If you want to get videos off YouTube you are not alone! Millions of people use YouTube and are damn near addicted to it (I know I am) and many of these YouTube addicts want to grab those videos for their own home computer, iPod or other portable device for a variety of reasons.
Before YouTube takes it down! - Often the best stuff is taken down by YouTube because some company gets its panties in a twist and demands it be removed. If you can save it quickly then you will not lose it!
Slow net connection - If you internet connection is quit slow you do not want to reload those videos every time, just once then saving them is a lot easier for your favorites.
Mobile access - While getting internet anywhere you want is a current technology it is expensive and YouTube takes a lot of bandwidth making viewing YouTube from a mobile device long and costly.
Presentations - Some fantastic videos can be used for business and school presentations but you do not always have a net connection and even if you do waiting for a long video to load can ruin your flow.
The problem is to get videos off YouTube you need to be very tech savvy and understand the file formats and the way it is embedded into the page code because YouTube does everything it can to stop you downloading the videos (unlike Google vids).
If you do not have time for this then there is an easier way to get videos off YouTube with programs the super geeks have already developed!
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Even YouTube’s most enthusiastic fans (like Michael Wesch, whose Anthropology of YouTube video we mentioned recently) tend to overlook one very disappointing fact — you can’t easily save videos to your hard drive.Luckily it turns out that, while YouTube certainly doesn’t make it easy, it is in fact possible to download and save videos for offline viewing. In fact, there’s a whole cottage industry of developers building tools that allow you to download YouTube videos.
Lifehacker points us to YouTube File Hack, which can be used as either a standalone application or from Internet Explorer via a menu item that offers to download YouTube videos. I took it for a spin this morning and it does indeed work. Now I have my very own copy of skateboarding dog lovingly preserved for all eternity.
While YouTube File Hack is the easiest tool I’ve tested for IE users, it isn’t the only means of grabbing a YouTube movie.Safari users have it easy, just open up Activity Monitor and double click the actual video file. Safari will happily download an FLV for you. Firefox users can check out Lifehacker’s Better YouTube extension which uses Greasemonkey script to insert a “download this video” link next to every YouTube movie.
There are several other Firefox plugin out there, as well as a few other standalone apps. If you have a favorite method be sure to let us know.
Result for: download youtube vidoes
<<< UPDATE NOTICE: Due to the overwhelming amount of comments and the fact that this article was written over 8 months ago, I decided it was time to update it with the latest tools, websites, and tips available to download videos from the internet >>>
It’s been close to 8 months since I published this article, since then the integration of YouTube and Google Videohas been completed, YouTube is pretty much the one stop shop for videos online. In case you are interested in videos from social sites like MySpace, Facebook, and others, the tips listed below will help you quickly and easily get that content on your computer.Download YouTube videos
Site #1 - iDesktop.tv
You can download YouTube videos using iDesktop.tv, you simply go to the site and click on the download link. You are given the option to download that video in multiple formats, MPEG, MOV, AVI, and many others.
why not save/download the video before it’s too late ?
Steps to save/download the video from youtube
For Internet Explorer (PC) users
1) Click your favourite video clip, you can see the URL in your browser becomes something like this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCcCEqD117U
2) highlight the URL, “copy” & “paste” to Youtube Robot url and click “+” button
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