AOL’s video player window doesn’t allow you to save movies to disk, and most other methods of downloading movies won’t work, so here’s a method I found that works.

First, ‘view source’ in the video player window. Near the bottom of the source window, you’ll see a line like:

FUGU.PlayVideoLarge("http://pdl.stream.aol.com/aol/us/aolmusic/specials/2005/live8/philly/philly_036_

Copy the entire URL from that line (which may be split into more than one line. Next, open a terminal window and type: curl ‘ (note a single quote here). Paste in the URL you copied and type ‘> and a filename you wish to save it in. The quicktime movie file will be downloaded and will be playable as a self-contained movie.