how do i download a you tube video onto my computer?

Answer 1

Good Question!

Use FireFox as your browser. Press Ctrl+U, and the Source Page will appear.

Now search for "/v/" and you will find a piece of code that looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/v/MyddFYeCzA0

Now copy that code, and paste it into FireFox's Address bar and click go.

Now the entire Flash Video will appear as a giant video on the screen.

LOOK at the address bar and find the part that looks like this:
p.swf

Replace that with exactly this:
get_video

Click the go button

Save the file. It is an FLV file and can be converted to an AVI file or MPEG file using converters found on the internet.

A good converter is FFMPEG and you can download it here...
http://dev.nei.ch/tools/windows/ffmpeg.zip

This is a DOS program and here's a string to get you started...
ffmpeg -i "your_file.flv" "your_file.avi"

And another:
ffmpeg.exe" -i "your_file.flv" -hq -vcodec mpeg4 -g 300 -b 900 -aspect 4:3 -s 320x240 -acodec mp3 -ab 128 -ac 2 -mbd 2 -vtag xvid -qmin 2 -async 1 -y "your_file.avi"

Make sure that your FLV file is in the same folder as the FFmpeg program is in.

Answer 2

you can use third-party websites to do most of what mr. spin said. use http://clipnabber.com to do most of it up until where you use ffmpegx to convert the flv video

Answer 3

www.keepvid.com

Hope this helps!