Saving YouTube videos

[Maudibe]

I have been using Replay Video Capture for a long time. It is a screen capture app so no download or conversion necessary. I have Version 4.2 on an XP Pro maching and Version 5 on a Win 7 Pro. Although I like the older version's graphical sound bar better, they both produce excellent, and I do mean EXCELLENT, results. Other than Office, it is the most frequently used program on my rigs. Its uses are enormous and well worth the reasonable purchase.

[velcrodesole]

I agree with
sdakos
freemake video downloader,freemake video converter,freemake audio converter are very good & easy to use .You can even convert you video file in almost any format and keep then on your hard drive.I even download videos and i keep only the soundtrack (MP3.MP4,WAV,)again you have the choice.
excellent choices,,,You do need :Microsoft .NET Framework v4 To Run The Program

http://www.freemake.com/downloads/

[mike21]

I have just downloaded RealPlayer - no plug-ins - and it works a treat.

many thanks to everyone

[vetegr]

The more extensions, the slower your browser can get. The more programs installed on your computer, the less stable it can become.
So for downloading youtube videos, the easiest way is to go to the youtube page with the video, and in the address bar insert "save" right before "youtube", like this:
www.youtube.com/doodahdoodah
becomes
www.saveyoutube.com/doodahdoodah
It'll give you a choice of formats and resolutions to download. The highest quality might be better than what you would have watched on the youtube page.

Or copy the video URL and go to keepvid.com and paste it there. Keepvid also works on sites other than youtube.

[vetegr]

And some of the free video downloader programs contain spyware. If I downloaded a video downloader, before I installed or ran it I'd go to virustotal.com and upload it to them. They check it with 40-odd malware scanners. Usually takes one or two minutes. Well worth it.

[StickBoy]

Freemake Video Converter always works for YouTube and often works for other supported sites.
http://www.freemake.com/

[Xircal]

Here's my 2 cents worth.

You need Firefox for these:

• Download Youtube Videos
• Youtube 2 mp3

The first one adds a button below the video called "Download" and can be used to download the complete .flv file. To view it, you need a Flash player installed on your system since Windows Media Player will cough and splutter and tell you it doesn't support Flash. I recommend the free VLC Player for that which doesn't need any additional codecs to be installed: http://www.videolan.org/

The second link I posted allows you to extract the audio from any Youtube video and save it as an .mp3 file rather than saving the whole video. You'll find a button called "Save as MP3" above any Youtube video when you install that add-on.

If you haven't got Firefox, shame on you...LOL

Firefox is the best browser around and can be configured to suit your own tastes and needs. Here are some Firefox layouts all of which can be enabled by just one click of the mouse.

ff_text_links.png
Tabs below with text links.

ff_tabs_ontop_text_links.png
Tabs above with text links.

ff_tabs_on_top.png
Tabs above without text links.

ff_tabs_below.png
Tabs below without text links.

In the layout where you see the oblong orange button top left, you can click that to access the menus, or toggle the text links on and off by hitting the ALT key.

You can download Firefox from here: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/

If you prefer Firefox in another language, download from this link instead: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all.html

[bobprimak]

For those who allow automatic updating of your programs, I happened to notice last week that a Flash player update I allowed to occur finished properly, BUT notified me that I would have to disable my browser's download videos plugins due to Flash not supporting file downloading properly. The warning suggested that browser and program crashes would result.

If you allowed automatic updating, one of these type issues may be what's causing your issues. Sadly, major program providers have been almost forcing updates on users without allowing them to know ahead of time that updating that program will likely break many other things. I don't allow automatic updating, and always double-check anything that wants to be updated and I STILL get caught sometimes no matter how hard I try to research issues ahead of time.

It sounds as if a Flash update silently killed your download vids capabilities.

Just because the browser plug-ins are slower to be updated than Flash Player itself, is no excuse not to update Flash Player as soon as a security patch is issued. Flash remains one of the top three ways computers get infected over the Internet, and Adobe beta tests new Flash Player versions for some time before pushing patches out through automatic updates (unless there's a critical security issue).

I would look to the browser add-ons writers rather than Flash Player when complaining about the effects of Flash updates on browser add-ons.

[elliesky]

zamzar is a good tool to save and convert youtube files