Teachers in our district are finding that the internet is too slow to watch live streamed YouTube videos in class. Here are some ways to download the videos to store them offline for use. The advantages are they they play almost instantly, don’t take bandwidth away from other educational uses and can stored offline for use from term to term.
Using KeepVid
Keepvid is a website that you can enter the address of a YouTube video that you want to download. There is nothing to install on your computer and compared to other sites that let you download video, I’ve found the advertisements to be less offensive than similar sites. Here are the steps.
- Find the video you want on YouTube.
- Copy the URL from the address bar
- Paste the URL into the box on KeepVid and click Download. There may be a warning message to install a website plugin which you can approve.
- I typically select the FLV High Quality Video. FLV videos will play back in a video player like VLC Video and can be imported into SMART Notebook software.
- When you click on the file type you want you can save in a folder that you choose.
Use Firefox with the DownloadHelper Addon
Firefox is a very versatile browser. There are 1000’s of free addons that let you extend what the browser can do. One of my favourite addons is DownloadHelper.
- Install Firefox and DownloadHelper
- When you are on YouTube with the video you want the three balls will spin. Clicking on the arrow will let you select the quality to download.
- The higher numbers (eg 1080p will get the highest resolution video)
Download with RealPlayer
RealPlayer is a free install that add functionality to the browswer.
- Install RealPlayer
- When viewing a YouTube video, on the top-right corner there will be a box to ‘Download This Video’. Click to start the download.
- The default save location can also be set by clicking on the arrow and updating the preferences.
One of the advantages of RealPlayer is that the clips can be cropped and trimmed to just include the content that you want.
Facebook/James McConville
Linkedin/jamesmcconville
Twitter/jmcconville1000
YouTube/jmcconville1000
Del.icio.us/jmcconville
GMail/James McConville
Blog/James McConville
3 comments:
I would also recommend DVD Free Video Soft - http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/ - it is a free down loadable program that I have used for a few years to download YouTube clips for use in video's etc.
I agree with you that this would definitely improve our district's bandwidth.
I've used Zamzar.org in the past as well. It's a website that lets you download videos in multiple formats. It will also convert files you already have on your computer into other formats as well.
I used Wantyoutube.com. It has the same function as Keepvid. But Keepvid is good as well. They're all best tools for downloading Youtube videos! Thanks for your good article!
Post a Comment