Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Saving YouTube or Google Videos

Just a couple of useful bits - my wife had a student submit a project to her via YouTube, and asked me whether she could save the file. Though Google Video provides a "download" feature, YouTube does not.

The solution is to find the URL for the video file in the code of the hosting page and getting that into a program (like a Web browser) capable of downloading files, but several websites do this for you automatically. KeepVid is the only example that supports Google Video and many other video-hosting sites:

KeepVid
YouTubeX
TechCrunch's YouTube Download Tool

Simply copy the URL of the YouTube video page you'd like to save, then go to one of the sites above and paste the URL. Your browser will download a (generically-named) Flash video file. At this point, you'll probably want to rename the file appropriately, and give it the .flv extension for Flash video. You will probably still need a Flash viewer, and many of these can be found free online at sites such as MacUpdate or SnapFiles (for Windows users).

If you're a Macintosh OS X user (actually OS 10.4.7 or newer), I recommend downloading and installing the Perian QuickTime component. Once installed, .flv files will play in any QuickTime application - providing an easy path to editing or transcoding to another codec. (I've just test-exported an MPEG-4 QuickTime movie from a .flv clip downloaded using KeepVid after installing the Perian component. The MP4 footage looks remarkably faithful to the orignal Flash.)

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