Is there WinXP freeware to download a utube video to hard disk?

What's the best WinXP freeware method for downloading utube videos to disk?

"Jim Jones" <jjones34@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:SeHgj.34468$JD.7076@newssvr21.news.prodigy.ne t...
> What's the best WinXP freeware method for downloading utube videos to
> disk?

http://www.techcrunch.com/get-youtube-movie/

- David Harper

Jim Jones wrote:
> What's the best WinXP freeware method for downloading utube videos to disk?
>
If you use FireFox, you could get the "DownloadHelper" Add-on.

Keith

On Tue, 08 Jan 2008 09:43:56 -0600, Keith wrote:
>> What's the best WinXP freeware method for downloading utube videos to disk?
> If you use FireFox, you could get the "DownloadHelper" Add-on.

Hi Keith,
Thank you.
This Firefox "DownloadHelper" extension seems to work most of the time.
The online YouTube downloader was even more flaky so this is what I
recommend - but neither worked 100% of the time in my initial tests.

Here is what I did
- I installed DownloadHelper & rebooting Firefox.
- I located a YouTube video of interest & played it to completion.
- Once played to completion, I right clicked on the web page.
- This brought up a menu with DownloadHelper on it.
- On the bottom of the menu was a file name (e.g., file-abcdefg.flv).
- There was also another file name (e.g., wfile-abcdefg.flv).
- I wasn't sure why there were two files so I saved them both.
- They both seemed to be the same 20Kbyte file.

Once I had the FLV file, I played it on WinXP:
- First I tried using VLC freeware player
http://www.afterdawn.com/software/vi...layers/vlc.cfm
- But then I used the much better Media Player Classic with the FLV codec
(k-lite codec pack full).

Once I had played the FLV file, I converted it on Winxp to Mpeg using Super
freeware (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/SUPER_1).

Now I have an MPEG4 file.

Does anyone know how to convert that MPEG4 file to DVD?
Will DVDFlick freeware convert MPG4 to dvd?

I'll try that next unless you have a better idea.
Thanks,
Jim

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 08:21:51 -0800, Jim Jones wrote:
Keith suggested the Firefox plugin "downloadhelper" which works nicely most
of the time to download the YouTube videos I wanted to convert to DVD.

Here is the URL for the downloadhelper extension
http://www.downloadhelper.net/install.php

One question:
I was writing up a tutorial to help others based on the help I got from
you folks but I don't know where to just download the helper extension.

That is, can we download the extension to our our disks and then install or
must we install only?

Does this question make sense?
I want to put into a directory all the files that made this work but I
can't seem to find the file DownloadHelper cuz it installed itself.

Sigh.

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 08:21:51 -0800, Jim Jones wrote:
> Does anyone know how to convert that MPEG4 file to DVD?
> Will DVDFlick freeware convert MPG4 to dvd?

I'm trying to write up a freeware tutorial for ya (and myself) that starts
with a YouTube video and ends up with a DVD.

What do you suggest for flv-to-DVD freeware?

Jim Jones wrote:
> What's the best WinXP freeware method for downloading utube videos to disk?

The one I'm sticking with for now is UltraGet Video Downloader,
www.ultraget.com, because it seems to have the fewest problems for me.
That doesn't mean there isn't anything better, though.

--
Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your
work with excellence.

Jim Jones wrote:
>
> That is, can we download the extension to our our disks and then install or
> must we install only?

You can always download an extension to your hard drive. Right-click
and select "save as" and save it somewhere. Then when you are ready to
install it, open the file from within Firefox, and it will install it.


--
Every job is a self-portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your
work with excellence.

Jim Jones wrote:
> What's the best WinXP freeware method for downloading utube videos to disk?

Both RealPlayer and the Firefox DownloadHelper extension do a great job.
I prefer the latter, but the former should work for you if you're not
using Firefox.

Jim Jones wrote:
> Once I had the FLV file, I played it on WinXP:
> - First I tried using VLC freeware player
> http://www.afterdawn.com/software/vi...layers/vlc.cfm
> - But then I used the much better Media Player Classic with the FLV codec
> (k-lite codec pack full).

If you have RealPlayer installed, it will also play them.

> Once I had played the FLV file, I converted it on Winxp to Mpeg using Super
> freeware (http://www.videohelp.com/tools/SUPER_1).
>
> Now I have an MPEG4 file.
>
> Does anyone know how to convert that MPEG4 file to DVD?
> Will DVDFlick freeware convert MPG4 to dvd?
>
> I'll try that next unless you have a better idea.

A better idea would be to try to find a straight conversion, since every
time you convert, you're losing more data, since both MPEG4 and MPEG2
(used on DVDs) use lossy compression.

I haven't researched it, but I would think there would be an FLV to VOB
converter, given how popular YouTube is these days. Then it would be a
a matter of authoring that VOB to DVD (requiring no more compression).

There may be an even shorter cut than that.