detected in the current tab, they appear in green
otherwise if there are media detected in other tabs, they appear in orange
otherwise no badge displayed
How to limit the number of displayed variants and control which ones must be listed ?
By default, Video DownloadHelper displays 6 variants per video. That's too many, we agree, but
when we experimented with only 3 variants, many users complained about their favorite variant not
being listed, so we increased that number.
You can easily change the number of listed variants from the add-on settings, section More / Video
Qualities, parameter Max variants.
The displayed variants are the top ones defined in the Variants list. You can reorder those variants
by selecting them and click the up/down arrows that appear at the bottom of the list.
You can notice some variants are labelled Adaptive n. This means: "use the nth variant from the
adaptive variants list". The adaptive variants list can be seen and reordered by checking Advanced
at the bottom of the settings panel.
How to prevent some videos from being detected ?
Many times, ads videos pollute the Video DownloadHelper hits list. If you want to make sure
videos from a particular web site won't be considered by Video DownloadHelper, click on the +
sign at the right of the undesired hit, and pick Add to black list.
You can choose the domains for which videos served, or appearing in the page content will be
ignored.
Alternatively, you can also add manually the domains from the settings: More / Black list:
Removing domains from the black list can only be done from those settings.
How to define the name of the downloaded videos ?
Video DownloadHelper includes a feature called Smart Naming. It allows to rename automatically
the video file being downloaded from text within the page that contains the video. Smart names are
defined on a per-domain basis. By default, when Smart Naming is enabled, the name of the file is
taken from the containing page name.
To define a video title from a particular site, go to a page containing a video you would like to
download and mouse-select a word in the title. Note that it is better to select a word within the title,
not at the begining, not at the end. Right-click and select DownloadHelper smart name.
If the previewed name is ok to you, confirm.
You can remove smart name definitions from the settings, section More / Smart names.
From those settings, you can also disable the smart naming feature as a whole. In this case, the file
names will be created from the media URL itself.
Note that in future add-on version, it will be possible to disable smart naming on a per-domain
basis.
How to capture media galleries ?
Video DownloadHelper has the ability to detect in a page series of links to media files and
download them in a single operation.
When a gallery of links is detected, it appears as a hit in the VDH panel (in this example, a serie of
10 MP3 links have been detected):
When passing the mouse over the hit, the corresponding links are highlighted in the page.
The gallery detection is automatic when you a page is loaded in the browser. This is to preserve the
behavior from Video DownloadHelper 4. However, unless you are an heavy user of that feature, we
strongly recommend that you go to the settings, More > Gallery capture and uncheck parameter
Auto-detect. This will save browser CPU.
When Auto-detect is unchecked and you want to detect a gallery of links in a page, you must
request the search explicitely through one those ways:
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Open the Video DownloadHelper panel and click Capture gallery at the top
Right click in the page, then Video DownloadHelper > Options > Capture gallery
Press on the keyboard SHIFT+ALT+G (or whatever hot key you defined for the Detect gallery
function.
Other settings parameters for the capture gallery feature are:
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Detect embedded images: if checked, in addition to detecting media links, embedded images that
seem to present some structural organisation in the current Web page can also be detected and
downloaded. The corresponding hits appear as Gallery from www.example.com instead of Links
from www.example.com. This feature did not exist in VDH4.
Max links to consider: in order to prevent the browser from freezing for a moment in case a web
page contains a large number of media links, the parameter defines a maximum count of links. If
you need to capture more links than the default, increase this value.
Min links per gallery: to consider a set of links as a gallery to be detected, it must contain at least
this number of links.
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Minimum image size: when the Detect embedded images is checked, this parameter represents
the minimum size in pixels of the image (in its smallest dimension.
How to use keyboard shortcuts
Video DownloadHelper allows some operations to be launched directly from the keyboard.
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Default action: SHIFT+ALT+D - runs the default action on the first hit in the page
Open companion menu: SHIFT+ALT+C - opens the companion menu. Arrow keys and Enter can then
be used to navigate the menu
Detect galleries: SHIFT+ALT+G - detect links/images in the current page
Clear hits: SHIFT+ALT+X - removes all hits that are not running nor pinned
Supported site: not set - open the Supported sites panel
Convert local files: not set - start converting local video files
The keys can be configured from the settings, More > Hot keys:
How to use pin/auto-pin ?
