Video:How to Download Videos From YouTube

Transcript:How to Download Videos From YouTube

Hi, this is Ken Gumbs for About.com and today we're going to talk about how to download a YouTube video.

Getting Started Downloading Videos From YouTube

The first thing you should do is go to YouTube and find the video that you want to download. Let's say, for instance, we're going to pick the first video that was up on the home page. If this is the video that you want to put on your personal computer downloaded and not just streaming from YouTube, what you want to do is go to the top of the page right here where you see the actual URL. Right click, you want to go to "Copy."

After Copying the Link to Download the Video

Now you've copied the link to the URL. Now you want to go to a third party website. There are many different websites that allow you to download YouTube videos. But some of them don't work as well, some of them don't have high quality downloads and some of them have lots of advertisements on there.

Saving Downloaded Videos From YouTube

One website that I like to use because it's quick and has a nice, streamlined look to it is SaveVid.com. It's a pretty easy to understand website. All you need to do is, in this little box near the top where it says URL, put your cursor, right click again, go to "Paste." Now you'll see that you've pasted the link to the YouTube video that you want to download.

Now I just click "Download." One thing that may come up on your computer is a security question if you should trust this website. You'll want to say "Run" or "Trust," whatever your security program is.

Tips for Downloading the Video

Now, there's going to be a lot of different options for what you want to download. For instance, very low quality videos which may only be 1 or 2 megabytes and their higher quality videos that might go up to 25 or 30 megabytes. This site actually allows you to download HD quality videos which a lot of other sites do not. Let's say I want to download the best quality video. So I can just click that and then a little dropdown box will comes up if I want to open it or save it. I'll pick "Save." And it will ask me where I want to save the video so I'll save it onto my Desktop. And then you just have to wait a moment as it downloads.

Okay, our video just got done downloading. It took about 2 to 3 minutes. Download speeds will depend on the size of the video and also your internet download speed. And now you can see the video has now been downloaded right here to our desktop. This is the same exact video that we found on YouTube. And the way to play it, I always recommend, is to use a program called VLC Player. I think it's better than any other media player including Quicktime or Real Player or anything else. You can get it for free online and it plays pretty much anything. So if you've downloaded a YouTube video and it's playing a little choppy, I would recommend to download this program, try to play it and you'll see that there's a pretty good chance it will play it fine.

Opening Up the Downloaded Video

So, I'll open it up, I'll go to "Media," "Open File," go to Desktop, pick the downloaded video. You'll see right here that your video is now downloaded in 720p HD directly from YouTube on to your Desktop.

So that's how you download videos from YouTube. Thanks for watching and, to learn more, visist us on the web at About.com.