Update: Please note that iTunes’ methodology has changed with the release of iTunes 5.0. What little information I have on the new version has been logged on a new post, Saving Music Videos in iTunes 5.0 for Windows. Please contribute, especially if you know how to open QuickTime Cache (.qtch) files.
As a self-professed digital packrat, I can’t stand the thought of ever losing some piece of information or media. I download, I checksum, I archive, I store for all eternity. I do not like to be at the mercy of others, and I positively sweat at the prospect of having some previously-available datum taken away from me. So when I couldn’t save music videos from the iTunes Music Store (aka iTMS), I got a little agitated.
Saving these videos under Mac OS X is practically trivial. Step to the other side of the fence, and you’re in a world of pain:
The cached videos themselves are easy enough to find: C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Temp\ contains a “.tmp” file for the currently-playing video. iTunes maintains an exclusive lock on this file, and other programs are not allowed to read the file in any way. This means no opening, no copying, nothing. Well, not quite nothing. (Did you forget who you’re talking to here?)
I’ll start from the beginning. Here is the iTunes Music Store’s Music Video section:
Further clicking brings the user to the videos themselves:
At this point, the video is saved in the Temp directory mentioned above:
But, as I mentioned, it’s seemingly impossible to copy the file:
“Seemingly impossible” is not the same as “extra mega impossible,” though. Studious hackers will remember the Windows Backup Utility, located in Start Menu → Programs → Accessories → System Tools → Backup. (Windows XP Home users will need to install this application.) This tool has a “shadow copy” backup function that backs up locked files, allowing backups to take place while the computer is in use. A little misappropriation, and this music video will be liberated.
Dig down to the Temp directory and select it for backup:
You’ll notice that you can’t selelct a single file to back up. The default file exclusion patters for the Backup Utility prevent this. To change this setting, select “Options…” from the “Tools” menu, and click on the “Exclude Files” tab. Scroll down to the rule about files in the Temp directory, select it, and click “Remove.” (This amount of destruction is OK for me, since I use the utility for archiving music videos and nothing else.)
Start the backup using the default settings:
At this point, you can start doing other things in iTunes. Backup Utility has a death grip on the file, and it will be backed up. The progress bar should be well on its way:
And restore the file back to your drive using the newly-created backup file. I haven’t included all the steps for the restore process. I’m sure you can figure it out. I prefer restoring to the Desktop, myself.
After the restore, give the file a .mov suffix so it’s associated with QuickTime Player. You now have a nice, clean video with which to do as you please:
Remember: as we learned in Spider-Man, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Apple made this hard for a reason: they don’t want people throwing around all this copyrighted media willy-nilly. I can’t control what you do with this information, but please support the artists as well as Apple’s Music Store. Lord knows I do.
Speaking of the Lord, Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus. This is my Christmas present to all you anonymous Internet folk. Enjoy.
Updates to this post:
- March 23, 2005: Added note about renaming *.tmp file.
- April 6, 2005: Added file exclusion list information. Added link to Microsoft’s site on installing Backup Utility. Confirmed that this process works in iTunes 4.7.1.
I think they actually closed the caching loophole in the latest versions of QuickTime/iTunes on Mac OS X. Note sure tho.
ma thx, this help me a lot. I’ve been searching google for god knows when for this.
If you want to back up one file. In the backup ulitity go > Tools > Options > Exlude Files > Find Filename: “C:\Documents and Setting\username\Local Settings\Temp\*” and remove that line. thanks for leading me in the right.
Thanks for the tip, I’ll try it out any probably add it to the main body of the page.
I can’t get the Backup Utility to keep from skipping the IDH***.TMP file when ttempting a backup, even after diabling the line in the above comment. Any idea on what I might be doing wrong?
Sean,
I haven’t had any problems with this, at least with the videos I saved. The Backup Utility picked up on all the files in my Temp directory.
I’m having the same problem. I can select one file, however it skips it everytime
Quicktime will overwrite the IDH*.tmp file everytime you load a new video, so you will need to open the video, wait for it to completely download, make a backup of the file (using shadowcopy to get by the lock on the file), then load your next video, etc… Close iTunes (which deletes the .tmp file) and then restore the temp directory, cut the .tmp file and paste it somewhere else, then repeat the restore for another video, etc.