Normally, a detected video remains displayed in VDH while the window that originated this video
is still loaded in the browser. When that window closes (you navigated to another page or close the
tab), the video appears as "orphan" in VDH and it is removed from the list after 60 seconds
(configurable). If you pin that video entry, it does not expire and remain in VDH until you explicitly
remove it.
If you check Auto-Pin, once a video has been downloaded, it is automatically pinned in VDH.
A usage would be that, with Auto-pin set, you navigate the web and whenever you see a video you
like, you request the download then continue browsing. After some time, there is in VDH a number
of entries, corresponding to downloaded videos, that you just need to click to start playing locally.
How to get Video DownloadHelper in a specific language ?
If the add-on user interface appears in English and not in your browser's language, this means Video
DownloadHelper does not have (yet) this locale. You can contribute by providing your translation
using Babelzilla.
How do i get my videos to play smoothly on Windows ?
First thing to do is to avoid using low-quality anti-virus like AVAST. You can use AVG instead.
If your last Windows install was done long ago (like one year or more), you may get a huge benefit
reinstalling the whole OS from scratch. Do not forget to backup your user data first.
How to suggest new sections to put in this HOWTO ?
Please post a message in this forum.
How to capture MP2T chunked streams ?
Some sites stream videos by sending small pieces of media at short time intervals using the MP2T
streaming technology. This is the case of, for instance Twitch. When a capturable video is detected,
the add-on shows this:
Click the entry or the disk icon in the toolbar to start recording. Click the entry or the square icon in
the toolbar to stop recording,
Note that if the video stops sending chunks, the capture will stop automatically. You now get a
panel to finalize the saving:
You are highly advised to use the converter here. If you don't do so, the chunks will simply be
concatenated together. The resulting file may not play well on your machine, and the video will
definitely lack the ability to show the current time index.
How to record automatically live streams from Twitter Periscope ?
Periscope allows to live stream videos from your smartphone. As the producer of the video, you
have the ability to save it at the end of the recording. But as a watcher, you have no other choice
than being there at the right time to see the live stream.
Video DownloadHelper uses the MP2T ability to record chunked-streamed videos in order to
provide the service to record Periscope live streams overnight (or days) and watch the captured
videos when you have time. Of course, recording random videos may be a bit useless (but still
funny, you should try it !), so you have the ability to provide a search query to match the stream
session description. For instance, if you use cat as a search term and run Video DownloadHelper
Periscope auto-recorder overnight, you will certainly find in the morning a serie of nice kitties to
look at. Searching for breaking news might also be a good idea.
While the auto-recoder is in action, you will see tabs opening and closing in your browser, this is
normal. Since those tabs do not take the focus, it won't affect your normal browsing. However, they
are likely to produce sounds. It is probably a good idea to turn your computer sounds off during the
capture session.
Start Periscope auto-recording
Stop Periscope auto-recording
How do i use the screen capture ?
VDH 5.3+ only
The screen capture is a technology introduced in version 5.3 which allows to capture images of a
region in a browser tab content at high speed and creates a video on the fly from those images.
This technology is used in 2 features:
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Browsing session capture: ideal to easily create a demo of a site usage.
Applet capture: generally works where other capture methods fail.
Videos are created from a serie of still images and this job cannot be done by a browser addon. So,
screen capture requires the converter to be installed on your computer.
Screen capture features share a common set of parameters that may be displayed and modified right
before the actual capture starts, or from the settings, Screen capture section:
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8x8 alignement: to ensure maximal performance, the height and width of the captured area
must be a multiple of 8 pixels. This parameter Cut or Extend defines whether the region will
be extended or restricted if necessary.
Capture rate: the number of images per seconds in the generated video. You can reduce
this value (default is 24 frames per second) if your computer is not powerful enough to
encode the video fast enough.
Converter port: change this value if the default TCP port 6872 is used by another
application on your computer.
At the end of the screen capture session, a panel appears displaying some statistics:
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Original frame size: the size of the applet in the page.
Captured frame size: the size of the captured region, which depends on the original size
and the 8x8 alignment parameter.
