December 14th, 2007
So you want to download a YouTube video?
I often get asked at work to download YouTube videos for us to keep.
Usually these videos are humorous ones we might show as an ice breaker during a meeting, something fun that we just want to keep for ourselves, or sometimes even as evidence. In once instance I was asked to download a video of a fight that happened on one of our school campuses. A few by-standing teenagers recorded it with their cell phones and then posted on YouTube. It’s funny to think that technology like this is so easy it’s among every teenager’s set of skills.
Anyway, before I get off topic I’ll show you how I do it. With today’s web sites this only has two steps: Download & Convert. I’ve spelled out the details so it looks a little longer than that, but trust me, it’s a piece of cake.
- Download
- Copy the URL (the web site address) of the YouTube video.
- Go to http://www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie/ and paste the URL into the text box.
- Click the Get Video button and save it to your computer. When you save it make sure to add a “.flv” as the extension since this is a Flash Video file.
- Convert
- Go to http://media-convert.com/
- Click the Browse button and locate the video you just downloaded. If you remembered to add the .flv extension to the name when you saved it “Flash Video” should be selected automatically in the Input Format drop down menu.
- In the Output format select Quicktime. I tried others a while back but for some reason Quicktime is the only one that worked.
- Check the box to accept the terms and click OK.
- After the file is automatically uploaded and converted you will be able download it for keeps.
That’s all there is to it! There are several other web sites or tools that offer the same downloading and converting features. These are the two I just happen to use.
- Enjoy!
