I’d like to play some off line, but all I can seem to download are links and perhaps the page with everything except the clip.
Is this maybe something I can get a browser add-on for? IE7
Is that legal?
In Firefox under Windows, not IE sorry, recently played YouTube clips are to be found at the ludicrously deep location C:\Documents and Settings<your user name>\Local Settings\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles<some random characters>\Cache. Copy them somewhere else, rename with a .flv extension and you can play them in e.g. Wimpy FLV player. Presumably IE caches them in a similar fashion.
There’s a Firefox extension that will allow you to do this. I can’t remember what it’s called.
If you download the latest version of RealPlayer, whenever you watch a YouTube video a “Download this video” link pops up above the video. Pretty nice…
I’m only interested in legal stuff.
But it didn’t work on the first one I tried.
Thanks!
That did the trick.
And RealPlayer’s been around a long time, so I trust them to have sorted out the legal end.
Several sites allow you to input a YouTube URL and will parse the source code to provide you a link to download the original .flv (Flash) video. Keepvid.com works for me, and SaveTube claims to do the same, though I’ve never tried that one.
What? To use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer? 
You’re under no contractual obligation to access Youtube through any particular browser or web tool. You ask for a file, they send it. Anyone’s allowed to view the content, and the data has to get onto your computer one way or the other. And possessing copyrighted content on your computer for your own personal use is not illegal no matter what the MAFIAA scum would love you to believe.
Seconded; for the occasional user, there’s lots of (usually ad-heavy) online services where you enter a Youtube address and they give you the direct link to the .flv file to “right click & save as”. Just google “download youtube”.
Unless you have a “real” need to have RealPlayer installed on your computer, get rid of it. RealPlayer has been suspect for years as a source of malware . There are other players out there that should play RealPlayer files without risking your computer to RealPlayer’s alleged deceptive practices.
The easiest way I’ve found:
keepvid.com/
Awesome! YouTube had some great vintage Joni Mitchell clips from the era when she was “Joan Anderson” and I really wanted to save them. Thanks!
No, what you really want is Orbit. Go to Tools - Grab, and open your youtube page. Orbit is the bomb. It often gets better DL speeds on normal files that Firefox does.
Go for the free Studio manager which then organises a number of useful apps and installs more if you want them. Top of the list are numerous apps for uploading/downloading/converting Youtube clips as well as various mobile phone formats.
Here is a very easy one: http://www.downloadyoutubevideos.com/
This and Keepvid (which was already posted) are what I use. But every now and then one or the other will go down (or so it seems, might be on my end). So I use them both as needed.
You know, I realized that while I recognized the name RealPlayer, I had removed it at some point. I don’t know I’d call it malware, but it is hard to uninstall. But Windows Media Player and QuickTime are just as devious about taking over each other’s turf. A pox on all their houses.
It’s not RealPlayer itself. It’s the extraneous stuff that comes bundled with it and installs itself whether you like it or not (and doesn’t all get uninstalled when RP does).
Of course the downside is that with all their compression, the video quality of YouTube is crap.