Here’s a step by step guide to downloading videos from Hulu using free software. These steps can be taken to download videos from most video sharing services, including most sites that encrypt their media.
Free programs used in this tutorial are SteamTransport and FLVMDI. Note that this article is for informational purposes only and that you are responsible for abiding with the relevant laws that govern copyright in the state or country where you reside.
Step #2: Browse to the video you want. Run StreamTransport and use the built in browser to find the video that you want to download, such that that it starts playing in the browser. It is important that the video starts playing; if it doesn’t for whatever reason you will not be able to download it.
Step #3: Identify your video in the list of URLs. You now have to identify the video in the list of URLs that appear in the bottom window. The reason there are multiple entries there is because there are other video streams being loaded on that same page (mostly ads). Identifying the actual video should be easy enough though:
- The video will have a title that makes sense that often starts with “Hulu -”, while the ads and other stuff will have a meaningless title. The video entry can appear on the list before the ads and other stuff, even when the ads are displayed first.
- If you look into the duration of the different entries in the URL list, the video you seek will have a duration in minutes that makes sense (30 minutes or 45 minutes, etc), while the ads and other stuff will have a duration of mere seconds or a couple of minutes at most.
Step #4: Initiate the download. Select the video you would like to download and click the “Download” button on the right. Your video will start downloading. Note the following:
- You should start downloading as soon as the entry appears in the list. I found that initiating the download quickly almost always works, while waiting can sometimes result in a failure to successfully capture the URL.
- Once the video starts downloading, you can go back to the main StreamTransport dialog to browse and add more videos to the download list. Multiple videos can download simultaneously; the video does not have to be playing in the StreamTransport browser for it to download.
- The overall download for Hulu videos takes a much longer time than downloading from other video sharing services, and the download speed will constantly fluctuate. This may be due to the process of negotiating the encryption.
- In fact, total download time for your video may not be that much less than the duration of the video. The best way to download, therefore, is to start a batch of downloads overnight or during your lunch hour or something like that.
Step #5: Locate the file on your hard drive. You can tell that the video has finished downloading once it has reached “100%” in the download list. To locate the downloaded video on your hard drive select it in the list and click the “locate” button on the top bar. This should open the folder on your hard drive where the video is located. The video will be in .FLV format. See image below.
Step #6: Open the file using a proper media player. Now that your video is downloaded, see if it plays correctly. Make sure that you are using a media player that will play FLV videos, such as The KMPlayer, VLC player, or Splayer. FLV format will typically not play in either Windows Media Player or iTunes unless special filters (called codecs) are installed on your system.
What I have found is that while the video will start playing just fine, any attempts to fast forward the video will cause playback to fail.
- If this is the case (the video will not fast forward) then go to step#7
- If this is not the case (the video is playing just fine and you are satisfied), then that’s it, you’re done. Happy viewing.
Step #7: Download FLVMDI, a tool that can inject keyframe objects into FLVs. The reason FLV videos downloaded from Hulu do not fast forward is because they lack keyframe objects (little markers interspersed across a video that enable the media player to navigate back and forth). Hulu videos probably do not contain these by design, to make it harder for people view videos downloaded from Hulu. This is easily fixed, however.
- Go to the FLVMDI website. Scroll down to the “Downloads” section (towards the bottom of the screen) and download the latest versions of FLVMDI and FLVMDIGUI (at the time of this writing these were versions 2.95 and 1.05, respectively).
- Extract both FLVMDI and FLVMDIGUI, then move flvmdi.exe to the FLVMDIGUI folder.
Step #8: Run FLVMDIGUI.exe and process your FLV. Once you launch this program the dialog is self-explanatory:
- For the input file, browse to your downloaded FLV video file. Note: to process a number of FLV files in batch use”All files in a folder” tab. This will let you point to a folder rather than a single file and process all the FLV files inside.
- For Output, you can use the same name as the original, which auto-populates. Really no need to create a different output file name.
- Check the “Include ’keyframes’ object” box
- That’s it. You can now click the “Run FLVMDI” button on the bottom right to process.
- Processing should conclude in a few seconds.
Step #9:You’re done. Your downloaded file should now be fully playable on any media player that plays FLV files
Thank you for this write up. I also see the post before this but thanks for step by step!!
Thanks for the instructions. When I run this program I do not see the download button. It looks the right side of the screen is somehow cut off. I use google chrome as my default browser could that be an issue? Any advice?
But will this work outside of US where its blocked? Thanks
That was fast. Hulu have already been onto it and had SteamTransport’s site taken down.
Stephen. The program can be downloaded here
Hulu DID NOT take down the site. They just ran into a payment problem. Anyways, its site is back up.
Funny how Malwarebytes blocks their website as being dangerous. Wonder if the media companies have an agreement or if their website actually does something bad.
Looks like Hulu found a way to block this. Using the browser inside of stream transport gives me an error saying “Sorry, we are unable to stream this video”
I wanted to thank you so much. I tried several other programs and internet sites that was suppose to be able to download hulu videos but had no luck. I really appreciate people like you who take the time to help people like me. Thanks for all your time you took looking and posting instructions up for us.
I’m wondering, does this allow those outside the US who can’t normally watch Hulu videos (unless changing their IP with a program to look like a US one or something) to download the videos with this method? Or will the Hulu video simply still not play in StreamTransport, making you unable to do so with this as well?
