bigflix.com: How to download free streaming movies from Adobe Flash Player(RTMPE flv)

[venga]

Originally Posted by Poulbot

Hi Venga,

StreamTransport works fine.

it seems to work BUT it is very very slow....
normally it takes 10-15 minutes to download 20mb file in my conection but with that application
20mb file takes 1 hour.....
and download speeds dances from 0 to max 20...

atleast this app is able to get rtmpe path...

or other download manager i can use now to download that file...
thanks

[Fraekz]

Special thanks to hyc, gaganspidey and noob2001204. I registered on this site, just to share my experience.

The www.mybigflix.com streaming videos are downloadable by rtmpdump without any problem. Another advantage the source video does not contain any watermark, which we see while watching the video (left bottom BigFlix logo). This is advantage over screen capturing.
The streaming also is faster. My download capacity is 768 kB/s and I can download a 700 MB file in 20-30 mins.

I find still many people confuse or find it difficult to grasp this entirely. Even I found it hard, I am a n00b to downloading streaming videos, never done that before. But believe me with post of you ppl, I did this in 4-5 hrs of trial and error.

Here I explain how I did it.

I installed the following softwares first.
1. rtmpdump-2.3
2. Process Explorer v12.04
3. HxD Viewer 1.7.7.0
4. pmdump v1.2
5. Visual C++ 2008 Redistributables (x64)
(My OS is 64-bit, 32bit version needs to be installed for 32-bit users)
6. Win64 OpenSSL v0.9.8o
(32 bit users need 32-bit version)

Now our target command is

rtmpdump -r "<rtmpe_url>" -W "<flash_player_url>" -o outputFile.flv -V

An Example Code for Maya Bazaar Tamil Movie from "http://www.mybigflix.com/home/movies/maya-bazaar/912"

rtmpdump -r "rtmpe://fms.1B42.edgecastcdn.net/001B42/vault/videoclips/movies/MayaBazaar.mp4?e=1280357960" -W "http://www.mybigflix.com/apache_file/flash/Player.swf" -o xx.flv -V

Thats it, nothing else. In this thing, there is only one unknown parameter, rest all are fixed.

<rtmpe_url> is unknown
<flash_player_url> is fixed for any movie from "www.mybigflix.com" which is "http://www.mybigflix.com/apache_file/flash/Player.swf"
(I will explain you later how to get flash_player_url, for some other sites)
This flash_player_url is a necessary parameter for sites with SWFverification like bigflix, so if you miss this one, your download will not start or will abruptly end in 0.1% to 0.5% or something.

Now we are going to find out rtmpe_url which is the main task.

Step1: Open all windows and keep it ready
a) Open cmd prompt with admin privileges and move to the location of pmdump and keep it ready.
Tip: It is better if you install pmdump inside same folder as rtmpdump, so that you need not go back and forth between pmdump and rtmpdump.
b) Open Process Explorer and keep it ready (Notice, your browser is not yet started, so Process Explorer will not show your browser)
c) Open HxD viewer and keep it ready.
d) Keep a notepad window open with sample command already there like this, it will be easy for you replace the command with what you want.

rtmpdump -r "rtmpe://fms.1B42.edgecastcdn.net/001B42/vault/videoclips/movies/MayaBazaar.mp4?e=1280357960" -W "http://www.mybigflix.com/apache_file/flash/Player.swf" -o xx.flv -V

Step2: Browser activity
a) Open browser window (Having single tab is better, less confusion, less memory dump)
b) Open www.mybigflix.com (in address bar)
c) Navigate to the particular video what you want to download
d) Sometimes there will be an advertisement for 30 secs, wait until the advertisement is over and movie starts. Once movie starts, goto step 3 immediately.

Step3: Finding Process ID of your flash player (which is currently running the movie)
For Example, Lets take Chrome as the browser.
a) In Process Explorer, if you see, Chrome will have many sub processes (one or two), Most probably the second sub-process will have name something related to plugin container (which is nothing but our Adobe flash player plugin). Note down that process id (not the main chrome process id). Also note that particular process id will have huge activity in kB/MB dynamically changing, because your movie is streaming in the browser.
For Example, we assume process id is 5760.



Step4: Dumping the process data
a) Immediately, type the following command in cmd window, which is already open in the pmdump folder.

pmdump 5760 example

The general syntax is

pmdump <processid> <any_file_name>

Note: There is no need of typing any extension for filename. That file is raw data file.
Here the name "example" is just an example. The name can be anything.
b) Close the browser window. There is no need to keep the browser open or streaming as you have already dumped the required url data.



Step5: Finding the rtmpe_url using HxD viewer.
a) Open example (which we just saved now from pmdump) in HxD viewer.
b) Press Ctlr+F or Click Search--> Find
c) Make sure the cursor is somewhere at the start of the file. Type "rtmpe" without quotes and click OK.
You will get you first search hit. Check out whether it a direct and correct rtmpe url.
You may find two types of rtmpe in this hex dump file
one direct like this

rtmpe://fms.1B42.edgecastcdn.net/001B42/vault/videoclips/movies/MayaBazaar.mp4?e=1280357960

or one with ascii codes, like this

rtmpe%3A2F%2Ffms%2E1B42%2Eedgecastcdn%2Enet%2F001B 42%2Fvault%2Fvideoclips%2Fmovies%2FMayaBazaar%2Emp 4%3Fe%3D1280357960&productId=1292

The second one is not wanted.
So if your search hit is like second one, then just move the cursor below that rtmpe line and again press Ctrl+F and Ok.
You will get next search result. Check like this until you get correct rtmpe url. Mostly in first or second hit you will get it.
Note: If you are not getting any search result
a) You have noted down the wrong process id and dumped the wrong process. Note down the right process and do it again, if you dont know ehich process is right, just try trial and error of all processes under Chrome in Process Explorer.
b) Your cursor is at the end of the file
c) You have misspelled rtmpe as rmtpe.



d) Copy the rtmpe url. Select the text using mouse and press Ctrl+C.
d) Now paste that in the notepad window and replace the sample rtmpe_url from one end of quotes to other end of quotes.
e) Since we are done with the full command now (as rtmpe_url is the only unknown which is replaced in notepad now) copy the entire command, by selecting and pressing Ctrl+C.

