Contemporary Remarks

YouTube is a very popular online video streaming service, where users around the world view, share, and upload video content. YouTube began its life back in February 2005, and has since grown to be the biggest service of its kind in the entire world. Many people see YouTube as being at the forefront of new media, because it is mostly full of user generated content instead of content that is generated by large television networks.
Short original videos are the life blood of the YouTube empire, with other similar content such as video blogging and music videos also playing a big part of its success. However, one drawback with YouTube is that they do not allow content to be saved or downloaded to users’ computers, instead preferring that users view content directly from the YouTube website. If you want to know how to download a youtube video for keeps however, there are a number of options available to you.

YouTube works with both Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology, with most downloading services grabbing YouTube content in its native Flash format. This format, also known as FLV, requires an FLV player before files can be viewed away from the Internet. Users have two options available to them in order to watch this content, either watching FLV files directly with an appropriate player or converting the files into another more accessible format. There are a number of solutions to this problem, depending on what video download service you are using. While most services are stand alone software programs, it is also possible to rip YouTube videos using browser plug ins and Internet based solutions.

In order to download and save a YouTube video, you need access to a software solution. In most cases, this software is installed locally on your home computer, although there are also cloud solutions that work directly from the Internet. Many of these programs are commercial in nature, and require users to pay a one time fee in order to buy the software. However, there are also some less featured but free solutions out there if you know how to find them. In all cases however, it is important to note that the saving of YouTube content is against the YouTube terms of service agreement.