Captured frames:
o Captured: the number of screenshots taken.
o Skipped: the number of screenshots not taken because the frame rate was already
reached (a high value here means your computer is fast, no need to worry).
o Missed: the computer was not fast enough to capture those frames, consider
lowering the frame rate or reducing the window size if it makes sense.
Saved frames:
o Saved: the number of frames saved to the converter.
o Failed: the number of frames that were destroyed because the converter was not has
enough to transcode them. Consider lowering the frame rate or reducing the window
size if it makes sense.
Duration: the total duration of the capture.
How to capture a browsing session ?
VDH 5.3+ only
Starting from version 5.3, Video DownloadHelper can use its screen capture method to record the
entire content of a browser tab and produce a video out of it, like this one (taken from jocly.com):
You can start and stop the recording from the main Video DownloadHelper panel (or companion
button, context menu), by clicking Start SCRAP or Stop SCRAP.
Start recording
Stop recording
Before the recording start, a panel displayed where you can setup a number of parameters:
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Mouse recording: you may want (or not) to show clearly in the generated video where the
mouse is. This parameter defines when the mouse will be seen in the video.
o Never: the mouse is never shown.
o Always: the mouse is always visible.
o When SHIFT is pressed: the mouse is visible when the SHIFT key is pressed.
o When SHIFT is not pressed: the mouse is visible when the SHIFT key is not
pressed.
When the mouse is visible, parameters Halo radius, Halo color and Halo transparency
define the round region around the pointer to be highlighted, while Pointer size defines the
size of the pointer image.
You can also use the keyboard (ALT+SHIFT+W, configurable from the settings > Hotkeys) to start
and stop the session recording. If you do so, the start panel is skipped and the last parameters are
used.
Note that the captured region is the visible area in the window. If you scroll, this will be reflected in
the generated video.
How to capture any applet ?
VDH 5.3+ only
Some videos were completely ignored by traditional Video DownloadHelper detection methods
because the network traffic for those videos does not go through the browser and an add-on cannot
see it. This is the case of RTMP streamed videos you find on a number of sites, particularly when it
comes to live streaming.
Starting from version 5.3, Video DownloadHelper can use its screen capture method to record a
video from a region in a page. When a page is loaded, the add-on analyzes it to find regions
corresponding to Flash-rendered sections matching a minimum (configurable) size and creates a
corresponding entry in the user interface.
Since a single page may contain several screen-capturable regions, you can easily identify which
entry corresponds to which region by passing the mouse over the entry in the panel. The region
highlights with a red semi-transparent mask.
Once recording has started, you can end it by clicking again on the entry. Leaving the current page
also stops the recording.
If you do not use this feature often, it is advisable to uncheck the parameter Applet auto-detection to
avoid the extra work of searching for capturable regions in every page being loaded. Instead, when
you want the regions to be identified in a page, click Analyze page in the controls to perform the
search when you need it.
Note that contrarily to the browsing capture feature, the applet captures considers the static position
of the applet, so it is safe to scroll in the page while capturing and it won't affect the generated
video.
There are a couple of parameters specific to this feature:
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Applet selector: the CSS-style selector to find capturable regions. If you are familiar with
the CSS technology, you can set it up to capture potentially any rectangular region in a page.
Minimum size to consider applet: the minimum size (both height and width) in pixels to
consider capturing the applet.
Using the same applet selection UI, it is also possible to take a still image snapshot of the selected
region (no converter required). Click the plus sign in the main panel entry and pick action Take
Snapshot.
Altre Info in ITALIANO
Video DownloadHelper è un plugin per Firefox il cui utilizzo appare intuitivo ed immediato.
Come si può evincere dal suo nome, si tratta di un’utilità indirizzata allo scaricamento ed alla
gestione di contenuti multimediali di vario genere, quali filmati, immagini e audio da pagine
ospitate in un ampio elenco di siti Internet, fra i quali si annoverano YouTube, DailyMotion, Euro
News e MySpace. Si tratta pertanto di un componente aggiuntivo il quale potrà essere apprezzato
soprattutto da chi effettui con una certa frequenza download video dal Web e sia alla ricerca di uno
strumento semplice e di uso immediato.
