How to find the stream behind a Flash player

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.

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"

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.

URL Snooper or the "Grab++" module of Orbit Download Manager (be carefull for unwanted adware at install) could help you to analyze the network traffic and find the URL