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Monday, December 01, 2008

How to Download YouTube Videos

I needed to figure out how to download YouTube videos for an upcoming conference presentation where I wasn't confident that I would be able to have a good enough connection to play the video.

I found that there was a very nice bookmarklet to Download as MP4 Files:
One way is to save the following link as a bookmarklet by dragging it to your Links bar (in Firefox, Safari) or right-clicking and adding it to your favorites (in Internet Explorer, Opera):




When you want to download a YouTube video, just click on the bookmarklet.
KeepVid offered both (save as FLV and save as MP4) and a nice bookmarklet as well. I've not tried it, but it appears to work for Google Video, MySpace video and more.

Both of these options give you a very nice MP4 file that works great for my presentation.

Other ways to download YouTube Videos and/or convert them...

To get it in Flash Video Format / FLV - you can use the little tool provided by TechCrunch.

Zamzar appears to offer a lot of options to convert from various sites to various formats. The free version had a limit of 100MB which unfortunately excluded the video I was doing 131MB.

Vixy allows conversion to other formats (AVI, WMV, Quicktime). But I've had more issues with getting it to work.

There are lots of other options out there. I just wanted to capture what worked for me.

17 comments:

mike said...

I had pretty good luck with Download Helper http://www.downloadhelper.net

It's a handy Firefox add-on

Anonymous said...

Some of my friends use YouTube videos for mp3. They don't want limewire because of the viruses so they just grab the video from YouTube then convert it into mp3 format.

The upsycho said...

This is so cool. I often want to show YouTube clips in an environment where the projection unit is attached to a sound desk. There's no access to the internet - not even a link to a computer - so any video clips have to be on a DVD in autoplay format. Hopefully I will be able to do that, here!

Anonymous said...

Wow, nice round-up. Please consider adding Nefsis, it would go in the web conferencing and video conferencing sections. It's unique in its server-cloud approach, adding fast video, very helful in tutoring or interactive seminar applications.

http://www.nefsis.com

bschlenker said...

So funny! I was just trying to do the same thing last week. Googling like crazy and downloadhelper only downloads the flv which I can't import into keynote. So to find the simple Get YourTube Video chicklet was AWESOME and it worked great!
You can see the results at one of my sessions in Vegas at TK09.
Thanks for the great find. Google failed me for the first time...bummer.

Tony Karrer said...

Brent - for the first time? Google fails me a lot these days.

Jack Chrysler said...

www.krojam.com/download.php
Krojam allows you to search/browse/watch and download video from YouTube in 1 click.

Anonymous said...

Hi Everyone

Thank you for this useful information.

Here is another great free resource to download Youtube videos online and convert them into various different formats.

This tool also supports Youtube High Definition videos.

http://www.mymusicconverter.com

Hope you find this useful.

Anonymous said...

I guess, but this one works well without any hassles and you can convert it for you Iphone which is freaking great!Youtube Downloader

Anonymous said...

My personal favorite is Sothink's Web Video Downloader because it detects any video and downloads it no matter if you use Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Orange Krush said...

Check out this youtube video downloader http://liquid-mailer.net/downloader/ it also has a fake emailer and a extremly fast proxy on it!

Blow Water Guy said...

You can visit http://www.tubekeeper.com/
This website support youtube, facebook and metacafe video download in just one click. Normal Video (FLV), HD (MP4), mobile video (3GP) are supported!
You also can search video by using the Tubekeeper Video Search Engine!

n0va said...

Easy way is here
http://cybersupernova.blogspot.com/2011/03/downloading-youtube-videos.html

Andy Smith said...

I personally like to use Wantyoutube and Keepvid to download youtube videos. Thanks for your great article!

Johny said...

You might want to check this free software: ChrisPC Free YouTube Downloader Converter.
youtube.chris-pc.com

Anonymous said...

I think the best youtube downloader is Realplayer SP

Josh McCoy said...

Greetings, Snag Youtube is a great solution for downloading any video in any format. Check them out: how to download a youtube video