Samad’s Blog

I’ve recently started putting more videos on my iPod, and I’ve gotten tired of trying to find these videos on P2P programs and other various areas. As I frequent YouTube a lot, I thought there would be a way to download them from the site, however YouTube doesn’t offer a download service. So I decided to look around and find some way to download them, and I came across a bunch of crappy articles about it (though I must admit, a few were really good and helpful).

To sum it up, there are two ways to download.

A) Without any additional software - simply visit a site such as http://www.keepvid.com and you can download a YouTube video there in FLV format (you will need to rename the file you download). The only issue with this way is that if you frequently visit YouTube or other video hosting websites, its hard to keep track of all the URL’s. This is where the next way comes in handy.

B) With additional software. If you’re not using Firefox already, I suggest switching to it because its a LOT better than Internet Explorer.. and you need it for this method

1. After installing Firefox, get the Grease Monkey add on - located here - you will need to restart Firefox after installing this add on.
2. After completing step 1, you need to install the Download YouTube Video userscript located here
3. Once the script has been installed, simply go to YouTube and find a video you like - underneath the player is a “Download Now” link (if it doesn’t show up, restart your browser). If you click this link, it will offer the video to you with the extension .htm - just download it, and once it’s finished rename the file to have the .flv extension. You’ve successfully downloaded your first YouTube video!

But.. you can’t play this video in most players! You need some kind of FLV player, such as the one found here, or you need to convert it to a different format. I personally use Videora iPod converter to convert all types of video to iPod format, but you could easily use Quicktime Pro to convert or any other major conversion software. Just Google both programs to find the relevant websites.

That’s all you need to download and convert YouTube videos - next time, Facebook!