Ever wondered how to download and use Youtube videos (or Google, or a bunch of other types of videos)? Here’s what I’ve been doing:
- Find a video you want to download from Youtube or Google, etc.
- Go to Videodownloader.net.
- Place the url of the Youtube (or Google, or other…) page in the box.
- Click download. The page will think for a minute and then give you further instructions, including another “download” button.
- Right click the download button in the box and save as “nameoffile.flv,” being sure to use the extension .flv
- Use the Free .flv player to watch your video on your computer.
If you want to put the video in a Powerpoint, I have been using Zamzar.com to convert the .flv files to .avi. You can convert video to a ton of different file types using that site.
By the way, if you use Firefox (which you should -
), videodownloader.net has an add-on for Firefox where you don’t need to copy and paste, you just click an icon in your Firefox browser.
Oh…and using Zamzar, you could put your vids on your video iPod, too. Then, just hook the iPod to a projector, and you can show the videos you downloaded from Youtube.
So far I haven’t received the videos in my email from zamzar. Is there a significant delay?
There shouldn’t be a big delay. It should only take a little time. It’s a download link that they’ll send to you. Let me know if it doesn’t work.
It eventually came. Unfortunately I still had trouble down the road. We have a really old (seven 6-7 years maybe… Mac OS 9) computer for our Middle School program… I have lots of trouble with it, and ultimately it looked like I was going to have to make a DVD of the videos I wanted to use. Had our tech guy at church use his (newer) Mac to make them, popped the DVD in, saw that it was working…. tested it just prior to our program and.. it got stuck after a minute or so.
Had to change gears for the program that night.
Oh man…that’s not good. I’m on a PC, so I don’t know the answer. If you’re using a Mac, you could probably convert them to .mov files and use Quicktime (Pro) and just show them in full screen. Or, convert them to another file format. Or just use the .flv player to show them.
FWIW, I’ve used PodTube (on Mac OS X) with good results:
http://djodjodesign.free.fr/rightEN.html
Yeah, I tried out PodTube, but the quality wasn’t as good as doing it this way. The compression on the videos was less than what I wanted. It is an easy, one step way of doing it, though.