The YouTube Video Downloader we have here has been a love hate relationship. It works for a bit and then it breaks. And then I fix it. It works again and then it breaks. Over and over again.Anyway, someone dropped me an email a few days ago letting me know that it was broken again. It took a bit but it's working yet again. Went almost 9 months on the last fix. I wonder how long this one will last. It appears to now be tagging the download link to the requesting IP address. (And yes, that's all the details I'm giving out on that.)
The cool thing I've discovered is with YouTube now doing video in what they call high quality, the links for those videos are different. I was able to work out the different URLs and how they were coded so now things are a bit different over on the YouTube download site. You can still download from YouTube in *.flv format but you can also download from YouTube in *.mp4 file format as well as download from YouTube in *.mp4 High Definition.
Yes, I still have to write out some instructions. I'll hopefully get to it this weekend. I really want to redo the whole site as that orange and whatever color those lines are doesn't do it for me.
Oh and I fixed the file naming issue. You no longer have to worry about making sure the file extension is correct. Videos will now download with the correct *.flv and *.mp4 file extension. The rest of the filename will have to be changed though as they'll all be called "video.*"
Any problems? Please feel free to leave a comment here.
Hey, thanks for that. I use that downloader nearly every day. I was sorry to see it broken. I like being able to download now as mp4s. I don;t have to convert any more. Thanks. :)
Dan | May 8, 2009 7:08 PM | Reply to this comment
Not a problem, Dan. Glad to help.
I've never heard of one of these and always wondered how to get a great Youtube file. Thanks! I'll try it out. One question: I've never heard of a .flv file. What type of media player recognizes these?
kray, thanks for the comment. *.flv files are what's known as flash video files. When you visit a site like youtube, that;s actually the file type that is playing in your browser. For the longest time, that's all you could get out of youtube but with their recent updates, you can now grab normal *.mp4's which is what I recommend. *.mp4s are pretty much standard and will play in most players.
I play *.flv's in Winamp. They should play as a default in newer versions of Winamp with a small fix. Older versions will require you to jump through hoops. You can find instructions here:
http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?postid=2491974
There are many *.flv players on the net though. For WinXP, which is what I have on the laptop, there's a stand alone flv player called FLV Player and you can grab it from here:
http://download.cnet.com/FLV-Player/3000-13632_4-10467081.html
If you;re on a Mac or another OS, a quick google should pull up suggested players.
Hope this helps and thanks again for the comment,
-drmike
Hello,
Wanted to say thanks for the downloader: I used it for a presentation @ work and it was a rave.
Now the pb is, several people asked me to do similar things for them, but now it's broken, and they all think I'm not doing it not to let them share the glory!? @-:
Please o please ....
and thanks again for it, whether it works or not
Anays | June 4, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply to this comment
Thanks for the downloader.
Has YouTube changed their coding again? I tried downloading http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7izNfVx7Guo which was uploaded on 11 July 2009, and it doesn't work ...
Kind regards.
Ken Smith | July 25, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply to this comment
Thanks for letting me know. Appears it has. I'll go check.
Easy fix. Should work fine. May not work if your video if marked as mature as your example is but it works for the couple test ones I did.
Thanks again for letting me know about the issue.
-drmike
That was a fast response! Thanks. Unfortunately, it's still not working.
If it worked with the couple of test files you downloaded, why not with this one? I presume you tried it on the file I'm having a problem with?
Irrespective of whether the file is downloaded as an flv or mp4, the downloaded file is 0 bytes.
Kind regards.
Ken Smith | July 25, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply to this comment
The video link you used is marked as mature which means you have to be logged in to view the video. Since there's no way for the script to login, it can't access it. I believe you can't embed it either. Videos marked as not being embeddable can't be downloaded either.
At least that's been are experience. I've gotten five or six emails about the star trek videos up there. Since they can't be embedded elsewhere, you can't download them.
Ok, I understand.
Is the script able to detect such pages? If so, when it encounters them, would it be able to throw up an input box asking for login and password?
Ken Smith | July 26, 2009 7:30 AM | Reply to this comment
Haven't figured out a way yet although I've never sat down and worked that bit out. To be honest, I've been debating on Open Sourcing the script and trying to get folks to help out with it. Having the input of more folks will decrease down time when Youtube upgrades their script and maybe we can add some features as well. Would love to things like last 10 videos downloaded, most downloaded and the like.
Thanks again for the comment,
-drmike
Thanks for your efforts. Sorry I'm not able to help.
Ken Smith | August 5, 2009 6:19 PM | Reply to this comment
Hi Dr Mike~
I have used your youtube downloader to down load a video of my own off youtube that has been deleted off my computer. I downloaded it, it then opened by playing on my Quik time player. Now I cannot find the the file or video I downloaded from youtube. HELP HELP! Please.
Jenny
Jenny | November 16, 2009 12:02 AM | Reply to this comment
Hi Dr. Mike,
I am really confused as to what this downloader is designed to do... I am wanting to find something which will allow me to embed a video which I uploaded to YouTube into a school-based blog. I want to do this so that I am able to play the video from the blog without those "recommended videos" showing up at the end as well as so that I am able to get a better quality than my blog hosting sight will allow me to upload. Should I be used this downloader? If so, how do I go about doing it?
Thanks so much for your time,
Shannon
Shannon | February 15, 2010 2:37 AM | Reply to this comment