Sometimes Mac users report difficulty in downloading videos from the Internet. Some sites block downloads. Other sites use video formats that were designed for Windows computers, not Linux or MacOS. The result is much frustration for Mac folks.

For the past few months, I’ve been researching ways to help my Mac-based clients resolve this issue. The following procedure is a compilation of advice I’ve received from the staff at several local Mac service centers, two Mac tech support discussion lists, and from members of other online groups where videos are frequently posted.

If you have additional suggestions, please use the comment form at the end of this article.

Downloading videos to your Mac, and viewing them in Quicktime

You will need:

• Mac OS X 10.4.7+
• Safari browser v.3 (have not tested this procedure with other browsers)
• Quicktime v7+
• Perian Quicktime player plugin (free)
• Flip4Mac Quicktime player plugin (free)

Assemble your tool kit

1. Verify that you have the required versions of the Mac OS, Quicktime, and the Safari browser.
2. Download and install the Perian and Flip4Mac player plugins.

Plan A

1. Using Safari, navigate to the site with the video you want to download.
2. With the video playing in Safari, control-click (or right-click if you have a two-button mouse) on the video box in the browser window. This is the standard way of downloading files. (Might as well try the easy way first .)
3. If that doesn’t work, try Plan B.

Plan B

1. With the video playing in Safari, select Activity from Safari’s Window menu.
2. Click on any triangles in the Activity window to completely expand the file list.
3. Look for the largest file in the list. It should be increasing in size as the video plays (”3MB of 20MB” followed shortly by “4MB fo 20MB,” for example).
4. Double-click on the file name to start the download.
5. If that doesn’t work, move on to Plan C.

Plan C

1. With the video playing in Safari, select Activity from Safari’s Window menu.
2. Click on any triangles in the Activity window to completely expand the file list.
3. Look for the largest file in the list. It should be increasing in size as the video plays (”3MB of 20MB” followed shortly by “4MB fo 20MB,” for example).
4. Click once on that list item to select it.
5. Select Copy from the Edit menu.
6. Close the Activity window.
7. Stop the video.
8. Choose Downloads from Safari’s Window menu.
9. Choose Paste from Safari’s Edit menu. The file should begin downloading to your default download location within a second or two.

Appendix: Plugin Features
Free Perian plugin for Quicktime
(requires at least OS X 10.4.7)

Adds:

• File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
• Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
• Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
• AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
• Subtitle support for SSA/ASS and SRT

Free Flip4Mac pluging:
(requires at least Mac OS X version 10.3.9)

Adds:

• Audio support: Windows Media Audio 9, Windows Media Audio 9 Professional, Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless, ISO MPEG Layer 3 (MP3), Microsoft G.726, Microsoft IMA ADPCM, Microsoft G.711 aLaw, Microsoft G.711 uLaw, Microsoft ADPCM
• Video support: Windows Media Video 9, Windows Media Video 9 Advanced (VC-1), Windows Media Video 8, Wind, ISO MPEG-4, versions 1.0 and 1.1, Microsoft MPEG-4, versions 2 and 3, Microsoft Motion JPEG
• File formats: Advanced Systems Format (ASF), Advanced Stream Redirector (ASX), Audio Video Interleaved (AVI)
• Network Protocol support for MMS Real-Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP)

UPDATE 1: Some people have reported a problem with the file names of downloaded videos. The downloaded video file may be named something like “_video” or “get_video.” If this happens with your downloads, rename the file to something sensible, and add the appropriate extension (for example, .flv for Flash videos).

UPDATE 2: Readers have told me about an application that makes it easy to download videos from YouTube. Tooble (free) requires OS X 10.4 or 10.5. It allows you to download YouTube videos and play them back on your iPod or on your Mac with iTunes (rather than Quicktime).