StreamTransport is a free video downloading software that can download media from video sharing sites such as YouTube as well as encrypted media (video or music) from sites such as Hulu.
It can browse and download media from sites using HTTP, RTMP, RTMPT, RTMPE, and RTMPTE protocols, which covers most video and media sharing sites.
While there has been a general proliferation of video downloading apps and “YouTube downloaders”, only a handful of these are actually able to download encrypted media (video or music) from anti-leeching” websites that use encryption such as Imeen, Pandora and Last.fm.
Two that can that were mentioned previously at Freewaregenius are TubeMaster++ and Orbit Downloader, but even these are unable to download from Hulu. I have tested StreamTransport and can confirm that it can download from Hulu as well as other encrypted sites.
I have been keeping an eye out for a video downloading service that can download from Hulu for a while. The best contender I had come across was the command line, open source app “Get_Iplayer“, which supported Hulu downloads for a while until that support was dropped. Other Hulu downloading apps were typically quite restricted in their free version, and/or would stop working as the Hulu encryption kept changing.
While StreamTransport can download videos from Hulu, it is quite possible that the Hulu encryption might be tweaked or changed at some point and would require StreamTransport to be updated to keep pace, but at least at the time of this writing it is working.
More note on this program below:
How to use:
- Use StreamTransport’s built-in browser to find and play your media. Simply navigate to it as you would any browser, or use the “visit Hulu” button on the top toolbar.
- Once the video starts showing, it will appear in the list of URLs. You should be able to identify the actual video vs. the ads and other unrelated content because (a) it will have a title that makes sense that often starts with “Hulu -“, and (b) it will show a significant duration in minutes as opposed to the few seconds duration of the ads.
- Note that you will download a single file for the entire Hulu program that you want. You will not have to worry about ad interruptions.
- Download speed: it is normal that download speed will fluctuate greatly with Hulu videos, and that downloading will take a very long time. This is likely a function of negotiating the encryption, and you will notice that downloading from other services is much faster
- Once a video starts downloading, you can navigate and start downloading other media. The video does not have to be playing in order to download.
Note on downloaded Hulu FLV files: while I was download and play these, fast-forwarding was not possible, which made me think that Hulu videos by design do not have keyframe objects in them. (This is probably due to the video itself, not the downloader). To fix I used a utility called FLVMDI that could inject metadata and include keyframe objects into FLV’s (this is a command line utility but there’s a GUI on the site). Sure enough after adding keyframe objects I was able to fast forward using The KMPlayer without problems.
The verdict: not only can this free app download from Hulu and other sites with encrypted media, it has a fairly nice interface as well. I only hope that when and if the Hulu encryption is tweaked that StreamTransport is updated to keep pace.
One thing to note is that while I tested this successfully with Hulu, YouTube, and Imeem, I was not able to get videos from Joost.com to play in StreamTransport’s integrated player, which suggests that while this app is a valuable tool, esp. for Hulu, it may not be a one-size-fits all media downloader.
[Thanks go to user Yashino for tipping me off about this program!]
Version Tested: 1.02
Compatibility: WinAll.
Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 2.79 megs). If site is down you can download ver 1.02 here.