Step6: Executing rtmpdump command
a) Your cmd window is already open in the rtmpdump installation folder, if not then navigate there in cmd window.
b) Click the top left corner having icon "C:\ _" in the title bar of cmd window and choose, Edit --> Paste
c) Press Enter to execute the command.



d) That's all. You will see the rtmpdump connects to the server and starts downloading the file. It will show progess in %.
Once percentage hits 100% you rtmpdump will exit from its command.



Note:
--> Leave the downloading as it is. Dont attempt to stream another movie from bigflix or just try to download another movie simultaneously.
--> Also the rtmpdump will show messages at frequent intervals like it is pinging the server at every 3% or 4%. That is common, dont worry about that.
--> If your dload stops abrupting say at 43.3% then, as soon as you see it has stopped or halted,
a) Close the cmd window
b) Open one fresh one cmd window with admin privileges
c) Navigate to the rtmpdump folder
d) Execute the entire command command again with an additional keyword --resume For Example,

rtmpdump -r "rtmpe://fms.1B42.edgecastcdn.net/001B42/vault/videoclips/movies/MayaBazaar.mp4?e=1280357960" -W "http://www.mybigflix.com/apache_file/flash/Player.swf" -o xx.flv -V --resume

Your download will start again and the already buffered frames will be quickly skipped and proceed to the stage of 43.3%. You will see a bracket inside bracket ((% X) %) something like this, until it reaches 43.3%
But this may not work, if you did not notice within a short period after disconnected server.
--> Sometimes your download might abruptly discontinue due to slower buffer, server overloads etc. and may not resume again. You need to start the entire download process again with new rtmpe_url.
-->rtmpe_url is dynamic, the link what you see now, if you are discontinued for a while say 5-10 minutes, the link will die. You need to get new link and new download and start whole thing again.
--> You have to be very quick. (That is why I asked you to keep everything ready). Once you dumped the data in outputDump and closed the browser window, dont take more than 3 minutes to execute the rtmpdump command. This is the mistake I was doing. I was very slow and by the time when I execute the command, the rtmpe_url link would have died and I will end up with error.

[Fraekz]

How to get the swf_url?
a) Open the rtmpe streaming weblink (intended video) and open View --> Page Source
b) Search for something like ".swf" "swf?" or "embed" and find something like these lines.

// embed the Flash Content SWF when all tests are passed
		
	AC_FL_RunContent(

			"src", "http://www.mybigflix.com/apache_file/flash/Player?f=" + new Date().getTime(),
			"FlashVars", "adsxml=aHR0cDo.........
			"width", "640",..
	);

The first line src "http://www.mybigflix.com/apache_file/flash/Player?f=" is from where we got our swf_url.

Hope this helps you.

[angles]

so i tried reading the forum again and again. but im getting confused.. all i want is to download videos from the site my big fli x.com can anybody please tell me in noob terms step by step how to download from there? or can anybody make a video tutorial.. i will be sooooo thankfull!

[teluguone12]

Thanks Fraekz.

Iam completely new to downloading streaming stuff..just followed your instructions able to download movie from bigflix..

[teluguone12]

Originally Posted by angles

so i tried reading the forum again and again. but im getting confused.. all i want is to download videos from the site my big fli x.com can anybody please tell me in noob terms step by step how to download from there? or can anybody make a video tutorial.. i will be sooooo thankfull!

Hello Angles.

Follow fraekz guide(two posts above your post) and let me know which part you are unable to follow..iam also completely new to this..and able to download my first file using fraekz instructions..iam using windows 7 64bit.

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

rtmpdump -r rtmpe://fms.1B42.edgecastcdn.net/001B42/vault/videoclips/movies -a 001B42/vault/videoclips/movies -y "mp4:dus_tola.mp4?e=1294151036" -W http://www.mybigflix.com/apache_file/flash/Player.swf -o test.mp4 -V

[noob2001204]

Originally Posted by Fraekz

Special thanks to hyc, gaganspidey and noob2001204. I registered on this site, just to share my experience.

Just to remind you that pmdump is not needed anymore in this case.
You can just use HxD editor to search through the memory from the browser. In editor menu,click Extras -> Open RAM -> select the process of your browser.

I dismissed that useful function from the beginning,that's much faster than using pmdump to dump memory to harddisk.

[roaming_romeo]

Re: Bigflix.

GetFLV works. I have a request if anyone has Getflv, please just DL one movie for me. Replay Media Catcher doesn't work well. It catches the streams but a message of forbidden or encrypted download and it can't be done without permission message comes in.

I tried using pmdump and RTMP dumps but all I get is access denied messages or command prompt fails to recognize pmdump. How is this thing installed exactly and where? When I open the dumps, all I get are a CMD window that flickers open and shut in an instant. How does one use it with command prompt window? I tried dragging the dump exe in command prompt window? Is that how it is 'installed'?

[any ANONYMOUS forum user]

Originally Posted by roaming_romeo

GetFLV works. I have a request if anyone has Getflv, please just DL one movie for me. Replay Media Catcher doesn't work well. It catches the streams but a message of forbidden or encrypted download and it can't be done without permission message comes in.

You can try TubeDigger and freeware RTMPexplorer.