Preserving media or video "evidence" from YouTube

This thread is an attempt to provide the simple tools you need to save or download YouTube and other Flash based streaming media. I searched around for a while but didn't see anything about how to do this, so I figured I'd let people know; for those who haven't found out how to do it already. My apologies if it's been posted before.

As I've been browsing forums and reading the variety of topics I've noticed hundreds that use YouTube (or other Flash based video media). Of course this is nothing new, the advent of viable video streaming has greatly changed how people can present their information or add supporting media to their work.

The problem is that while much of this media content is available in many sources, some of it is truly (or at least potentially truly) valuable eye-witness evidence of a variety of topics. From the Paranormal to UFO's and ET's; or the variety of world changing events that have been captured uncensored by private cameras.

In many of the topics I've read, several had links to video that were no longer available. Logically most of them could have been removed for perfectly normal reasons. However, we wouldn't be who we were if we didn't at least suspect some of them were removed for reasons beyond normal.

It's for that reason that people should be saving every scrap of video, audio, or any other media they may find. You never know when it could disappear. If nothing else, it adds to your own personal library of media, which is no bad thing.

Below are links to a cnet article on saving flash media, and several other links to different ways to save flash media.

Saving video with Firefox extension(s)

YouTube Downloader

Save Flash

Wow Moderators feel free to move this to where it needs to be, I blame it on a late night I could have sworn I was posting this in a different section.

You don't need any tools to download YouTube videos, as they aren't (or at least most aren't) really streaming videos.

If you can replay the video after closing your Internet connection, that is a sign that you already have the video on your computer, so you only need to find it on your browser's cache.

They are usually the biggest and more recent files in the cache.

Edit: this method has the added advantage that it works with all sites that use that system, not just YouTube.

[edit on 15/5/2010 by ArMaP]

reply to post by UnmitigatedDisaster


I use Video Get. It was $15 not too long ago, now I see it's up to $25. Still, I'd pay the money again. You can download and convert to a huge variety of formats all in one step.

Real Player has a built in flash downloader.

Originally posted by TinFoilHatMan55
Real Player has a built in flash downloader.

Shhh,don't tell them it is free and has a video converter built in.

We'll just keep that little gem between us.