How to download YouTube Videos

From Tech-Help

Viewing videos from YouTube is blocked from within many school districts, including the Manchester School District. To use some of the valuable videos, it is necessary to download the Flash Videos (.flv) from someplace else online where you do have access to YouTube, in order to play those files in the classroom. You can either view them as FLVs, or use a converter to change them to QuickTime format to put on your iPod or use in a presentation.

You can install a free plugin to your FireFox web browser, like DownloadHelper, to make it easy to download Flash videos from the web:

http://www.downloadhelper.net/

This video on YouTube will help you learn how to use DownloadHelper:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGk37BeRRJc

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Web-Based Downloading

Some websites that help you download YouTube .flv files:

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Macintosh

You can just play the Flash Videos (with the .flv extension) with a player, such as the free SWF & FLV Player:

http://mac.eltima.com/freeflashplayer.html (Mac only)

Download videos with Tube TV:

http://www.download.com/TubeTV/3000-2200_4-10680920.html

To download and convert videos from YouTube to an iPod-friendly format all in one step, TubeSock costs $15:

http://stinkbot.com/Tubesock/ (Mac only)

To convert the .flv files to an iPod-friendly format for free, try iSquint:

http://www.isquint.org/ (Mac only)
http://www.videora.com/en-us/Converter/iPod/

To watch Flash Video with QuickTime Player, install a plug-in for additional video formats, such as Perian:

http://perian.org/#download
How To videos for Perian: http://perian.org/
If you have upgraded to QuickTime Pro ($30), you can convert the .flv file and save it as a QuickTime .mov

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