Tens of thousands of video are submitted to YouTube everyday. Chances are you will find something good on the site. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will be downloading the 1991 TV pilot, Lookwell. It stars Adam West as a former actor turned amateur detective. The show is pure genius. It was written by Conan O'Brien (Late Night with Conan O'Brien) and Robert Smigel, the voice of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.

Lookwell
http://www.youtube.com/w/Lookwell!?v=l9ZX72K1Va4

Wait for the video file to completely load. Depending on the length of the clip, it make take several minutes to download. Once the clip is cached on your computer, you are ready to find it and convert it.

Wait for the video file to completely load! I'm serious. Wait for the video file to completely load! One more time? Wait for the video file to completely load! You'd be surprised how many idiots send us emails everyday that skip this step or are too dumb to know how to read.

Depending on the speed of your Internet connection and the duration of the video file, it may take several minutes to fully load your clip. Lookwell is a full 30 minute TV show and took about 8 minutes to load. Wait until the status bar has filled in all the way to the right. The image below is only about 75% done loading. If the status bar never fully filled up and you unsuccessfully tried to download the clip, DON'T expect it to work. It's an incomplete file. Just have patience and wait.

Once the clip is completely cached on your computer, you are ready to find and convert it. You should be able to watch the entire clip in your web browser. You may think that you are watching the file directly off YouTube's server, but you are not. The video file is actually temporarily saved somewhere on your computer. Let's find it!

THE EASY WAY
Firefox users (Mac/PC) can use several different plug-ins like Video Downloader or a GreaseMonkey script to automatically download YouTube video files. However, each time YouTube updates their code, these plug-ins and scripts usually need to be updated. YouTube doesn't like these Firefox plug-ins and actively tries to disable them. If you can't get a Firefox plug-in to work, or don't use Firefox (Internet Explorer sucks!), there are manual download methods (aka The Hard Way) for Internet Explorer, Safari and even Firefox below.

• YouTubeX (web site app)
• MyVideoDownloader (downloads and converts videos from many sites, not just YouTube)
• KissYouTube (web site app)
• YouTubia (web site app)
• KeepVid (web site app)
• Video Downloader (Firefox plug-in)
• YouTube FLV Grabba! (JavaScript Bookmark)
• YouTube to Me (add on script for the Firefox GreaseMonkey plug-in)
• Ripzor (web site app)
• YouTubeGetter (Internet Explorer PC exe)
• Vixy (web site app)

NERD NOTE: Josh Kinberg wrote the Firefox GreaseMonkey script that allows you to easily download videos off sites like Google Video and YouTube. You can read more about his script here: http://www.joshkinberg.com/blog/archives/2005/11/greased_google.php

 

 

 

THE HARD WAY
Here are a few manual methods for downloading a FLV file from YouTube.com. Depending on what web browser and operating system you are using, how and where you find the video file will vary. Please try the easy ways listed above first. YouTube changes their site all the time to prevent many of these manual methods from working.

Any web browser (PC, Mac, Linux) This first tip is from a reader called BinaryGenius. Go to YouTube.com and find a clip you like. Every video page on YouTube has a little EMBED box that allows you copy code and post YouTube video clips on your website. We are going to take advantage of this. Copy the code and paste it into a text edit program like TextEdit (Mac) or Notepad (PC). The code will look something like this: <object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-oNQXLNMh0c"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-oNQXLNMh0c" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> You are looking for the URL of the video file. In the example above that would be: http://www.youtube.com/v/-oNQXLNMh0c. Copy this URL and paste it into a new web browser window and press the Return/Enter key on your keyboard. The YouTube clip should load your web browser as a full screen clip. Press play and wait for the video to load. Now take a closer look at the URL. It's different than what you pasted in there. It's a lot longer right? It should look something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch_fullscreen?video_id= -oNQXLNMh0c&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//sjl- static5.sjl.youtube.com/vi/......8X90swYCiZMZTzBdb The next step is to change the piece of code that says "watch_fullscreen" to "get_video". So the example above should look like this after the change: http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=-oNQXLNMh0c&eurl=&iurl=http%3A//sjl- tatic5.sjl.youtube.com/vi/-oNQXLNMh0c/2.jp...PDskJaNd08X90swYCiZMZTzBdb Press return and your video will start to download. Save it to your Desktop. If you want to make this FLV file a QuickTime that will play on your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or in iTunes, skip to the bottom of this page by clicking here.

Internet Explorer (Mac OS X) Because Internet Explorer is an older browser, it doesn't tend to hide files very well. Let's exploit that. Search your hard drive for a file called "get_video". You can use Spotlight to find the file. Copy it to your Desktop. If you want to make this FLV file a QuickTime that will play on your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or in iTunes, skip to the bottom of this page by clicking here.

Firefox (Mac OS X) Firefox users will need to do a little code inspection. It's not that hard. Just follow these instructions carefully. Right-click on the YouTube page and select View Page Source from the contextual menu. You now need to find a piece of code on the page. Select Find from the Edit Menu and type in "watch_fullscreen?video_id" Look for the video ID. It's a very long line of code that should look like this: /watch_fullscreen?video_id=dBQ3HbB0c8Y&l...... [click to display code] We now need to combine this prefix "http://youtube.com/get_video.php?video_id=" with the YouTube video ID. Open up a new web browser window and type in the above prefix with the video ID. The final URL should look like this: http://youtube.com/get_video.php?video_id=eBXal1GAA4A&l...... [click to display code] Once you have the URL properly formatted, press return. You should now see a dialog box promoting you to save the file. Save it to your Desktop. If you want to make this FLV file a QuickTime that will play on your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or in iTunes, skip to the bottom of this page by clicking here.

