Question for the computer gurus.

My question is this; Is it possible for me to save youtube videos as a windows media player file or is there a way that I can save youtube videos to my harddrive and play them without internet access. My friend has a youtube channel and is having issues with youtube and fears he may lose his account. What I am trying to do is get a back up of his videos. Any help would be apprecieated.

this might help
download.cnet.com...

Idk if I can post a link, but google is your friend

search save youtube videos

I use the first result. Works great!

Yes their is a grate addon for firefox
addons.mozilla.org...

If you're using Firefox, you can get the add-on called "DownloadHelper", which is the best Flash downloader I've used. Once you have that installed and you're watching a YouTube video, refresh the page, right-click the page and select "DownloadHelper", then go to "Media" and it will give you a choice to download the video in 360p, 480p, etc.

Also, Realplayer can download YouTube videos as well. Realplayer can even take that video and convert it to whatever format you want, including .wmv which can be played in Windows Media Player.

When installing Realplayer, it will install an add-on in Firefox so that you can download YouTube videos (videos on other sites as well).

sorry I am new. I didn't know if I could post a link.

Keepvid.com works great for me.

YTD Downloader is what I use for saving things off Youtube into my archives. It hiccups occasionally but it's rare. Then AVS has software that will convert pretty much any format into any other format.

reply to post by usmc0311


keepvid.com...

Keepvid. No installing, no firefox requirement, just enter the URL and choose the format.

It works for me when other third party apps that I've had to install have failed to keep up with the changing face of youtube.. which means broken links for paid for utils to do this. Boo to charlatans.

/

Well I'll be damned. It seems no more youtube support.
No, it DOES still let me get them... i don't get it.

try it.. anyway.. lol

www.real.com...

Works better in Firefox.

Thanks for the tips everybody. I think I can figure it out now. Time to get started.

Originally posted by Taupin Desciple
www.real.com...

Works better in Firefox.

RealPlayer lets me download almost any video...

reply to post by usmc0311


To answer the original question:

There is a plug-in for the Firefox web browser, called: "Video DownloadHelper"

Video DownloadHelper

To install it under Firefox, just go to the menu "Tools" and then "Add-ons".
Then just search for: "Video DownloadHelper" and install it.

You should now see this logo somewhere in your Firefox web browser:



There are other download helpers, but this is the one that I use all the time.

reply to post by usmc0311


To answer the second part of the original question:

To play back the videos that were downloaded with the "Video DownloadHelper", I just use the VLC video/media player.

VLC is available for Windows and Linux, and it is a free download.

VLC web site

Here is the logo (icon) for the VLC media player.



I hope this helps.

One sure way of getting YouTube (or any other video that works in the same way) is to get it from the browser cache, as most YouTube (and other sites) videos are not streaming videos.

If you watch a video, disconnect from the Internet and are still able to see the video again then it means that it was downloaded to your computer, so you can find it in the browser cache.

Using a dedicated program is much easier, obviously, but this method works with any browser and with any non-streaming media.

Anyone who owns a youtube channel has the ability to log into the account and download any videos they have uploaded. So your friend could just download the videos back to the computer if they don't have a backup.