I was asked by my friend Shane Supple if it was possible to download a video that was uploaded to Bebo.com.

It is not as straight forward as you may think, having tinkering around with source code etc. I discovered that when you upload a video to Bebo you are actually storing your file on www.videoegg.com so I took the embed source code that Bebo provide which reveals the first part of this tip.

Go to a  page that displays a bebo video, you will know it is a bebo video because their logo is embedded as a watermark over the video then scroll down till you see the “Embed” part of the page.

Example:

Copy the embed code and paste it into Notepad, it will show something like this:

<embed width=”425″ height=”350″ src=”http://static.videoegg.com/videoegg/loader.swf” FlashVars=”bgColor=FFFFFF
&file=http://download.videoegg.com/gid329/cid1124/E7/7N/1175278125C1Zp0f2MW8
zokcDy8sWC&autoPlay=false
&forcePlay=false&logo=&allowFullscreen=true” quality=”high” allowScriptAccess=”always” bgcolor=”#FFFFFF” scale=”noscale”wmode=”window” name=”VE_Player” align=”middle” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer” /><br><a href=”http://bebo.com/watchtv”>Watch More Videos</a> Uploaded by <a href=”http://bebo.com/watchuser/436885205″>www.bebo.com/De-baw</a>

All you are interested here is the part:

http://download.videoegg.com/gid329/cid1124/E7/7N/1175278125C1Zp0f2MW8
zokcDy8sWC

To download and save that file you need to put _high.flv to the end of the URL string in order to download that file in .flv format.

So the new URL would be:
http://download.videoegg.com/gid329/cid1124/E7/7N/1175278125C1Zp0f2MW8
zokcDy8sWC_high.flv

Type or copy/paste this URL into a browser window and you will be prompted to download the .flv file

Try it here: http://download.videoegg.com/gid329/cid1124/E7/7N/1175278125C1Zp0f2MW8
zokcDy8sWC_high.flv

How to play an .flv file

You need to download a FLV Player to play back the .flv file. There are many free flv players available on the internet I use Wimpy FLV Player. No installation needed as its a stand alone player and it also supports drag and drop. It is available for both Mac and Windows.

Download it here: http://www.wimpyplayer.com/products/wimpy_standalone_flv_player.html

There is probably lots of software and tricks to download video from Bebo but I think this is the quickest way around it. Hope this helps you…