I’ve been restoring to an alternate directory, not right back into the Temp directory. I wonder if people are having problems restoring back to Temp while iTunes is still open…
I can’t seem to get this to work… I think my problem is similar to the aforementioned ones, as I can’t get the backup utility to select the right files. I’ve tried the mentioned suggestions but I still have no success.
This may be a dumb question, but is shadowcopy different from the regular backup procedure?
Oh! I seem to have discovered my problem! I was just going to post it when I realized it’s the “exclude file” problem fixed earlier. I’m truly sorry and you must believe me when I say I really do know what I’m doing. Don’t tell anyone I did this. self-noted PEBKAC! sorry again.
I’m having a problem similar to Peter’s… when I attempt to back up the temporary file, it is skipped, even though I have made sure it’s not in the exclude file list. Actually, it seems to back up alright, though it does go awfully fast, but I can’t seem to restore the information to a different location. Help!?
You and Peter also have the same IP address. Seems like you have a lot in common.
er, what format are the movie files in? when i backup, i can’t play the files as either mpg or mov :/
scratch that question. apparently you have to restore a backed up file X|. man im stupid.
This works great, except for the fact that I can only do one video at a time. As soon as you click back in iTunes to select another video the temporary file of the last one you watched gets erased.
Thanks for the how to, you have helped me after a lot of silly “look in the temp directory and copy it” style non-help
Using “Shadowcopy”: I’ve tried all above, No Copy. Backup Log states IDH513.tmp in use, Files: 0, Skipped: 1.
How do I enable Shadowcopy? I’ve tried to install the loader from MS, and it states program already exists.
Using MS W2000
I can’t play the famouse IDH*.tmp file
OK. Just takes a whiiiile to load. I renamed to mov thou. It works… I wanted to do that shadow copy, but didnt know i had the tool in my own computer.
I have XP home edition and I cant find the backup tool in system tools.
Never mind, I figured everything out and it worked great.
Process works like a charm. You da man! Or da woman!
Worked awesome like a charm no problems
How can you concert from TMP to MP4 or something usefull in other programs other than Quick time? I can play only in quick time.
thanks a million man for finding this! i’ve been searching for a way to do this forever.
Awesome! I was looking at programs to capture streaming video–this is so much easier. Thanks a lot!
Cool! This worked great, I have been looking for a way to do this…
This is great i been looking for an answer i knew this could be done with a pc but am really bad with computers and no matter how much i tried to understand i cant if theres someone who can guide me through aim or yahoo messenger please email me and let me know right now am interested in getting one video which am on lol but hasnt been released on tv or anything first time i see it on i tunes please help
Also i just noticed that when i got to system tools i dont have “back up” in there am on windows xp anyone know about this? thanks
Alright i pretty much got it all down now except when i back up the temp folder it skips on the IDH# file and i read a few posts up^ but they dont seem to say what they did to solve this problem please help
XP does not have this backup utility and I have searched for “shadow copying” and still can’t figure it out…
I tried this on both a Windows 2000 Professional machine and a XP Home Machine and found that Windows 2000 Professional doesn’t support Shadow copy. Windows XP worked great though.
Fantastic – you’re a champ.
Mmh… Any way to get Win2000 to use Shadow Copy? Or should I try and get a winXP machine?
Man I hate windows…
Ah! Beat the damn thing. Although it’s hardly the best solution, but hey, it worked…
Not talking about iTunes, but about streamed apple trailers, which apparently use the same system of saving, here’s how I managed to save the .tmp file:
I unplugged the PC. =P
Really. Make sure your file is fully downloaded and the quicktime window opened, and then switch off the PC. When you restart it, the .tmp file will be there in the temp folder.
As I said, not the best solution, but when you’re desperate…
When I backup the file, and rename the bkf to something like “musicvideo.mov” and then try to open the movie, Quicktime says it can’t recognize it, or not playable? anyone?
