How to download videos from Youtube

Like most of the world I find myself browsing Youtube a few times a day, but one thing that was a mystery for a long time was how to download videos from Youtube.
In the recent years, whenever I’m looking for an answer I go to the same place – Google.
As expected, Google provided a lot of answers, but none of them was the one I was looking for.
My need was simple – a free, simple tool to allow me to download and play videos from Youtube.

I found a lot of web sites that seemed to answer my need, I mean, what can be easier than copy/paste the link to the video you want to download and let the web site do the rest.
In many cases the sites just didn’t work, when they did work, it was not what I was looking for.

Remember that my need was very simple: a free, simple tool to allow me to download and play videos from Youtube.

So these web sites have downloaded the youtube video I wanted, but it was not enough.
As we all know, Youtube uses the flash format for their videos, and that’s what caused us the problems to begin with.
I found that downloading the video from Youtube was not enough, as my computer couldn’t play it.
I had two options – either to download converting software or to download a flash player.
I didn’t like the idea of going through several steps, starting at a web site and moving to a different software.

After looking, and then looking some more, I found the best solution to download videos from Youtube!

It’s a small, simple and free software called VDownloader.
The software allows you to copy/paste the URL into the software’s window, choose the output format you want and then download the video from Youtube and save it in the requested format – all in one click!
No doubt – if you want to download video from youtube, VDownloader is the software you want!

How to download from Youtube

As the video in Youtube is in a flash format, many of us wonder How to download from Youtube.
The good news is that downloading from Youtube is very easy and there are 2 easy ways to download videos from Youtube:
1. Software
2. Website

The first method to download from Youtube is by using software.
This software is usually simple to use and it’s very small in size.
The down side is that most of the software save the Youtube downloaded videos in .FLV format. As Windows doesn’t have a flash player by default, you need to download FLV player in order to watch the downloaded videos or to convert the videos to a different format. I found a free software called VDownloader that is able to download videos from Youtube, Google, and other sites, and has one huge advantage on all the others:
The difference between this freeware and the rest is that it can save the video in many output formats: .AVI, .MPEG and even .PSP! So you don’t need to download and install FLV player and/or a converterThe VDownloader is easy to use. Just copy the URL of the video you want to download from Youtube, paste it to the program and click the download button. Before hitting the “download” key you have a combo box to choose the requested output format.The second method to Download from Youtube doesn’t require the use of any third party software to download videos.
Simply use your favorite web browser, go to www.VideoDownloader.com and enter the URL of the video you want to download.This website will save your video as .FLV format. So you’ll need FLV player to watch the videos downloaded from Youtube.
A huge advantage of the VideoDownloader.com site is that it supports a LOT of video sites. 57 of them!Tip: To watch the videos in .FLV format, you’ll need FLV Player.You can download it here for free and start watching the videos you download from youtube!

Download movies from youtube

Downloading movies from YouTube is not trivial, as YouTube uses Flash video to playback movies on their site.

In addition to being universally supported on most computers, one of the many benefits of using Flash from Youtube standpoint is making it harder for people to download movies from Youtube.

It’s not impossible and depending on how the Flash movies are played, you can sometimes simply dig in your Temp directory for the file because the server actually downloads the entire movie to your computer during playback.

For downloading YouTube movies, it’s easier to let someone else do all the hard work of locating the file.

One of my favorite solutions for downloading YouTube movies is a Website called KeepVid, which locates downloads from a handful of Internet sites.

If you want to download movies from Youtube, simply copy the URL to the page the video is on, paste it into the KeepVid download look up, choose YouTube from the list of sites and click the Download button. KeepVid will find the download link and provide instructions on how to download the Youtube movie to your hard disk.

Follow the directions and you’re almost done.

YouTube uses the FLV Flash format, which isn’t immediately playable on PC.

You also need an application to playback the downloaded Youtube video.

Good solution is a shareware application called SWF.max, which shows thumbnails of the movies and adds a number of features to control playback.

Enjoy downloading your favorite Youtube movies