How to find the stream behind a Flash player

I am watching a Flash stream. I can watch the same stream in two different players (set up by someone else), but I don't like any of them.

Is there a way I can find/get/extract the direct link to the flash stream that those two players are playing? So that I can watch it using a different player?

Edit: The player is streaming an RTMP stream, not an FLV video file.

Download and decompile the flash file. The source of the stream should be pretty easy to find.

It's possible that the player is generic, and the file/stream it is playing is being passed in as a param. Grep the webpage source code for "embed"/"swf" or text that's near the flash object on the page. Then look at the contents of "param name"/"param value"

Firebug for Firefox, and the Google Chrome Developer Tools (built-in to Chrome) can show every HTTP request performed by the browser. They sometimes reveal URLs such as these.

In Firefox, install Firebug (no restart), start the addon by clicking the bug icon (use customize to make it visible - but it should be by default), start the stream, and in the Firebug window click Net tab and then All, maybe refresh the video page. The url should appear when putting the mouse over the line that says something like "GET video", right click on the URL and Copy location.

In Chrome, open the Developer tools, check the Network tab and start playing the file.

Fiddler2 is a great tool for this. Think of it like Wireshark but for HTTP specifically. It will reveal exactly what your browser is doing. It works by setting itself up as a local HTTP proxy. Point your browser to it and it will reveal all of the connections that are made and what data is transmitted.

As seen from the many answers there must be many ways to do this, but maybe one of the easiest way to go is to take advantage of a Firefox addon like DownloadHelper addon, which has also the advantage of being available on all OSes.

• Install the Firefox addon DownloadHelper,
• run the flash stream in Firefox, the DownloadHelper button should start rolling,

(There are different ways to access this feature, but I will mention one that is clearly accessible no matter the configuration, as the addon has settings to hide or show buttons and options)

• Go to Tools > Video Download Helper (or find is otherwise) > All Actions > [Name of video] > Copy URL.

Some troubleshooting.

Testing such links with VLC I notice that in some cases the player cannot play them or even crashes. But this can be fixed as follows:

The last part of such URLs is something like /video.flv?start=0. Changing that to /video.flv? might make it work.

I discovered this when using the other solution, presented below, Internet Download Manager, in order to capture a such video stream: it displays the link but when trying to select it by clicking on it, IDM selects the URL without the last part start=0 (as seen in the image below). But many URLs can be opened in VLC with that last part too.

In Windows, Internet Download Manager is able to sniff such streams and capture them. Again, I find it easier to use in combination with a Firefox addon, FlashGot, but IDM can also be used alone with any browser. When ready to get the video, IDM displays the URL:

Considering the edit:

"Edit: The player is streaming an RTMP stream, not an FLV video file."

RTMP (Real Time Messaging Protocol) uses either FLV or MP4 as video format.