It sounds like you backed up the file (which creates a .bkf archive) but did not restore the .tmp file from the .bkf. That’s the step between the backup and the rename that you missed.
Any tips for saving a full-screen movie trailer? The .tmp file disappears as soon as itunes isn’t in the foreground.
For the user above:
You don’t need iTunes to view the fullscreen trailers. When the QuickTime site puts up a trackback link to open iTunes, it looks like this:
itms://www.apple.com/moviesxml/s/wb/1379/fullscreen.xml
If you change it to this:
http://www.apple.com/moviesxml/s/wb/1379/fullscreen.xml
You can view the .XML file. Inside that is a link to the trailer itself:
http://movies.apple.com/movies/wb/batman_begins/batman_begins-tlr4a_ifs.mov
After about an hour of trying to figure out how to get to my temp files to get the thing to back up, I gave up and looked at the redirect. If only I had done that before…
my xp sp1 backup tool will skip the file.
does this work for anyone with sp1 or sp2?
I’ve restored the backed up file, and named it greenday.mov , then when i try and drag it into itunes it won’t work. However it will play on quicktime ??? what should i do???
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i am using iTunes 4.8 which plays quicktime movies so does this method not work with the newer iTunes?
well mate i think ur screwed, there is no known converter and itunes will only play quicktime file, and when backing up using this metod the file will remai .tmp
sorri:(
Chris, the restored file is a QuickTime media file. iTunes has no traditional “player” support, ie. you can’t just drop a video file on it for viewing. You’re supposed to use QuickTime Player to watch movies, not iTunes. Everything is working exactly as it should.
However the new iTunes 4.8 has quicktime playback support, and the files i’ve restored are .tmp . But the iTunes willl refuse to play any file other than .mov . (adding the suffix .mov makes no difference.)
are the restored files supposed to be .tmp?
don’t Worry i’ve found a converter and it works great, its at http://www.wilisoft.com its really good, i recommend it!
My entire Music video collection is now stored saftly on iTunes.
THANX GUYS!
An easier way might be to use Unlocker (here: http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/ ) to simply unlock iTunes’ “death grip” on the file. Then copy the blamed thing.
For those of you who need to play these songs in iTunes, simply start up the .tmp videos with QuickTime Pro and Save. Click the bottom check thing for the stand alone version. Good times.
sorri the converter is at http://www.xilisoft.com
the unlocker is good
ImTOO 3GP Video Converter
Thanks for putting together this really great resource.
I’ve tried using the file unlocker tool, but I cant get it to work. The file disappears. And if I quit out of Itunes the file also disppears.
i made a tool to save the video it’s located at http://www45.brinkster.com/yugiohdan6/itunes.asp (the instructions are on the page)
thanks
Your page doesnt work daniel. The instructions say to right click on the video and get the url. right clicking on the video only pauses the video. Any suggestions?
sorry if i was’nt clear enough i meant right click on the video’s picture on the main page.. right clicking on the small or large link would also work
here are detailed instructions http://www45.brinkster.com/yugiohdan6/detail.htm
unlocker, doesn’t work at all. The brinkster thing is good, thanx
***ipod socks rule***
thank you
Very nice. I’ve been looking for away to do this. If windows backup can access locked files via shadow copy. It would stand to reason that an app could be written to do this.
Hey I have a few questions please:
1. in the tmp directory what does the new fire look like/called?
2. When do you start the backup app, and when do you start the movie?
Thanks! I hope this still works..
I need help. i think Apple changed the directory of the saved vids in version 5. if anyone figures it out please let me know. thanks a million. darkrocknrapper@yahoo.com
What’s the word for iTunes 6? I haven’t had any success yet. The temp file iTunes made was only 16kb, so it makes me wonder where the 50mb file is hiding.
I tried with iTunes 4 and work great!!
Guilherme – Brazil
I just got my 2000t and all of my songs are skipping in iTunes, and I cant figure out why. If someone could help me out and tell me how to fix this I would really appreciate it because its driving me crazy. Thanks for the replys.
one of the way you can resolve this is by maybe getting a new
iTune and maybe buy your self a real functioning iTune.