The internet is full of videos. We have videos on platforms like YouTube, but also on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok , etc. and in countless web pages of all kinds. If you have ever considered downloading any of these videos, you may have noticed that there is a type of video that is very difficult to download: videos embedded in web pages .
A good way to download online videos is to download them from your browser’s cache . Many of the embedded videos are usually in JW Player format , which is nothing more than an online video player in HTML5. The good thing about JWPlayer is that it allows website owners to check the number of views the video is having, in addition to adding a lock so that these multimedia files cannot be downloaded so easily by default.
How to download videos in JW Player format
The methods we explain below only work with videos embedded in JW Player and are not compatible with other online video players. It is quite a technical process, so it is important that we follow it to the letter.
Method # 1: Download the embedded video from Chrome
If you use the Google Chrome browser, the first thing you have to do is load the page where the video you want to download is hosted.
- Right-click on a free area of the web page and select “Inspect.”
- In the inspection panel go to the “Network” tab.
- Then select “Media.”
- Then reload the page or press F5. Note: it is important that you refresh the page so that the watch function detects the videos embedded in the page.
- Once the page is refreshed, all the available videos will appear. Just right click on the video in the “Name” field and choose “Open in new tab”.
- We have almost done it. This will make the video load in a new tab, but the difference is that now we can download it. To do this, right click on the video and select “Save as”.
And that’s it! Save the video by assigning it the desired name and it will automatically download to your device’s hard drive so that you can view it offline as many times as you want.
Method # 2: Download the embedded video from Mozilla Firefox
If you prefer to use another browser such as Firefox, the process to download videos in JW Player is very similar.
- Open Firefox and load the page where the video in JW Player format that you want to download is located.
- In the address bar, click on the lock icon that appears just to the left. Then click on “Secure connection”.
- Click on “More information”.
- This will open an information window about the page. Click on “Media”. This will display a list of all the images and videos on the page.
- Finally, select the video you want to download and click on the “Save as” button.
- Now give the video a name and save it in a folder on your hard drive.
As you can see in the case of Firefox it is much easier to download an embedded video.
Method # 3: Use a download manager
If having to go around inspecting the internals of a web page seems too much of a hassle, you can always download the video directly using a download manager.
Personally, I always recommend the open-source JDownloader manager , although we can also use other managers such as Internet Download Manager (shareware with 30-day trial) or Free Download Manager in case JDownloader is not able to detect the embedded video.
With these tools the process is as simple as copying the URL of the page to the clipboard and the manager will automatically detect all the multimedia files it contains and can download them locally without major complications.