subject: How to download YouTube videos [print this page] How to download YouTube videos How to download YouTube videos
I absolutely LOVE YouTube. I can find scenes from my favorite movies, funny videos, music videos, random people doing stupid things in their spare time...But what if a video that I love gets taken off YouTube for various reasons? It's gone FOREVER...Well, until they put it back up, if they do. YouTube, by default, does not have a download option, which I think is a shame. I would love to save a music video on my computer to be able to watch when I don't have internet access. Maybe that's just me but I would love to be able to download YouTube videos. So I went on my favorite website to go searching for a possible solution.
There are websites out there who are selling programs that would help you download videos off the internet, not just YouTube. Do I really want to pay that money? For me, it isn't that important but in case you are interested, the best one that I saw was Replay Media Catcher by Applian Technologies. (http://replay-media-catcher.c om/replay-media-catcher/index_ youtubeoneclick.php?src=Keepvi d)
It costs $39.95 to download and capture any YouTube videos as well as any streaming flash videos and MP3 audio. If you are a media junkie, this just may be the program for you.
The best option that I found is actually an add-on for Firefox.
(http://www.mozilla.co m/en-US/)
If you are not familiar with Firefox, it is a browser that has many tools in the forms of add-ons and extensions that makes life a lot easier if you are a frequent internet user and browser. One of the best add-ons that they have is called VideoDownload Helper. DownloadHelper is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video and image files from many sites. It takes just a few seconds to install the add-on. You can go on a YouTube page and with just the click of a button, be able to download your favorite videos on to your hard drive. When you first install the extension, your browser is redirected to a welcome page with links to a user manual at http://www.downloadhelper.net/ manual.php and a FAQ at http://www.downloadhelper.net/ faq.php.
If you do not use Firefox and aren't thinking about downloading videos on a frequent basis, the one site that actually had a tool that worked is TechCrunch.
(http://www.techcru nch.com/get-youtube-movie/)
All you need is the actual URL for the YouTube video that you want to download and it creates a downloadable file for you to save onto your computer. The video is downloaded in .flv format. In order to watch it, you can either use a compatible player, such as VLC media player or convert it to a format that you can play on any program that you have on your computer.
VLC media player
* It is a free cross-platform media player
* It supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs
* It can also be used as a streaming server, with extended features (video on demand, on the fly transcoding, ...) (From the VideoLan website)
* Download VLC Player to compare and see all its features and the media playable.
