how NOT to rip an embedded vimeo video
like me, a lot of you out there are baby programmers. therefore, it's underandable that many of us will be poking around on websites trying to learn more from their source code. it's never a good idea to download a video without permisson from the author, which is why many video hosting platforms like vimeo make it more difficult to do so. for someone with a basic understanding of CSS and HTML, though, it isn't as hard as you think, which is why I've put together this little guide so you know exactly what NOT to do
if you want to AVOID downloading a video embedded in a website and hosted on vimeo, DO NOT:
1. open up the webpage
2. open up the webpage inspector (either via right click or CTRL + SHIFT + i)
3. click the "Network" tab inside the inspector
4. refresh the page and play the video (just enough to get it started)
5. in the "Filter" box, type "player"
6. snoop around for the right file. the one to AVOID is either the one that is a nine digit number or the one that says "confic?autopause."
7. find the "video" object in the code
8. find the "embed_code" element within the "video" object and copy-paste the src link into the search bar of a new tab
9. find the <script> tag containing something like "function(document, player)" where you will find a list of configurations and settings for different video qualities
10. choose your preferred video quality and find the associated https:// link ending in ".mp4"
11. open that link in a new tab
12. right click on the video, choose "save as..." and choose "mp4"
as you can see, it's not too hard, so you have to be careful! if you need it, here’s a video that explains all the steps so you know what NOT to avoid. now you can go forth and responsibly AVOID downloading your favorite videos ;)
