CNET Editors' review
People often find videos on the Internet they want to watch while offline. FLV Spider for Mac allows you to capture online videos to your hard drive, but some additional functions are less useful.
FLV Spider for Mac comes with a free trial version with a five-video limit per session. To obtain the full version of this program, however, you need to pony up $29.95. The program downloaded easily, but installation had some problems. During setup, the program froze and required a restart. After restarting the system, however, the program did not have any additional issues or bugs. The user must accept a licensing agreement, which also states technical support is available for problems with a 24-hour turnaround time. There are no formal instructions, which would have been welcome due to the hard-to-use menu. Novice users would not likely understand the program's functions without some trial and error. Users can set the program to capture designated videos, which the program does well. The automated capture function has some problems, though. This allows the program to automatically capture any video on a page without user input. Unfortunately, this even included video advertisements, which can quickly take up the per session video limit. Despite this problem, the overall video capture performs well and the output matches the original Internet video.
While some minor functions have problematic issues, FLV Spider for Mac performs its basic purpose well, and users seeking to capture Internet videos may find it a good option.
Editors' note: This is a review of the trial version of FLV Spider for Mac 3.1.20.
Publisher's Description
From Openworld Learning:
Do you see a cool online Flash video? Would you like to save it to your Mac or to your iPod? Nothing is easier. Just run FLV Spider before you start to surf the Web. FLV Spider will automatically capture all online videos, opened in a web browser, and show them in a sortable list. You can preview any captured video, edit video title and save video to your Mac, as easy as to drag-drop a video list item to desktop or into a Finder window. Save captured video to your iPod is as easy as to click a button. New advanced video editing tools are embedded into FLV Spider. It's easy now to cut-off a portion of a video/audio clip and join different clips into one continuous movie.
What's new in this version:
- Capture stability is improved significantly.
- Works in Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.8.2.
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All versions:
3.2 starsout of 5 votes
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Current version:
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My rating:
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Results 1-5 of 5
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"It saves my money"
Version: FLV Spider 3.0.6
Pros
I'm a fan of Glenn Beck TV shows at gbtv.com, and this tool really saves my money, as I don't need to buy a hardware box for my Nac to attach it to TV. Spider is very simple in use! And it saves everything in MP4 files, which I can play everywhere. It's very good job!
Cons
None for a month of use
Summary
Well done!
-
"It does exactly what it tells!"
Version: FLV Spider 3.0.6
Pros
All software products mentioned here as a competitors, really are not. Some of them are for Youtube only, while other are just download accelerators, having no relation to online video capturing. FLV Spider does the job just as it is described. And it is a universal, browser- and website- independent tool.
Cons
Only Flash video streams (FLV and MP4) are supported. Some websites use Windows media though.
Summary
Does its job!
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"Don't Like to be paid by "unverified" Paypal Account"
Version: FLV Spider 3.0.6
Pros
In spite of the critics above, I decided to purchased this software. The payment system use Paypal services, and oblige you either to have a Paypal account or to create one. You don't have the ability to pay directly using credit card , other merchant site offer this options with Paypal transaction.
My Card was checked, and approved by Paypal, in spite of this MP3FLV.COM REFUSED my order and cancelled it !!!! because of an unverified pay Paypal account. What a waist of time.Cons
In spite of the critics above, I decided to purchased this software. The payment system use Paypal services, and oblige you either to have a Paypal account or to create one. You don't have the ability to pay directly using credit card , other merchant site offer this options with Paypal transaction.
My Card was checked, and approved by Paypal, in spite of this MP3FLV.COM REFUSED my order and cancelled it !!!! because of an unverified pay Paypal account. What a waist of time.
in 20 year of web experience , this is the first time a merchant refuse my money ! -
"You can pay, or you can do this for free in Safari"
Version: FLV Spider 2.0.1
Pros
Convenience
Cons
Redundant with (free) features already in the Safari program.
Summary
In Safari: Window menu, select Activity, find the big file and highlight, option-doubleclick, or you can pay $19.95 to do this for you.
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"$20 for this piece of crap when there are no..."
Version: FLV Spider 1.3
Summary
...se
This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.
The developer must be out of his/her mind with greed for charging $20 for this. Instead, try xVideoServiceThief or any of the myriad other free 1-click alternatives.
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