When it comes to watch tons of interesting user generated videos, YouTube is perhaps the biggest and the best online video streaming site present today. YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view (flash) videos. And the fact that it is owned and run by Google guarantees that the videos that you are watching are pretty fast and stream reliably because they are actually hosted on one of those fast servers (data centers) owned and maintained by Google.
Why to download YouTube videos when you can watch them online? Well, you can’t be online all the time, and despite the majority of YouTube videos being nut-shots and Lady Gaga parodies, there is a lot of great content that you might want to download and watch offline. Whether you want to watch YouTube video on your iPod while working out, insert it into a PowerPoint presentation to add some spice, or simply download a video before it’s removed, it’s quite essential to know how to download, convert, and play YouTube videos. Here are top 3 great ways/methods to download and convert YouTube videos for entertainment, fun and work.
There are some programs and browser extensions to do this, but we’ve found that the easiest and quickest methods in this post today. These tools and methods will let you download standard quality and high-definition YouTube movies as MP4 video and MP3 audio files.
1. (‘Kiss‘) ‘Save’ Your YouTube Video URL
Earlier called kissyoutube.com, saveyoutube.com is perhaps the most popular and easiest way to save any YouTube video to your local computer. To download a YouTube video just go to saveyoutube.com, enter the youtube video URL to the textbox, hit enter, select your download option (from various file formats like flv, mp4, mp3 etc) and that’s it.
Alternately, you just need to add the word ‘save’ to the YouTube video URL and then when you press enter in your browser’s address bar it directs you to their website where you can download it as a .flv video or convert it other formats as well.
Apart from this, they have also the options to search and loop YouTube videos just by entering the YouTube URL. One thing worth keeping in mind is that this online converter requires your browser to be java enabled. So you may want to try in a java-friendly browser like Google Chrome or Safari.
2. Download Youtube Video as MP3 Audio
2. Download Youtube Video as MP3 Audio
Would you rather want to just download the Audio in MP3 format from a YouTube videos? Though there are tons of online as well as desktop applications to do this, Listen to YouTube is a great free online tool that lets you to convert YouTube videos to mp3 format. This is an easy process and only requires you to paste a link into a field. You can choose standard or high quality output.
If you are feeling lazy then simply pick any Youtube video URL and add After a few minutes, the process will finish and you will be able to download your new mp3 file. There is no limit to how many downloads you can make with this wonderful free service.
You just put in the Youtube URL and listentoyoutube.com spits out an mp3 for you to download. How cool is that?
3. For Ubuntu (Linux) Users
If you use Ubuntu (Linux), it is pretty simple. Even though you might not realize, in Linux a copy of every Youtube video automatically gets saved in the /tmp folder. So just copy it from your temp folder. To make it even easier, you can create a one-click bookmark to my .temp folder, in Ubuntu.
Disclaimer
We are not encouraging anybody to use Youtube only for downloading videos and songs that could be purchased on Amazon, iTunes, Beatport, or any other digital outlet. These tools are only for video clips and songs that were nowhere to be found.
Moreover, according to the YouTube Terms of Service, downloading videos is not allowed. Hence, please use these tools cautiously and support your favorite artists by purchasing genuine copies of videos and music online. Online streaming services such as YouTube are one of the most popular ways to view videos. But, if you are someone looking to join a movie streaming service to watch all your favorite movies and TV series, then why not check out LOVEFiLM vs Netflix!