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<title>metacafe-dl: Download videos from metacafe.com</title>
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<h1>metacafe-dl: Download videos from metacafe.com</h1>
<h2>What is it?</h2>
<p><em>metacafe-dl</em> is a small command-line program to download videos
from metacafe.com, based on the code of
<a href="http://www.arrakis.es/~rggi3/youtube-dl/">youtube-dl</a>. Hence,
it has the same requirements and features, and its syntax is very similar.
The latest version is <strong>2008.07.23</strong>. It's also licensed under
the MIT License.</p>
<p>As with <em>youtube-dl</em>, I'll try to keep it updated if metacafe.com
changes the way you access their videos, but the same circumstances apply.
My contact information is at
<a href="http://freshmeat.net/~rg3/">freshmeat.net</a>.</p>
<h2>Usage instructions</h2>
<p>In Windows, once you have installed the Python interpreter, save the
program with the <em>.py</em> extension and put it somewhere in the PATH.
Follow the
<a href="http://rg03.wordpress.com/youtube-dl-under-windows-xp/">guide to
install youtube-dl under Windows XP</a>, as the instructions for
<em>metacafe-dl</em> are identical.</p>
<p>In Unix, download it, give it execution permission and copy it to one
of the PATH directories (typically, <em>/usr/local/bin</em>).</p>
<p>After that, you should be able to call it from the command line as
<em>metacafe-dl</em> or <em>metacafe-dl.py</em>. I will use <em>metacafe-dl</em>
in the following examples. Usage instructions are easy. Use <em>metacafe-dl</em>
followed by a video URL. Example: <em>metacafe-dl
"http://www.metacafe.com/watch/somecode/blah/etc"</em>. The video will be saved
to the file <em>somecode.flv</em> in that example. As metacafe.com
videos are in Flash Video format, their extension should be <em>flv</em>.
In Linux and other unices, video players using a recent version of
<em>ffmpeg</em> can play them. That includes MPlayer, VLC, etc. Those two
work under Windows and other platforms, but you could also get a
specific FLV player of your taste.</p>
<p>If you try to run the program and you receive an error message containing the
keyword <em>SyntaxError</em> near the end, it means your Python interpreter
is too old.</p>
<h2>More usage tips</h2>
<ul>
<li>You can change the file name of the video using the -o option, like in
<em>metacafe-dl -o vid.flv
"http://www.metacafe.com/watch/somecode/blah/etc"</em>.</li>
<li>The <em>simulate mode</em> (activated with -s or --simulate) can be used
to just get the real video URL and use it with a download manager if you
prefer that option.</li>
<li>The <em>quiet mode</em> (activated with -q or --quiet) can be used to
supress all output messages. This allows, in systems featuring /dev/stdout
and other similar special files, outputting the video data to standard output
in order to pipe it to another program without interferences.</li>
<li>The default filename is <em>video_id.flv</em>. But you can also use the
video title in the filename with the -t or --title option. For this, the URL
must include the video title, which is the typical case.</li>
<li>The program can be told to simply print the final video URL to standard
output using the -g or --get-url option.</li>
<li><em>metacafe-dl</em> honors the <em>http_proxy</em> environment variable
if you want to use a proxy. Set it to something like
<em>http://proxy.example.com:8080</em>, and do not leave the <em>http://</em>
prefix out.</li>
<li>You can get the program version by calling it as <em>metacafe-dl
-v</em> or <em>metacafe-dl --version</em>.</li>
<li>For usage instructions, use <em>metacafe-dl -h</em> or <em>metacafe-dl
--help.</em></li>
<li>You can cancel the program at any time pressing Ctrl+C. It may print
some error lines saying something about <em>KeyboardInterrupt</em>.
That's ok.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Download it</h2>
<p>Note that if you directly click on these hyperlinks, your web browser will
most likely display the program contents. It's usually better to
right-click on it and choose the appropriate option, normally called <em>Save
Target As</em> or <em>Save Link As</em>, depending on the web browser you
are using.</p>
<p><a href="metacafe-dl">2008.07.23</a></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>MD5</strong>: 0dae19883b0e13286a1fa543751a242f</li>
<li><strong>SHA1</strong>: 70bba7248701728e2f69ddb2cf9dae13501167a5</li>
<li><strong>SHA256</strong>: d7826ab9506d73904f16a6e1110af7607e96ce20d311c5d2b3b746b18af64ee5</li>
</ul>
<p id="copyright">Copyright © 2006-2007 Ricardo Garcia Gonzalez</p>
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