Snow Leopard – Use Quicktime Player to capture web video and audio

Tagged: Apple Mac

One of Snow Leopard’s biggest changes was the built-in Quicktime Player.  The new player allows you to capture video, audio and also screencasts (ie capture your computer’s screen in a movie).  However, by default you are only allowed to use an internal/external mic for audio capturing.  You cannot capture audio from your mac itself (ie sound from a movie playing in your browser or music from a website).  With the help of a free plugin, Soundflower, for Snow Leopard, we can in turn use Quicktime Player’s screen recording abilities as a very free and easy way to capture web video and audio.

Requirements:

- Mac running Snow Leopard

- Snowflower add-on (download here )

1. Download and install the Snowflower add-on.  The actual download link is a google code page.  Once you install the add-on, i would recommend rebooting.

2. After rebooting, you will need to set your audio preferences to output to the new Soundflower audio outputs.  Go to System Preferences > Sound > Output and select the Soundflower outputs

3. Now, launch Quicktime Player ( Applications > Quicktime Player or via Spotlight, command+spacebar)

Go to File >New Screen Recording

Then on the recording window, click the drop down arrow and choose the same Soundflower output we setup in our previous step. (ie Soundflower 2CH).

4. Finally, now go to your website and get the video ready to play. Hit the Record button in Quicktime Player and then start your movie/video in your browser. Once your done, stop the recording and voila! You have an instant video capture.

HOWEVER, remember to change your output audio back to your speakers once your done capturing. ( System Preferences > Sound > Output ) or else you may wonder where your audio went. :)

TIPS/TRICKS:

- REMEMBER, your mouse is captured when your recording, so try not to put it over the video your capturing.

- You can easily capture web audio by just doing a File > New Audio Recording and again choosing the Soundflower input as source.

- If you want, you can even import the captured video into iMovie and then crop to the video frame itself. Makes it a cleaner video.

–disclaimer, i do not promote the piracy of web or copyrighted content. this guide is meant for educational uses only.