Firefox (PC) Firefox PC users can search their hard drives for the hidden flv file. Here's a tip from one of our reader named twistrunner on how to find it: The flv file is probably saved in one of these folders on your computer: C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_USER_ID\Local Settings\Temp\plugtmp\ C:\Documents and Settings\YOUR_USER_ID\Local Settings\Temp\plugtmp-2\ You can find this file by running a windows search as follows: Look for all files on the C:\ drive that were changed "today" (including hidden ones) Sort the files by date/time Find the file in question (looking at hour/minute of change and file size) Once you find it, drag the file to your Desktop. If you want to make this FLV file a QuickTime that will play on your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or in iTunes, skip to the bottom of this page by clicking here.

Internet Explorer 7 (PC) Here's an easy way to find the flv file from MethodShop.com reader Cody: Click on Tools, Internet Options Under Browsing History Click on Settings Then Click on View Files in the window that comes up Arrange by Size, and the biggest file is most likely the movie you're looking for Save it to your Desktop If you want to make this FLV file a QuickTime that will play on your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or in iTunes, skip to the bottom of this page by clicking here.

Internet Explorer (PC) IE users on PC will need to do a little code inspection. It's not that hard. Just follow these instructions carefully. Select "Source" from the View menu. You should now see a page of HTML code on a white background. You are looking for a piece of code on this page. Press Control+F to bring up a Find dialog box. Type in "watch_fullscreen?video_id" and press return. Look for the video ID. It's a very long line of code that should look like this: /watch_fullscreen?video_id=dBQ3HbB0c8Y&l...... [click to display code] We now need to combine this prefix "http://youtube.com/get_video.php?video_id=" with the YouTube video ID. Open up a new web browser window and type in the above prefix with the video ID. The final URL should look like this: http://youtube.com/get_video.php?video_id=eBXal1GAA4A&l...... [click to display code] Once you have the URL properly formatted, press return. You should now see a dialog box promoting you to save the file. If you want to make this FLV file a QuickTime that will play on your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or in iTunes, skip to the bottom of this page by clicking here.

Safari (Mac OS X) It's actually very easy to download the FLV if you're using Safari. Go to YouTube, then completely WATCH your video Select the Activity monitor from the Window menu (Window > Activity). You should see a URL that has more MBs than the others and that ends with ".flv" or try looking for a Get_video link such as the one below. LOOK at the RIGHT for file size. In the image above, the file is 2.1 MBs. That's the file you want (thanks Bartman). http://sjl-casing4.sjl.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=wGkZS94d5HU Once you identify the file, hold down your Option key and double click. It will download to your desktop. The file should start to download. If it doesn't, copy that URL and paste it into a new Safari browser window and press return. The FLV file will download to your Desktop. Go to your Desktop and look for the file named get_video RENAME that file to end with ".flv" If you want to double click and play FLV videos from your desktop, we recommend you get SWF & FLV Player from http://Mac.Eltima.com it organizes your play lists and auto plays your FLV videos like a video jukebox. Oh, and it's FREE. If you want to make this FLV file a QuickTime that will play on your iPod, iPhone, Apple TV or in iTunes, skip to the bottom of this page by clicking here.

4) Rename the FLV file

You probably don't want a file called something like "eBXal1GAA4A.flv" or "get_video", so rename your file something like Lookwell.flv. Be sure to add the ".flv" to the end of your file name so other applications know it's a Flash Video File.

If you are happy with a FLV file, you are done. If you want to convert this file to something that will work in iTunes or play on a Video iPod, keep reading.

5) Open a FLV video converter

MoviePod is an application that works on both Mac and PC. It supports every common movie format including: MOV, MPG, AVI, ASF, WMV, VOB, and DV. Nullriver, the makers of MoviePod, don't specifically list FLV as a compatible file type, but MoviePod will successfully convert it to an iPod mpeg-4 video.

MoviePod does a lot more than just convert Flash video files and only costs $10 (Mac/PC). For more information check out: http://www.nullriver.com/. The only problem is the application desperately needs to be updated. I suggest you check out the free options listed below before you consider buying MoviePod. In otherwords, until MoviePod gets updated, buy it at your own risk.

Mac users should look at iSquint. It's a free application with similar features. iSquint is awesome! A updated version of the application comes out all the time with new features. I love this program. iSquint can be downloaded at http://www.isquint.org/. Here's another tutorial and some tricks you might find handy when using iSquint.

PC users looking for a free option might want to check out http://www.media-convert.com or an application called Replay Converter. Replay Converter is an easy-to-use audio/video file converter, with the most options for iPod including iPod Video, iPod Bookmarkable Audiobook, M4A, AAC and more. Replay Converter is also a great way to convert Flash Video (like YouTube), Windows Media and other web formats. However the demo version of Replay Converter only converts the first 90 seconds of your video. Hopefully that YouTube video you downloaded was less than 90 seconds.

If you want to tinker with the audio/video quality of the video or where MoviePod saves its files, just take a look at the preferences screen.

The same basic technique applies when using iSquint or other video conversion programs.

When you want to watch to the video file you converted, just import it into iTunes and go from there. I hope you found this article useful. To email this article to someone, use the Send to a Friend link on the top right of this page.

8) Questions?
If you run into any issues or have questions, please drop us a line.