"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
ps.com...
[...]
If anyone can strip the raw video from that awful Google format, I'd
love to host that on our webpage. Email it to me at
, please.

A couple of options:

First, you can download directly from the Google web site in the "iPod"
format. This is actually just a Quicktime .mp4 file, at the same resolution
as the original movie (I don't know if it always is the same resolution, but
it is in this case), so is as portable as any other Quicktime movie file you
have. Just pick "iPod" from the list box next to the "Download" button, and
then click the "Download" button.

Second, the original can be downloaded in its raw format with this link:

http://vp.video.google.com/videodown...T-FH-rE67C9MoY

More generally, if you click the "Download" button, then right-click the
"Download Manually" link, choose "Save As..." to put the .gvp file where you
want it, and then open it as text (it's actually just a plain text
document), the plain .avi link can be found in that text file (it'll look
like the one above...there's actually more to the URL, but you can leave off
the rest of the parameters in it...all you really need is the "secureurl="
part).

With the above .avi file someone need only have the Google Video Player
installed to play it. Granted, this involves having yet another piece of
software installed, but you already host multiple formats, so maybe that
could be justified.

Third, Google videos are coded for the Google player using a "FourCC" code
of "goog", but the video format is not a proprietary Google format. The
"goog" code just means that the operation system normally thinks the video
can only be played by the Google player. I still need to do more research
on the ins and outs of this, but I suspect that one could either edit their
media player settings so that the player could successfully play "goog"
coded videos, or one could change the video file's code to the correct one
(it appears to me that the correct one is generally DivX, coded "DIVX" or
"divx") and get a regular media player to play it, assuming the correct
codec was installed.

I tried one "FourCC changer" program that I downloaded just to play with,
and it didn't have the effect I was hoping for. But then I looked at the
source code (it was provided with the program) and found it's very
simplistic, and may not correctly handle all possible .avi files. If I get
around to playing with this more and come up with something, I'll post back
here. I think changing the file's code is the more appropriate solution,
since it doesn't involve each user going in and fiddling with their system
settings.

Have fun.

Pete