How to start and record Flash video stream without recording the player taskbar I want to record a Flash video stream from the web. This is the website in question: http://www.arte.tv/guide/de/plus7

The problem is that the video starts with a task bar over it and I have to move the mouse pointer over and out of the video to fade it out, all of which is recorded in my screen capture.

How do I avoid recording the task bar?
As long as the video isn't copy protected, you will want to use a stream ripper instead of trying to do a screen capture of your monitor.  Any number of software products are able to directly transfer a video that is in the Flash streaming video format as long as it isn't copy protected.  A quick search for "flash video ripper" and your operating system should return numerous results to choose from.  The advantage of this is that the stream can be recorded with the original encoding preserved, which avoids loss of quality due to repeat encoding and compression.

As a side bonus, since the stream rippers will record the stream directly, you also don't have to worry about the bar or your mouse being over the screen.