Durante la consueta attività di navigazione è il software che in modo automatico si preoccupa di
rilevare la possibilità di interagire con i contenuti visitati, segnalando con l’animazione di
un’apposita icona l’opportunità di eseguire il download di file con semplici clic del mouse. Quando
si apre una pagina comprendente collegamenti a immagini o filmati si può effettuare il download
anche solo di alcuni di essi , lasciando ampia libertà d’azione ai navigatori. Spostando il mouse
sopra gli elementi del menu vengono infatti evidenziati i collegamenti direttamente nella pagina per
assicurasi di scaricare solo quelli effettivamente desiderati.
Per installare Video DownloadHelper si può utilizzare direttamente il file scaricato dal nostro Sito
oppure in alternativa si può passare dal sito degli add-on del browser e cliccare il pulsante “Add to
Firefox” seguendo quindi le istruzioni successive. Al termine dell’installazione dovrebbe apparire
una nuova icona nella barra degli strumenti e nel caso ciò non dovesse verificarsi si può entrare nel
menu “Visualizza”, scegliere la voce “Personalizza” in “Barre degli strumenti” e trascinare l’icona
“DownloadHelper” nella barra degli strumenti. In “Strumenti” viene inoltre aggiunto il nuovo
menu omonimo del programma, all’interno del quale appaiono le voci di configurazione e
gestione delle sue proprietà e del suo comportamento.
Opzioni
Il pannello delle opzioni è suddiviso in sezioni dedicate al controllo di diversi aspetti
dell’applicativo. La sezione generale consente di intervenire su aspetto e comportamento mediante
caselle di controllo inerenti animazione delle icone, inserimento in barra di stato, menu strumenti o
menu contestuale, evidenziazione degli elementi multimediali nella pagina corrente ed
impostazione di scorciatoie da tastiera per il download rapido e la selezione della cartella di
salvataggio. Ampia la sezione relativa alla cattura dei contenuti, a cominciare dal tipo di
estensioni degli elementi intercettabili, per passare da liste di file da bloccare ed arrivare
all’attivazione di un’opzione di cattura schermo.
Numerose le estensioni dei file supportate: mpg, mpeg, avi, rm, wmv, mov, asf, mp3, rar, movie,
divx, rbs, mpa e mpeg4, a conferma di quanto sia versatile questo strumento. Tra i servizi, la scheda
“Scarica” lascia fissare tra gli altri il numero massimo di download e la cartella di salvataggio dei
file scaricati. La sezione “Conversione” torna utile per abilitare la conversione automatica dei
video appena scaricati con l’ausilio di un tool aggiuntivo chiamato ConvertHelper. La conversione
manuale consente di scegliere tra un nutrito insieme di formati e device di destinazione, fra i quali
vi sono wmv, mpeg, iPod, iPhone, Galaxy Tab, mobile 3gp, mov, Zune, avi, mp3, mpeg-4 e mpeg-2
DVD. Per ciascun tipo sono inoltre modificabili parametri generali riguardanti codec audio/video,
velocità in bit, frame rate, dimensione frame, frequenza audio e rapporto video. Vi è anche la
possibilità di specificare la modalità di conversione automatica, la quale viene inizialmente
configurata in modo prestabilito ed è comunque modificabile con il pulsante “Criteri di
conversione” indicando estensioni di input/output e relativi parametri.
Quando Video DownloadHelper identifica uno o più contenuti scaricabili, la sua icona ospitata
nella barra degli strumenti si anima ed appare al suo fianco un triangolo cliccando il quale si apre il
menu di download per la selezione immediata dei file desiderati. Posizionando il puntatore del
mouse su un determinato elemento viene aperto un sottomenu comprendente le opzioni per
eseguire download e conversione, download, download rapido, copia URL, inserimento nella lista
bloccati, social share, secure storage, invio all’area privata e al telefono cellulare. Sono così
disponibili anche opzioni di condivisione sia attraverso device mobili che social network, oltre alla
possibilità di proteggere l’accesso ai download con il supporto di un altro componente scaricabile
dal Web per evitare che altre persone possano aprirli. In alternativa si possono infine selezionare i
contenuti da scaricare anche dal menu contestuale attivato con il tasto destro del mouse, i quali
vengono raccolti nel sottomenu “Elementi multimediali”.