I use a free guide on how to download movie trailers from the internet but you can also use it to download any videos that you like.
I use GetFLV (www.getflv.net/)to download hulu videos.
It Download ANY Web Video to your PC in mere minutes
Support Hundreds Video Sites including: Youtube, HuLu, MTV, CBS…
Convert ANY videos for your portable devices like iPod, iPhone, PSP, Zune, etc. devices
Conver ANY Video to FLV and put it on ANY web site
Thank so much for the software suggestion to download videos online for offline viewing & explaining step by step on to enable the videos to fast forward once it is finished downloading for a pleasurable viewing experiencing without it crashing when you try to skip to the next scene. You are true blessing because I was really confused as of why when I went to watch the movie I downloaded from Megavideo crashed the player when I skipped the next scene.
Have a safe, wonderful day & please keep up the excellent work, my friend! : – )
Sincerely,
Ken
Greetings !
Thank you soooo much for this invaluable software, something I can actually use!
Keep up the awesome job!
Graciously Happy,
Mark
thanks!
keep up the good work!
God bless!
This is a really cool trick! I didn’t know that we could actually download videos form hulu… Thank you very much for this information, I will pass it on to my friends who are die hard sitcom fans.
Unfortunately i ran into this problem: try downloading Still Crazy from Hulu. It will ask for your email and password. No problem … have an account. Movie starts playing in Firefox. OK … so cut and paste same URL to StreamTransport … asks for password … enter same password (my other screen is closed so not playing movie at same time) …. password not accepted through StreamTransport. Even tried using StreamTransport’s browser to same site … again password is not accepted. Another block ….
Doesn’t work
Works great! Downloading two episodes of Medium and the latest SNL from Hulu right now!
I did 5 mins of research and thanks to this site I got what I came for. Streamtransport is really user friendly. I have no problem downloading videos from hulu. If you’re the one that is having problem then you are the problem. You need to better educate yourself on “how to” use a computer. Do some reading dude. It’s not that hard. My nephew is 8 and he knows what to do without me having to say anything. Lol…
Thank you that you can take your time from your busy scheduel, it is very kind of you to provide this precious information for us
i used handbrake for video conversion before.
Works great, thanks for the guide.
I have found a limitation to the batch process. I have not found any options in the software to allow a way around it, even if you have a large amount of bandwidth.
It seems I am limited to 4 concurrent downloads at one time. Considering that the download process does appear to take almost the entire running time of the video for it to complete, this seems to make it fairly inconvenient to try to download from Hulu, but I’m sure that is the point.
If I put more than 4 titles in the task queue through StreamTransport, it inactively queues the extra videos until one of the current 4 completes. It then tries to query the URL to download, but by the time it does this, it is forced to a timeout. Therefore, I have to go back and restart the process again.
So, if you are doing the batch process, I recommend only doing 4 at a time, or you will have to go through your later ones again.
do you have a linux based equivalent to DVD43?
do you know of linux equivalents for these programs?
@D-Pain
Don’t be so mean, D-Pain. Just thank God that you have such an intelligent young child and that you’re blessed to know everything.
Thanks so much. I found your directions to be quite thorough and simple to understand. I couldnt download direct from IMDB but pulling HULU up in stream transport I was able to get the same programs.
MDII doesn’t work. It quickly says that the “Reading FLV Header” is completed. But when it starts “Reading FLV Tags” it hangs at 1%.. Does anyone have a suggestion as to what to do? Thanks
MDI = 2.96; MDIGUI = 1.05
Re above post: Well, it did work.Or at least it finished. Seems it needed more time to do it.
how can i download with the CC ( english sub) with the video?
Hi !New way of downloading videos directly from Youtube!
Get direct links to download YouTube videos as MP4 and FLV. Unlike other websites, this one has a simple user interface and it downloads videos directly from YouTube.
Just go to – http://www.yootoobee.com
I downloaded a movie, took more than two hours, was over 400MB, but when I went to play it, it only had about 5000 KB and wouldn’t play, which I didn’t expect that it would with so small a file. Just wondering why it took so long to download such a small file. Also, many times nothing shows up in the window where the files are supposed to be in order fo them to be downloaded. Oh, well, at least it didn’t cost me any money like that program another commenter recommended
this dose not work at all
Streamtransport no longer works with Hulu. Actually, it doesn’t work with any streaming site. Need to remove or update this article.
Seems like any program work anymore. The only one who works is GETflv 9.0 and theres no crack till now.
I have installed the program and all seems to work then when I move for it to pick up the URL I get an 404 error. I am not a novice at computers but I am at a loss here, Any help would be appreciated.
The ads show up for download but not the show. Any help would be appreciated.
Streamtransport does not work anymore, it gives err404s and won’t even download a commercial on Hulu…
Doesn’t work
Hulu has blocked the use of StreamTransport. Your can download ads but the videos are not working.
Yeah, just tried it myself. As of this date Stream Transport still says on their site that it works with Hulu, but it absolutely does not. I tried everything I could think of and it just can’t see the video at all. Bummer. Someone (with more programming skill than me) needs to make a brute force capture utility that lets you lasso an area in a window, and then records that and the sound card output.