Tip – downloading YouTube videos
Videos published on YouTube and similar sites are in Flash Video Format. So how do you download them and play them back locally on your PC or iPod? Someone asked the question, so here’s the answer…
1. Grab the only browser that everybody else uses:
Firefox is the open source Web browser from Mozilla. If you are still stuck with Internet Explorer, then you need this first:
Firefox can be extended with a vast number of plugins and themes.
2. Use the Video Download plugin for Firefox
Download the Video Download plugin for Firefox. Once installed, you can visit your favourite YouTube videos and click the download video icon in the bottom right corner of your browser.
3. Playback with Riva
Videos on sites like YouTube are in a Flash Video Format (flv). You can play back downloaded flv videos using the free Riva player.
The Riva package also includes an encoder that you can use to convert your own movies into the flash video format (flv).
Hi, Thanks for the tip – really helpful. Thought you might be interested in http://www.keepvid.com where you can do the same thing as the plugin in mention – and also VLC media player from http://www.videolan.org which also plays flv files. Thanks for a really helpful website and the WordPress tips.
Matt
Yep, found VLC but when I installed it, it took me a while to get my video editing software to work again.
Anybody know…Is it possible to play a YouTube video on the big screen at church? Quality good enough?
Some videos are better than others. I have used a few, playing back on a projector from a laptop. You can use the Riva player (see above).
I use http://www.tubematrix.com They have a cool RSS Video grabber at where you put up a RSS feed and you can download the videos from the list automatically generated. I quite like the idea.
Works for almost all online video site. I use this site to download youtube videos and dump them to my ipod by using ffmpeg. Great for this those long trips.