ClipFinder searches, streams, and downloads

Programs that grab videos from Web sites like YouTube aren't a dime a dozen--they're a dime for 200 dozen. Most of them aren't that good, either, which makes Ashampoo's freeware ClipFinder such a breath of fresh air in the video-grabbing game. ClipFinder can search up to 14 video Web sites at once. ClipFinder sports an atypical interface that's even so simple to navigate. It appears as a long panel, and within it are a series of long filmstrips. A video is represented by each strip Web site. You can choose in the options which of the 14 video portals should appear on the primary page. Unfortunately, you can't add new portals, but the kinds available include all the major video sites: Google, YouTube, Yahoo, iFilm, Veoh, DailyMotion, and others. When you start up, the strips will be empty except for the logo of the Web site that they're linked to. You can search video portals individually at the top of each strip, or with the search above the primary navigation bar globally. When you search, videos shall appear as frames in the strip. Horizontal navigation scrolls through videos, but if you only want to look at YouTube, for example, there's a maximizing button that clears the non-YouTube strips and shows you the field of YouTube videos that match your search. ClipFinder's video window includes quick links for downloading and adding to a favorites list. Each frame on a strip in the main panel represents a video you can download. The title of the video appears at the bottom, with the search result number and length of video superimposed over the top of the clip. Mousing over a frame will load the sound and video, in miniature, while double-clicking will load it in a child window. The young child window has standard close, maximize, and minimize buttons at the top--there's no easy way to watch the video in full-screen mode. There are basic volume, forward, and back buttons at the bottom of the window, and the standard setting in Options is to loop the video. Below the controls in the child window are three ClipFinder buttons: Download, Add, and Copy URL. On every video site we tested, all three worked flawlessly. A download is opened by the Download button manager window, lets users rename the video before saving, and shows the percentage downloaded. ClipFinder's Options allow some user control, but you can't add new video sites to search. CopyURL copies the video URL to your clipboard with one click, while Add adds the video to your My Videos panel. Users can create various categories to keep their favorites organized, and add Flash videos already saved on their hard drives to My Videos so they can manage them all from the same place.