A mirror is a different website that has offered to make a download available, sharing the work of transferring the file. The idea behind calling it a mirror is that it should be a perfect reproduction of the first site.
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As long as the link to the mirror is from a reputable site such as Sourceforge then there is no need to fire up your radar detector and start worrying. If you are given a choice it is a good idea to pick a mirror as close to you as possible but, as the difference in speed is negligible, don’t worry too much about making the decision.

I got this question from my friend Iain who was trying to download some clips to show to a relative who didn’t have an Internet connection. It’s one thing that you tend to assume nowadays isn’t it; that everyone has an Internet connection. Well, some people still don’t, even though there ADSL coverage is increasing and with a satellite internet provider you can get an Internet connection anywhere you choose. However, some people just aren’t inclined towards it, choose not to get one or maybe just can’t justify the cost.

Anyway, back to the question at hand. How does one download one of the thousands of video clips you can get online. Well, I came across a free program while researching this question that lets you download video clips from the like of YouTube, Google Video, MySpaceTV and many others. Once it’s downloaded, it can be converted to one of a number of different formats including Ipod, Iphone, PSP, Cell Phone, Windows Media, XVid and MP3; or you can even just play the video within a Flash player. The pacakge is called YouTube Downloader and is extremely easy to use. Here’s how to do it:

Fire up the program and paste the URL of the video into the input box.

Choose the format you want to convert the video clip to and click OK

The package will proceed to download the video for you, which you can then share any which way you like.

One thing I had been doing some time back was actually hooking up a laptop to my TV so that I can watch videos I downloaded. This would have been a great place to store clips like this. Maybe I should get one of these tv deals to get a spare one for my study and just watch clips on that instead. It’s always better to have a bigger screen isn’t it. Just have to keep in mind that these online videos aren’t always high quality enough to be blown up that big.

The first thing you need to realise that whenever you’re looking for free music, you need to keep in mind issues like copyright and make sure that the you are always using a legal source for your files. It’s too easy to join a torrent network and download a pirated album. But there are also other sources where you can download your music from.

One of these, for example, is MP3 Rocket, an application you can download which gives you access to 12 million songs with no download or per song fee an in a format you can hear on your computer, your iPod or wherever you wish. The files come down from a network called Gnutella which allows people to share music, videos, applications and any other sort of file they wish.

One thing to note is that the free software will keep asking you to upgrade to the paid-for version. The Nag screens aren’t too annoying though. I downloaded the free version and have been using it for around a week downloading classical music and the files it downloads are just fine.

Just one word of caution with this method. MP3Rocket provide you with a mechanism to download files, however the files come from any one of a number of people around the world. Please make sure you’re always running a virus scanner on your machine as there is a real possibility that you could download a file with a virus attached. There’s a particularly nasty Gnutella virus around that mimics one of your free music downloads and entice you to pull it down. Most virus scanners will pick this up though, so as long as you have an updated one you don’t need to worry about it.

I got asked by Lenny the other day whether it’s possible to download a WMV file that he saw on a website and how he could get it down to his computer. His first instinct was to look for some sort of Save option in Windows Media Player, but that didn’t get him very far.

I had managed to do this in the past using a different package. There seem to be a couple around, but the one I had success with is called GetASFStream. It doesn’t have a great user interface so here are some instructions how to use it. The user interface is shown below:

Using it is really quite simple. First change the download folder to the location on your hard disk you want the file to be downloaded to. Next, go to where the video is playing, right-click on the video and choose Properties. From here you should be able to copy the URL to the movie; this usually starts with “mms://“. Paste this into the URL field  shown in the screenshot above. All that’s left to do is click “EXEC”

The movie will start downloading and as soon as there is enough of it, a Windows Media Player window will open and start playing this off your hard disk. You don’t really need this, so feel free to close this window down. Keep an eye on the application, and when it reaches 100%, your file is ready.

Enjoy!