FlashCapture 3.0.4

When you want to watch a video on YouTube, for example, you can simply fire up your web browser (for the purposes of this review we’re going to assume that you have the default Internet Explorer browser) and visit the popular video sharing site. But what if you don’t want to visit YouTube, what if you want to watch a video without opening up IE and accessing YouTube? This is where Flash Capture comes in – the application lets you save Flash videos from YouTube (and other similar sites) onto your computer.

A couple of moments is all you will need to download and install Flash Capture on your Windows-powered computer. The download weighs in at 3.8MB, so that it won’t take long. A setup wizard will guide you through the installation process, which won’t take long either. During the installation process you will be asked if you want to create desktop shortcuts and set Flash Capture as the default Flash player.

Once Flash Capture is up and running, you will end up with three shortcuts on your desktop: Dreamingsoft Flash Player (a media player for your Flash files), Dreamingsoft Video Converter (takes Flash files and converts them to AVI, MPEG2 and MP4) and a link to a webpage on how to use Flash Capture (the link opens automatically when the installation process of Flash Capture completes).

To start using Flash Capture you need to open your Internet Explorer browser. IE9 on Windows 7 does not display the Command Bar by default, so the next thing you need to do is right click the Menu bar and check Command bar.

If you now want to start using Flash Capture, you have two options at your disposal. One would be to hit the Flash Capture menu from the Command bar and access the application’s interface. From this interface you can check IE9’s cached videos and also videos that the application detects on the current page. You can then select a video and save it to your computer.

The second option is to just browse YouTube until you find a video you like. To save that video, click on the Flash Capture icon from the video’s top left hand corner. From the dropdown menu pick Save Flash Video As -> select the video from the list of cached videos -> Save. Flash Capture will save that video as a FLV (Flash Video) file and it will prompt you to convert that FLV file to another format.

To sum it up, you can use Flash Capture to download videos from YouTube and other similar sites. You can view the downloaded Flash videos with the Dreamingsoft Flash Player and you can convert them to more user-friendly formats like AVI and MP4 with the Dreamingsoft Video Converter.

Flash Capture and all its components are only free to try. You can use Flash Capture for free only for an evaluation period of 7 days.

Flash Capture provides a simple means to download Flash videos from video sharing sites like YouTube and it provides an efficient means of converting Flash videos to other formats. It is a must have for IE users who want to save their favorite videos locally.

Pros
It takes very little time to download and install Flash Capture. After the installation process completes you are directed to a webpage that explains how to use Flash Capture. A Flash player and a Flash converter are included.

Cons
It is free to use for a rather short 7-day evaluation period. It only works with Internet Explorer.

FlashCapture has been reviewed by George Norman on 15 Feb 2012. Based on the user interface, features and complexity, Findmysoft has rated FlashCapture 4 out of 5 stars, naming it Excellent