Incase you’re still stuck in the stone age, YouTube is the flickr of online video sharing. You can pretty much find anything there. From home video non-sense to actual sitcom episodes. (Same applies for Google Videos). If you can’t get enough of those videos and want to take them with you on the go or just save them on your computer, this tutorial is for you.

The following tutorial assumes that you currently have Firefox browser, Greasemonkey Extensions and RivaFLV Encoder installed. RivaFLV Encoder is a freeware based on FFMPEG encoder and will allow you to convert the flash video files (FLV) used in YouTube to AVI or MPEG . You can make do without Firefox or Greasemonkey if you can locate the FLV file location in the page source and download it, Greasemonkey will make it easier, so we’ll let it do all the dirty work.

• Install the Google Video Getter and You Tube To Me GreaseMonkey Scripts by right clicking on them and selecting install user script.
• Navigate to the video page you wish to download. We’ll use “Coolest Toy Ever” for this tutorial.
• Once the page is loaded you should be able to see a redbar at the top of the page (you tube) with the words “Save As” to download Flash Video. Right-click on the link and select “Save as…” from the menu.
• In the save file window you will notice that the file is has a .php extention. You will need to change that from PHP to FLV. Then select save
• If you just want to watch the video as it is on your computer you can use the VLC video player. If you need to convert it open RivaFLV Encoder.
• Click the browse button in the input tab and locate the FLV file you just donwloaded.
• Click the browse button in the output tab and select the location you want to output to
• The output filename will have the extension FLV (afterall this is an FLV Encoder), just change that to AVI or MPG
• Adjust the video and audio properties to your liking and make sure you enable audio or you’ll end up with a mute video.
• Click the Encode button, and wait for FFMPEG to do it’s work.
• Now use iTunes to copy the resulting file onto your iPod. You may also use one of the mp4 converters freely available on downloads.com. If you want to copy the file to your PDA you can use Windows Movie Maker or Windows Media Player to do the conversion.

Notes:

• It’s possible that the .flv contains an audiocodec that will not be transcoded. A solution for that is to play the original .flv and record the audio with Audacity (for instance) and to mix that recording with the .avi or .mpg you get from Riva
• You might need DivX Codec to play the resulting avi file.

Screenshots of the Process:

Step One: Save the video file to your computer

Step Two: Use RivaFLV Encoder to convert the file

Based in Part on the work of Video Help

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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 19th, 2006 at 12:52 am and is filed under How To. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.