David Swanner, at the South Carolina Trial Law Blog, posted this useful information about downloading YouTube Videos, as evidence, for example:
YouTube videos stream and don’t download to your computer. If you want to save one, how do you do it? I recently had a case involving some videos on YouTube and wanted to make certain we had a copy of them in case they were taken down.
So how do you download the videos? This is what I learned:
1. Download the Video from a Specialized Website
There are a number of websites that will convert the streaming video into a file and allow you to download the file. Here are two that I found: YouTubia and DownLoadYouTubeVideos. Just follow the directions at the sites, enter your YouTube link and it’s pretty easy to download the video.
2. Download and Install a Flash Video Player
You now have the video, but the file probably will not play on your computer. It turns out that YouTube videos are stored in flash video player (.flv) format. Who knew? So now you need a program that plays flash videos. Here are a few free ones that I found:
Applian FLV Player, Wimpy FLV Player (Mac and Windows) or an open source Flash Video Player. You can learn more about the flash video player format at Wikipedia.
Once I had the video file and the video player installed, I turned off my internet connection and played the video to make certain that I had the actual video and not just a link to the video. This might have been overkill, but it made me feel more comfortable.
3. Convert the Flash Video File to Standard Video Format
Now that you have the file in a .flv format, you will probably want to have it in a standardized video format for playback in Sanction, Windows Media Player or another program. This means that you will want to convert the .flv file format to .avi, .mpg or .wmv format. Fortunately there are a number of programs that will do that. Most of them are in the $19 to $39 range, but a number of them have free trials.
I used Replay Converter by Applian Technologies and it did a great job. Other choices would be Allok AVI MPG Converter or Moyea FLV to Video Converter.
Install the programs and follow the directions. On the Replay Converter, it was as simple as picking the file and selecting the file format I wanted and whether I was going for high quality, small file size or a combination of the two. In my case, I converted to Windows Media Player format with the highest quality.
4. Enjoy THE Video in your Desired Format
That’s all there is to it. While I did some research, I am by no means an expert. Try the links and if they work for you, I’m glad I was able to help.
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