ITART - Information Technology and Access Round Table

About ITART

The Information Technology and Access Round Table (ITART) of the Nebraska Library Association serves to foster awareness, knowledge, and a spirit of cooperation regarding the development of, and access to, electronic resources and information technology in libraries throughout Nebraska. It aims to promote communication, and the exchange of expertise among experienced and novice users of information technology, and to provide a forum for discussion and problem-solving among all those working to integrate electronic information access into the practice of librarianship.

2009 Officers

Chair:
Jan Boyer

Vice-Chair / Chair Elect:
Michael Sauers

Past Chair:
Linda Parker

Secretary/Treasurer:
Linda Francois

Webmaster:
Michael Sauers

Links

Download and convert online videos

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Sometimes viewing a YouTube or blip.tv video online just isn't very convenient. Whether due to low bandwidth or just wanting to watch it while offline, you probably want to download that video for later viewing. As I can attest, there are many different online services for downloading these videos all with different levels of success. However, I've finally found something that's nearly 100% reliable and totally simple to run: xVideoServiceThief.

This is not an online service, it's an opensource, downloadable piece of software that just needs the URL of the page containing the video you want in order to not only download it but also to convert it to a different video format of your choice. (I recommend .avi or .mpg for easy viewing in most video playing programs.) The program supports dozens of different online video sites and also has a setting to block downloading from many of the "adult" online video sites.

A quick note:
NLA/NEMA 2008 starts tonight and on Friday afternoon I'm off to Internet Librarian 2008 for a week. So, no more posts from me are planned for the next week. See you after conference.

Labels: software

posted by Michael Sauers @ 7:03 AM

2 Comments:

At October 15, 2008 1:54 PM, Karin Dalziel said…

For youtube, there's a bookmarklet that will let you download the video as an MP4. Very convenient, esp. when you're at another computer. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/04/download-youtube-videos-as-mp4-files.html
At October 16, 2008 3:29 AM, Ann said…

i used to use MelodyCan YouTube Ripper. MelodyCan supports MP4 and AVI, MP3 as output formats for video conversion. You can select a desired output format and video size in MelodyCan settings by choosing a suitable encoder for videofiles. Just click on "Rip YouTube File" button on your Internet Explorer toolbar and the selected video will be saved to your PC in a desired format. The video will download to your hard drive! (To whatever folder you specified). That could take a couple minutes.